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And you told me those rings round your eyes were lack of sleep.

I had one of those back in Lambretta days , 1958 ish. Seem to remember that it was a bit hit and miss and rather messy. Haven’t seen it for a long time - may have gone awol when I had the business. Now days I just get a four inch length of the appropriate diameter clear fuel pipe and push it over the engine end of the cable, hold it up heigher than the lever end and fill it with air tool oil ( nice and thin) and work the lever. If in a hurry, blow down the tube to help things along . Back in the days of the original Austin and Morris Mimis the engine earthing wasn’t too good and the choke cables tended to warm up and get sticky when the starter was engaged. . In extreme cases they did a full met down , glowing red hot. Just might be worth checking the Black Horse’s engine earthing. An earth bond from the engine side of any mounts back to where the battery is earthed to the chassis can sometimes work wonders for cranking rpms.

Here you are Chris. In detail. M.C.A. Hydraulic Cable Lubricator. Had it for 50 something years, so don't ask where I got it. Certainly NOT on line. Slight boo boo here. Cable, washers and seal go in the other end. This shows cable inserted from the left. You inert the cable etc as shown. Fill with oil then fit the other end and screw the T handle in and that forces oil through the cable.

Yours a 1966 model 191-01 but it has the cut-out like a 1967 model 191-02. Either they started using the cut out on the later 191-01 hoods or yours hood is from a later model, hard to say which. if you google the image you will see the pepper box should exit the bonnet centered on the hole. later modifications to many of these old machines manifold pipe has resulted in a off center placement

another Bolens with the bonnet up.

At Biddenden the Black Horse started to run rich. The reason was traced to a sticking choke cable. Today I set too to sort it. I rooted out a cable lubricator from my motorcycle days, disconnect the cable from the carb and connected it to the lubricator. Filled the lubricator with hydraulic oil, (good for freeing rusted parts) and pushed it down the casing. Operating the lever I worked it back and forth. Seemed nice and free. THEN I noticed the outer cable was moving and oil was appearing alongside the battery. The outer cable had broken. So I'll have to get a new cable, as I couldn't find one of the right length among my pile of spares. Another job I had to do, was the bonnet hinges on the Sears/Roper. Some of the screws had worked loose. Most likely due to driving over rough ground and the bouncing of the trailer. These have now been replaced with more substantial ones that should last.

I’ll have another look shortly lots of stuck bolts so I’ve soaked them all to try to stop any shearing off . I’ve got the exploded diagram of the dyna start so I may strip it and clean it if I get no joy once I power from the solenoid.

I spoke to Iain and he suggested that you start looking at the dyna start to see if it runs and work back from there. The ignition switch can also be a cause of it not starting as can a dud solenoid. I can't see why you can't connect your jump leads on the solenoid to see if that works. The seized pto and high / low lever should not impede firing up the engine.

Any photos of the lubricator. ?

I think Alan liked this little homemade tractor.

I think it will always stay a little bit of a mystery as I don’t know the full history of the tractor . I’m going to leave it as it is rather than plate it up and try to run with what I have . It looks like the bonnet and exhaust are least of my troubles it looks like the hi-lo and pto mechanisms are seized up and that may be why I can’t start it up ?

That’s good news as it means it’s on less repair for me to do 😂 thanks for asking for me . Now to get it to turn over 🤞

Santa Norm. He was practicing for next Xmas and thought it was a strange looking house chimney. He was stuck at the bottom.

I love the look of concentration on Chris' face in the last photo... " Start ya b****** !"

Well after being ribbed at the weekend for using a flymo I picked this 1976? Webb 2hp up on a selling site for £25 . Very pleased with it as it runs well I do need to try to work out how to slow the drive down on it as it takes off a bit faster than I can move 😂