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Townings farm working weekend this weekend, always a good turnout . Organised by SEVAC vintage tractor club, lots of seat time with the Wheelhorse. report and photos coming Monday

Been painting the underneath. Two coats of red oxide. I'd been given a couple of cans of Tetrosyl stone chip a while back. So I decided to use that. Three coats and it's begining to look better.

Drive belt arrived this morning so I finished off the idler and fitted the belt. Started the engine and engaged the pto and everything seems to work ok, will give it a good test at Townings over the weekend but so far looking good. Thanks to Bearingboys for their help in supplying the belt, if it helps anyone with a tiller the belt is 1/2" x 140" A138 V 140391 and cost £17.60 with post and vat ( and its a Dunlop belt ).

Found an Ad for the Chainsaw in the 'Practical Mechanic' of 1973 . .......WARNING.....You will likely find yourself reading all of the magazine by scrolling up and down. It can be addictive to see what Technology/goods were being introduced (U.S) at the time. You could spend hours. I hope the Link works - Chainsaw Ad

Some photos of the Wheelhorse roundup at Tractorfest Biddenden today I think Mr Showman was a bit disappointed with the turnout, here's what was there...

When the Showman tried out the one I made for him, a small problem reared it's head. The ends of the box section under the towing eye were catching when turning. Should have made the plate with the pin hole longer, but it was all I had. A piece left over from the slot hitches and cut in half. Yesterday I did a little mod to mine. Works ok now, either way up..

Owning a Lathe is an awesome addition to a workshop, well worth the investment. Mower Deck lift 'T' Bar permanently fitted now and the old repaired Lift Rod will be replaced with chain later. New Trunnions have taken out the wear slack and are now smooth and snug- So after 3 Shredded Wheat, I managed to get the Deck down on the Deck and propped for the ceremonial fitting of the Blades and torquing up to 65 ft lbs- Now ready to fit. Weather beat me this morning and too wet to play around with fitting it for a trial spin up.

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.

Back at last. Finished machining the 2 Spacer Collars- Heat treated them on Sunday, as I then used the Oven (while roasting Dinner) to temper them for an hour at 200c. Polished up and all good with no distortion, should be as hard and strong as the originals The 'T' shaped Lift Bar that fits in the Tractor Frame was in a mess. Distorted, rusty and worn out (sound's like me). I was going to cut the Pivot Rod and Pin off, then make and weld on new ones, but a 2nd check meant that I could get away with straightening, cleaning and adding weld metal to bring back to good nick. Made a new bushing for it- Also had to make and harden 2 more Spacers for the Deck Brackets to take the wear/slop out of the Draught Bar's pivots (Draft Bar U.S and Swingletree in old English). So a little collection of bits which sort out the Deck to Tractor issues- The Spring n Brass collar with the Fibre washer are a 'cunning plan' mod to retain grease in the Blind hole in the Tractor Frame and keep the dirt out Made new Rubber Bumpers for the Draught Bars and so all ready to fit- Mmm, should have cropped that image a bit. So (2nd) repaired Spindle now in the Deck, have parts to make a whole spare Spindle Ass'y once the odd size bearing arrives (and machine/harden a big spacer). Found the 2 Trunnions are well worn, so making new ones of them at the mo' - . Mark n Ewan's supplied decals are stuck on, so not far to go now, you'll be glad to hear !.