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I'm sorry to hear that, I only met him once at Tractor world a few years ago. A very nice chap.

To be honest the traffic to get in is what stopped me going to this show. Even at 8am the bypass gets gridlocked solid. Once in i agree with you,its an amazing show, takes hours just to see it all, but I can't stand the que to enter the site.

Thanks Norm, only really parting with them due to having had them sat in the shed since the last Tractor world show I did in 2017. Seems a shame for them to just sit there. With my legs the way they are and other commitments, I can't see myself ever doing anything with them again. Thought I'd offer them first on here before letting the vultures on eBay having a go. I'm not really sure how to price them, would only be looking for a fair price and hopefully somebody who would give them a proper home. Have never had any luck with the for sale section on here,even when offering machines for free.

Also going to have to re-home this gem. A sad day but I'm going to have to hang up my orange boots.

Due to a change in personal circumstances I am ideally looking for a new home for this gem. Any interest?

Somewhere I do haveba spare one, however since I moved last year I've struggled to find anything. When it turns up you'd be welcome to it for the cost of postage, however it may take years for me to locate it. Sorry.

The cover just slides over the engine and gearbox, look at my YouTube channel garethkeri and you see a video there of it fitted. I'll get some measurements next time I'm at the storage unit but that maybe sometime before I can get there. Here's a link

Hi, thanks for the info. I haven't done much yet to this project as my athrtitus has been giving me grief and last year I bought a house in desperate need of doing up, so my missus has been getting me to work on that instead on my better days.Hopefully with the warmer weather I'll feel better and continue with the project soon.

I've got the petrol version of your mixer, there would of originally been a canopy that sits over the engine/ motor and drive belt. I've tried contacting belle, but the original owner sold up years ago and the new owners ( altrad?) Didn't even reply to my emails. I've managed to obtain an original sales brochure and going from this I concluded that it is mid 1960's. My father became a belle dealer around 1975/6 and he never saw these mark 1 mixers. Hope this narrows it down a bit. It's a pity that the Briggs engine on mine had been replaced in the late 1970's otherwise I would if been able to date it from that.

Thank you for the birthday wishes.

Nostalgia is one of the main reasons I've bought this, was the ride on that I ever drove. My friend's dad had one and when we were about 7 or 8 we watched Herbie. After seeing the wheelies in the film we thought it would be fun to try and recreate it on the mower. We "borrowed" the keys and with a bit of a slope and top gear we did manage to get the front wheels to come up for a few seconds.

Thanks for the input, got to admit as I'm struggling to get a good match to the metallic yellow gold you mention, and I'm more used to seeing them in red I'm leaning more towards repainting it red.

You almost don't realise how attached you get to them till they've gone. I'm also sorry to hear about your Collie.

Can't get the computer to talk to the camera, -Norm. Not having the best of weeks, with anything,Bethany my little helper ( Hinderer) with my projects passed away on Wednesday, feeling a little bit lost without her. She was nearly 13 though which is a good run for a Labrador. I'm sure I'll get the photos up soon.

Just managed to pick up a nice mountfield 25 on eBay, a 1972 machine, after welding up a deck on one the other day. It's in good nick at the moment, but is yellow instead of the normal red, does anyone know why this might be? It almost looks to good a job to be a repaint but who knows.

Unfortunately I've just had the deck dumped on me, no machine to match up, decks been hamerited many times looking at it, no original paint left. Don't have to get a match, guess it's just pride in my work, lol. I may have to resort to a tin of ih red?

Can anyone help with a near shade of red to the original mountfield 25 ride on red please? I've been roped into welding up a deck and need to gets close colour match.

When I first started out in plant they used to be everywhere,however now all this early stuff is nearly extinct over here. It's a combination I think of the harsh environment that it's run in and the good old health and safety tightening up on regulations meaning what was left got exported to 3rd world countries.

The one nearest the engine is the throttle and if this is broken I would definitely go down the new carb route for what they cost. With the recoil. Is it that the rope has snapped if so then the easy way is to remove the remains of the rope and make a new length up,then retention the spring by winding the plastic back up and line the hole in it back up with the hole through the starter and push the rope through. If it's not the rope snapping that's caused then it is likely to be the spring broken,and or damaged lug. I have had a lot of trouble with the recoils on copy engines, the best solution is to obtain a genuine Honda recoil off a scrap engine,you may have to space it with one or two M6 washers but the bolt holes should line up. Either a gx340(11hp) or a gx390(13hp should fit). As a stop gap most of these engines have a notch in the centre cup to allow you to wrap a rope around and start them like an old Villiers etc. Just don't do it on site if the health and safety guy is about.

Sorry don't know why this link has reappeared?

Hi thanks for your concern, arthritis is just one of those things that I've learnt to live with, there's ways around it most of the time, Ive just bought an auto Jag for use in town traffic but that's another story... Looking at your photos, it maybe just because I can only use my phone to view them but I can't actually see if anything is broken. On the throttle plastic there should be a lug that when rotates stops again the throttle screw. If it is broken you can pull the butterfly plate out the carb by unscrewing the plate,then the shaft just pulls up. To be honest though if it is broken I would just buy a copy carb. They seem to work well and at 8quid odd it's a cheap fix. Just looked again, just to avoid confusion, are you talking about the one nearest the engine or nearest the air filter. If it's the latter then it's the choke lever that's missing, unless you've removed it for the photo.

I don't know if this project shows you what you need.

From your photos I'm struggling to see what is damaged, to pop the carb off you should just undo the 2 M6 nuts on the air filter housing and one M6 bolt under the airfilter itself. Slide the choke and fuel lever away from the engine and disconnect the breather pipe. You will now be able to remove the housing. You will see a spacer plate, take note of which way round this is fitted. Pull the carb forward and rotate the throttle on it and the connecting linkage should pop out. Some have springs that also need disconnecting. The fuel pipe should be easy to lever upwards and I always plug it with the airfilter bolt. The carbs are available from China, the last one I bought was about £8.50 delivered. The gx340 carb will also fit and work if you can't find a GX 390 one. Gx240 are also the same physical size but can starve the bigger engines of fuel as the bore and jets are smaller. The black screw is a throttle stop, under the black square is an idle screw. sorry that I threw everything out but I've offered them to others before for free and no takers. I was giving up a unit so an awful lot of kit had to go. Just looked on eBay, complete carb and gaskets are 8.58.if you're any where near Hereford I'd be happy to take a look, I used to overhaul about 5 GX Honda's a day, 6 days a week for about 10 years so have seen most problems.

If you need any help with honda etc GX engines give me a pm, to say I've worked on a few is an understatement. On a gx390 you have a plastic spacer with a gasket either side that the high tension lead slots into. Then there's the carb, then anither spacer plate before the airfilter . As already stated a Chinese carb is so cheap they are not worth repairing. A pity this didn't happen in early December as I sent around 2 Tonne of engines to scrap and you could of had what you wanted.

Thank you Richard for the link, Somerset isn't to far from me. I'll give them a call when I get a minute.