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Spent nearly 3 hours today fitting the rear rotor covers. Am a little disappointed with the quality of fit considering how much they cost. Took a lot of fettling to get lined up properly. Even had to resort to taking a grinder to it. Got the final decal from titch fitted and the Brass plate I had made a while ago. The chain was tensioned and instead of oil I used Pecker grease as I have on other Gems, its very messy stuff but saves the risk of leaks.

Went into town today on a jolly and bought a couple of shirts

A tip off from my mate Chris about a 600 for sale with a spare engine and another set of tyres got my pulse racing. The seller, fortunately for me, have misspelt the tractor hence why I got it for a very cheap price. I said a year ago that Bolens 600s are rare as hen's teeth in the UK which is why I bought one from the USA which is now docked at Southampton, U.K. which will be delivered sometime this week. It's strange that I bought two 600 in the UK within a few months of each other......The seller of the U.K. one, bought it from a nursery in Honiton, Devon some 20 years ago with the intention of restoring it. It has sat in his barn in Berkshire since then. My good friend Chris got a friend, Mark, (he got more than one..) who lives a stone's throw from the seller and is happy to help me out with collecting it from the seller. Chris and I have agreed that he can have the spare B&S engine for his 600 project as he will at some collect it from Mark. At some point, Chris will deliver the 600 and my 850 down to Devon to collect his 600 that I collected for him a few months back.It's great that the UK Bolens Boys are happy to help each other out and make this hobby more enjoyable with like minded individuals plus saving some hard earnt dough too.The US 600 will be delivered to me sometime this week so I will have two 600s in my collection by a quirk of fate. Happy Days!

Superb job, Gareth.

Try The Showman Matt he may have some spares...

Got a mention and picture in the Stationary Engine magazine, here's a photo

I was now up to the end of April. A forklift proved a god send assisting with lining up the engine and gearbox. As you've probably seen in the other photos the gearbox flange was broken. As cast is hard to successfully weld, after recommendations I used J-B Weld to bond it in place. Then after rubbing down and prepping a respray followed. For the first time in nearly a month I actually felt like I was actually making some progress.

So a couple of weeks ago Finn forgot to take it out of gear when getting off to open a gate, consequently it took off straight into the gate and had an implication with one of the coach bolts sticking through... This is the mess that it made. Next he was asking me to repair it for him so I started by using a fibre glass repair kit and then using a little bit of filler. After a bit of paint you can't tell it was there.

As this project is nearing completion Ive decided its finally time to share it. This is one of the reasons why work on G621 has been very slow. Back in April I spotted this early Howard Gem on ebay, the photos below was all I had to go on. There was no serial number visable, but I was hopping I was right in thinking it was one of the short gearbox models (the first 400 made had a shorter gearbox and frame due to the clutch thrust bearing being on the outside rather than submerged in oil.) I made an offer as I felt the buy it now price was to high, and about 15 minutes later my bid was accepted. When it arrived back I found the serial number hidden under the rust and was pleasantly suprised to find it was G206, which makes it the 106th Gem ever produced (production started at G101). Ive been researching Gems for many years and prior to this the lowest number I had seen was G357, so at the present this is the earliest known Gem to exist. Realising how important this example is in the history of Gem's I decided to press on with the restoration. I will upload the photos as and when I have time over the next few days.

Back in November last year my dad bought a large collection of WH implements and tractors, in the collection was a C-125 that my brother bought, he wasn't a fan of the hood and fender so he hired me to convert it into a C-121 and restore it for him. Here is what it looked like, it was in a restored condition and most of it has been sandblasted so it was an easy job for me to just sand down the paint and then repaint. After a bit more taking apart and cleaning the bulk had been painted and reassembled, this is the only picture I took of me painted chassis and gearbox. There will be more photos to follow later.

Absolutely

Front wheels got a clean up this evening, I would have removed them to do it but was not happy leaving the whole tractor up on axle stands !! Coat of IH red tomorrow... New front tyres to go on somewhen, I will get the rear end back on the ground first...

Spent the afternoon at johns and met up with madmatt01 and his dad. the Sears Roper was woken up to do some towing dutys and with Alan at the wheel we pulled the 3 westwards up to the awaiting trailer. after some huffing and puffing the trailer was loaded and after the boys had a look round set off in a westerly direction. heres a few photos

Awesome! Don't suppose you have any spare kohler ait filter housings

Great photo's Doug, thanks for posting them..... I think I'd take the Alfa home... I'm sure I could find a use for the V8 engine

Nice work Ewan, you sure have got this restoration lark down to a fine art

Oh yes, so it was... Nice work Ewan

That's good news about finding another rear end Paul, Somerset is a nice drive.

Great one Andrew. It's good that another 600 has been saved and at the right price too. Iain

After the paint had a couple of days to set I started building her back up. With the selector rod refitted and adjusted I'm pleased to report all 3 gears and neutral seem to select. I painted the black bits on the various levers and fitted the closest match to the original handle grips that I could find.

A couple of weeks ago I finaly felt up to doing some more work on the old girl. I fitted a N.O.S oil filter that I obtained a few years ago. The starting handle pivot was freed up by getting it very hot. I also prepped and sprayed most of the small fittings. I hadn't been very happy with finish obtained on the rotor shields etc so these were re rubbed down and given another top coat. One of the missing parts on this Gem as mentioned was the chain cover. Early Gems had plain chain covers, going through my store I had a sound but battered one, so as they are like hens teeth I spent days straightening it and smoothing back the filler.

I lost most of June and over half of July due to a combination of having some time off work and also not enjoying the best of health. However the one thing that I did manage to do is to apply the truly excellent decals that Titch from Machinery Decals sent me. Thankyou so much Titch, they really lift the appearance of the Gem.

Heres the rotor shaft and shields painted.Sorry for the poor quality, they were taken on my phone.

Next up was the rotor shaft. Yet again a new bearing was needed. Most of the blades are a recent replacement however Ive managed to obtain a N.O.S set of genuine Howard blades, rather than the Dowdeswell ones that are available now. Note how the rotorshaft is almost the same as the earlier Howard Junior, rather than the more common gem type. Howard must of been using up old stock on these early machines. I purchased a new set of Rotor shields a couple of years back off Standen Engineering. I paid more for them than I paid for this whole machine! The rear soil flap wasn't used on these early machines and they both needed extensive modifying to look like the correct type, with pieces being let in and the seems being welded up.

The handles were refitted, very difficult job to do on your own with fresh paint. I also fitted a new rotorchain, normally I try to salvage one off a scrap Gem, however as this is such an historically special machine I felt only a brand new one would do. This machine is starting to get expensive.

At this stage I had reached the middle of May. Work started on the jackshaft and rotorshaft plate. The rotorshaft bearing took over 2 hours to remove! Even our 75 tonne press wouldn't shift it, lots of banging and swearing followed. But as a pleasant surprise it was a common metric one so only cost a few pounds. After fitting new bearings and seals it was rubbed down and resprayed along with the oil filter housing.

The main frame required a lot of work as it was suffering from heavy rust. After wire brushing down and treating with rust killer it was built up with weld, ground back and skimmed in filler. This took about a week to do. The fuel tank was actually in quite reasonable condition and only needed a light skim of filler. The intresting thing is it has the outlets welded on the other side to normal meaning that it has to be fitted back to front. Was this deliberate or a cock up in the factory? that due to shortage of materials means it had to be sent out as it was?

Wheels refitted, these again came off G 367. The locating plates have been blacked. These early Gems even used different retaining springs to the later ones. As luck would have it I had enough to make up a full set in my store. The air filter was also overhauled. Boy didn't the brass plate take some work to clean up!

My next job was the engine. These early Gems were fitted with J.A.P's from the factory. The factory records confirmed that this was still the original one so I have done my best to save what I can. When purchased it was seized solid. A full strip down followed and I couldn't see any reason as to why it was? Anyway it now turns freely. The engine had already been bored to + 060" and was in a bad state. Its only the cylinder and piston that I have changed on the internals the rest is original. A lot of elbow grease followed and I don't think it came up to bad.

With the gearbox rebuilt, it was time to turn my attention to the thrust bearing etc. When new the instruction book said that the engine had to be split from the machine, clutch removed and the bearing greased every hundred hours or so. As you can imagine this didn't happen very often, infact Howard must of had so many complaints about this because after number G501 onwards they went to the trouble of redoing all the castings and moving it inside the box. The operating bars as can be seen were badly worn, again G367 donated better condition parts. As already mentioned somebody had cobbled together a thrust bearing and housing etc that had worn away part of the gearbox shaft. The drawing in the manual didn't show what the housing should look like or even what size the bearing should be so a new assembly was machined from scratch. This was fitted along with a brand new clutch plate as the old one was looking very second hand. The bearing was also packed with "Pecker Grease" to hopefully last a little longer between services. Next stage was to file down some over size key steel to take up a little bit of damage on the clutch locating keyways.

After stripping the box totally, every bearing was found to be shot. What then followed was a couple of weeks work of work as some of bearings were impossible to obtain. Bar one they were all imperial, but the odd one had an imperial centre and width, yet a metric outer?!? The only solution was to make a collar to go over the outside of an imperial one to turn it to metric. The main shaft was badly worn, caused mainly by a home made codged up thrust bearing that somebody had fitted at some point in its life. This is where G 367 proved invaluable as I was able to use the shat out of its gearbox. The bill for the bearings exceeded £300 on their own, if it had been metric it would of been so much cheaper. New seals were also fitted throughout, I had to adapt the housing where the clutch one went as there was nothing commercially available. Once reassembled I initially was panicking as the box was very tight and sounded like a bag a gravel had been thrown in it, this fortunately was rectified by fitting a shim under the main shaft bearing to position the crown wheel in the right place. I had never done a gear box properly before, I just hope it works ok once I fire the old girl up for the first time, otherwise it could be an expensive bang...

Photos of the strip down.

An initial assessment revealed that the machine was missing its magneto, silencer, chain cover, it also had the wrong wheels fitted. Luckily I also own the remains to G367,(pictured Below), another very early Gem but sadly this on is far to gone to ever restore, but ive been able to use it for some of the missing parts. After checking the factory records it was revealed that this example was built on 10/12/1941 and dispatched as part of a pair along with G207 to Trewartha Gregory & Dolge Ltd in Cornwall (they are still trading today) via LMS goods rail on the 15/12/1941.

Yes mate, we are off to Somerset next Sunday to pick up another gearbox/rear end

Ideal painting weather today so gave the back wheels and hubcaps a rub down and a coat of IH red...

Truly brilliant time! Also picked up some wheels for the horwool. And have definately fallen in love with a marina. Will be in talk with John. Safe to say me and dad were late home and the wife was not impressed although she also likes the marina! Some snaps I got.. and also a couple off how my 'just one' tractor is spiraling....

Here's a few more photos. This is a spare bonnet we had lying around, at some point it had been cleaned up and painted so it was a quick job. The primed parts have been added since the dash tower on a C-125 is different. I'm not a fan of painting parts when bolted together but I know everything is rust free and Jake isn't bothered so long as the tractor looks tidy. Here is where I have got to, we have got some new tyres for the back and then I will be able to paint the rims all round.

You should go into business with your Fatha Ewan, call it NYGTR (North Yorkshire Garden Tractor Restorations)

It was great to meet you Noel hope the rest of your holiday goes well, and the showman is awaiting your call

It was a pleasure to meet yourself and Nigel the craic was mighty , I could have stayed much Longer but the handbrake was getting too warm sitting in the car so we had to move on. The levels of craftsmanship on WN was excellent, the photos really don't do it justice.

Not a great deal of progress, but I blame that on the heat as it's rather warm at the mo A couple of extra tubes have gone in the frame just in front of the fuel tank. They partly add some extra strength to the back bone, but also divert the eyes from the engine mount under the tank. We have been thinking about what to do about the exhaust and the lack of space to fit one in! There is no space to run any pipes on the N/S without legs getting burnt, there isn't that much more space on the O/S but there is space to make some.. er... space Anyway, to make the new system I needed to get some more pipe.. As the steel place is just over the road the GT came in handy Where's the best place to start an exhaust system? I trimmed down WN's 1st system till they were just stubbys sticking out the front of the engine (see the first photo) and then went straight to the back for a bit of exhaust box work.. To make them fit under the seat they needed a little trimming in length, so 2 1/2 inches came out. Both cans welded up and welded together. They will go a tad more forward so just the pipes are sticking out the back.. I looked out the workshop door yesterday to see a gent looking at WN.. It tends to happen a lot so I didn't think anything of it.. But when the said Gent said, "It looks much better in real life" with a strong Irish accent the brain thought I'd better think something of this... The said Gent was Noel who as you know is on holiday in the UK.... It was a pleasure to meet you yesterday Noel, sorry WN was not running for you to have a drive (pre book next time ). And thank you for the humbling words yesterday, when I told my Wife we both got a bit choked up.. The hooligan on the left you know.. If you hadn't guessed (or are just not awake yet) the kindly Gent on the right is Noel..

I agree.

Martin Markham came home from storage today... Tried the discs on the back...

After...