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The Mini Tractors NI club held a small working show on the 26 August. One of the club members had told me before about their working day but I had never managed to get round to going to it. This year I was given a flyer for the show and decided to keep that date free and take my Ransomes MG40 and discs down for a play. We don't seem to have the same number of exhibitors for garden tractors or horticultural machinery as you do in the rest of the UK so it was good to see such a good display of machines. Changing the colour and re-branding a certain make of red tractor seemed quite popular. There were a couple of interesting home made machines that caught my eye.

Just found the photo's that I couldn't find. This shows the cross member assembly trial fitted at the front of the chassis. Thought I also had one showing it before fitting but no sign of it. Should have mentioned earlier that I had a LOT of help from Iain ( slf-uk ) with photo's and measurements. On one of his numerous visits to John's he mentioned that he had a D-160 and 200 and offered to obtain any details I required. This offer was taken up countless times with Iain dropping everything, day and night, and rushing into his workshop with camera, tape, and notebook. Well, not quite rushing but a speedy response. A lot of the photo's found on the internet didn't show details from the correct angle but a request to Iain explaining what I wanted produced the required result. A BIG THANKS Iain. Now that the grill surround was made it needed something to fill the hole. The grill was made from 3/4 x 1/2" alloy angle with 3/16" silver steel uprights, threaded 2BA at the top and drilled 1/16" at the bottom for a wire pin. The spacers were from alloy tube. Using the 1/2" width of the angle as the front face with a 1/2" gap between each plus the same top and bottom looked about right. A lot of careful measuring, cutting and drilling gave a good copy of the original. The anti rattle leaf spring at the top was from steel shim with threaded tubes over the tops of the uprights where they protruded through the grill surround. This alloy angle was from a green house which John and I dismantled years ago for a friend of his, transported back to his land, stored behind his shed and has never moved until recently. I saved a good selection of various sizes. Finally, I just had to give the grill a coat or two of paint, the first item painted, to see what it looked like.

One of the few pieces of metal which was not found as scrap was the grill and headlamp surround. Nothing of suitable thickness to hand but the Showman came to the rescue and obtained some cut to width alloy from a contact of his. Thanks Chris. A jig was made up from a thick sheet of board and coach bolts. Allowance was made when fitting these bolts for the thickness of the metal, either side and top and bottom, so that the correct outside width and height was obtained. The alloy strip was clamped to the bolts and bent around in stages. Two of the lower bolts not yet fitted in the photo's. The front chassis cross member was made up from various metal and alloy pieces all bolted together and in turn to the chassis. As the front mounting bolts of the grill passed into a box section with no way of fitting nuts, a length of 1/4" stud was used instead which passed through the total width of the chassis leaving enough either side for nuts and washers. Cannot find photo's of this assembly at this stage.

That looks amazing Alan, you don't realise how much work is involved when you see the finished item

Some nice machines there Rob, they seem to have their makes and colours mixed up a bit.

Thanks for the photo's, Rob. An interesting rear axle in that last one and drive arrangement.

Yeah same here, I used to have a Lawnbug about 3 years ago until I gave it away!!! Unfortunately back then I wasnt clued up with Westwood mowers. It had white rims original Westwood orange paint and weirdly enough the engine was painted white! I tried to get it running thinking it was a fuel problem but I think again it was the points and condenser. I gave it to a young lad who says he's going to do it up. But that's what they all say. If I could I would get that Lawnbug back but it would probably be near on impossible and to add to the chaos at the minute I'm looking for a really early Westwood W8/W11 Gazelle, that has all the early early features. My 78 has a few but has not got the straight foot rests or the gearstick in the middle and many more features like that.