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Morning all, time for a long over due RJ update, and unlike my last post this one has a happy ending Monday morning Nigel and I had a visit from Neil, it was good to catch up again mate, it's been a while.. Not only has Neil got a huge amount of Wheel Horse history stashed away in he's head, but he also came with gifts... 2 engines Here's the top half of Neil.. The bottom half of Neil was busy controling the rev's of a very nice looking engine that ran as good as it looks.. The blue engine has carb and spark issues as we found out, so that's a job for another day. So with a quick pulley swap the new engine went in the RJ. The shade of engine red is so close to the rest of the RJ we saw no point in repainting it match 100%.. It's looks good as it is. One slight problem with the new engine is the exhaust port had two studs rather than the port itself having internal threads so swapping the exaust over wouldn't be a bolt on swap. Not a problem, take a flat bit of thick-ish steel and drill three holes in the right places... A quick test fit. Trim a bit of the RJ's exhaust down to size them grind the thread of it so it fit's in the flange leaving plenty of space to weld it up from the inside. (No idea why this photo won't upload the right way up!) Welded up, cleaned up and trimmed to shape. And a coat of the black stuff to make it look good. Exhaust on. You can remove an RJ engine without taking the hood off, but you need to remove the spark plug. Then once the engine is back in the spark plug has to go back in using a very special tool that won't scratch the paint on the hood Knowing the engine is a good, the time had come to fire the little fella up and go for a drive.. Knowing the gear shift would need a bit of adjusting to get it to shift right and even though it should of been in netural but possibly wasn't the rear wheels where jacked up before starting.. A running issue was soon soted by putting some petrol in the tank, so I climbed aboard and Dennis lowered the jack, and off I trundled After so long it was nice to finally drive the RJ, but as you will hear in the video (coming soon to a YouTube page near you) the gear selector needs some adjustment so it get's all gears and the selctor bar does not rub against the reverse disc. Also the engine governor need a tweak to stop the engine from trying to over rev.. So not much to do and the RJ will soon done Told you this update would have a happy ending

Bit more progress today, found some suitable u-shaped brackets to secure the axles into place. I then fitted the wheels and greased them up. Next job was to find some suitable material for mounting everything on......Couldn't find any 4mm steel sheet local, but was offered some 4mm Aluminium...... It looks very nice etc..... But not convinced it will stay that way and it will make it more difficult mounting the alternator brackets on......... as i'm unable to tig weld...... Also fitted the ID plate kindly donated by Chris, etched with the engine numbers too!

Alan had a bit of a spiv up today, don't won't to take a load of Surrey mud up north

Im with bt, they really hacked me off too, so I got them to halve the line rental. The only good thing about being with bt is if there is a persistant fault then you can remind them that they own the line so insist that they sort it out. Prior to this I was with EE, I definatley wouldn't use them again! Kept telling me the fault was in my house and they wanted to charge me £100 to come out. Bt eventually tracked the fault down to the exchange but this took them 3 months!

Been with Virgin Media for a long time. No drastic problems so far but a pain to get through all the button pressing options to finally talk to someone. Same everywhere I suppose.

I'm with TalkTalk and as Paul has said ive had problems with them. its almost impossible to get through to a human being, i spent 8 days with no phone or internet and after their first repair which lasted 2 days i had to go through it all again with them. the end result is my internet is half as good as it was and i got charged eight pounds on my bill for ringing to tell them about the fault. i certainly wouldn't recommend them and i will change when i find a good deal

We're with Talktalk, I know Chris has had some problems with them but touch wood no problems so far

Some of you may know I work a long way from home, and play the part of call centre for many family tech issues, as well as remote bicycle repair man and occasional mower won't start... Last weeks call was... 'dad, do you think this is fixable?' the part in question being a 1970 lawn ranger tow hitch. I'll let you guess my reply Apparently the trailer rolled with 400lbs of dirt in...

Have been busy the last couple of weeks but have been making some progress with this project. I had some off cuts of timber left over from a job, ideal to make into the trolley for the Villiers...... Also found a company selling small cast wheels for a few pounds each....... Wheels and trolley are almost ready for the engine to be bolted on!

good luck with the sale - whats the plan for the pennies? whats the next project?

Hope you find a good home for it, Ian. One well built and fantastic creation. And once driven, never forgotten. Puts a real grin on your face.

I just noticed that BT had sneaked my bill up to £46.00, so I gave them a call and asked them what's the best price they could do, to begin with they said £40.00 was the very best, so I told them to cancel it, the next thing you know they dropped to £26.00, result. That's a saving of £240 a year! Next I guess I'll have a go at the electric company!

No need to Chris. Nigel just spelt it wrong. Should be KOALA.