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I used to have the older version of this and it was useless, but to be fair it was purchased second hand. I can't rememember the make of its replacement at the moment but if you look on here you will see a topic on it. Way in front of the sealey in my opion Just looked it up it was an rtech.

The valves are very easy to do, there's guides on google and YouTube, I'd definatley do it as the next job. To be honest it's the first job I do on any small engine, cures about 90% of problems particularly ones that look like fuel as if the valves are pitted the engine can't suck the petrol in properly.

Probably a stupid question but have you reground the valves, particularly the exhaust? The symptoms you list would make me think it's this rather than the carb.

An ex girlfriend of mine took to making silent calls when we split up ( this was years ago), allways with a withheld number, I stopped it by holding the phone over a very large speaker turned up to full volume and pressing answer.

Just picked this up yesterday after a 4 train journey to Dorset. No fancy electronics here. Everything can be fixed in the drive way with a bent paper clip and a hammer. I used to have a couple back in the day when they were common, but now they are virtually extinct. Its the mythical one owner car with only 46k on the clock and 21 dealer stamps in the service book. 99% rust free, no rot at all, even the arches are sound. Almost unbelievable as its 22 years old! Just needs a very thourgh polish to bring the paint up nearly perfect, good on fuel for a 2 litre, I got about 38mpg on the way home which is a lot better than the 18mpg that the Volvo parked next to it does.

I'm very envious of all that space, but you know what would happen if I did, wouldn't be very long till it was full!

I'll be watching this one with interest after seeing your creation at tractor world. Looks a big challenge but well within your capabilities.

I'm not overly familiar with these but are the crankcase seals good? If not then it will not draw fuel properly.

I've seen worse, if you can easily find replacement parts then great I'd go that way, however if you can't, I'd get the valve seats recut and if they come up ok you should be able to have the outlet repaired.

Tonight I painted the wheels in etch primer. As tempting as it was to fill in all the flaws in the castings, I again left it as factory finish.

Here's a sneak peak at my 1946 series 1 gem that the other plate is for. It's hardly ever been used scince new, but was suffering the ravashes of time from living outside in a open ended shed that wasn't big enough to properly house it.

Single plates usually come out at £45-£50 each. Chris did me the 3 for £120. As overall the spend on this machine is on track to be quite low( just an awful lot of time needed) I felt it was worth while spending a bit on taking it back to as close to new as I can get, the originals as can be seen earlier on in this project were badly damaged. The second roteho plate is for another project that I hope to reveal at some point in the next few months.

When I arrived home today, these brass plates were waiting for me. Am absolutely delighted with them.

you're not doing full time till you're doing 26 hours a day, 8 days a week, or is that just me? Lol

Here's some of when I stripped and checked the box when I was working on it a couple of years ago. New seals and a gasket was fitted as a precaution, apart from that it was in very good condition.

Next stage is to redrop the gearbox out of the frame.

Some great vids I'm impressed with the 41 min one particuarly. With my internet connection that would probably take me at least two solid days for it to upload.

Heres a few shots. I also repainted the spacer plate.

Ever had one of those mornings when you wish you hadn't bothered? Even though I'm suffering from exhaustion I got to work at first light after checking the forecast to top coat the fan shroud. Guess what?, the forecast lied. I was just putting the final coat on when it started to pee down, then in my rush to get it back inside quick it fell off the forklift. Using every trick I know I think I've managed to salvage it. Photos to follow tonight as otherwise if I upload now with the iPad Nigel will have to do another hand stand, lol.

I know to a couple of examples but not many. The age is probably mid to late 30's. The colour of early Howard's is a bit of a controversy. The chap who restored these had been in contact with me for a few years prior to the auction trying to sell them( they cost x amount of thousands to restore so therefore they were worth this price in his opion) and he said that he found grey as the base coat. I've heard from a couple of sources that grey was used and even green before howard settled on orange. The far end one is a howard junior 5 imported from Australia ( I've still got this example) and the 6 is from the uk but I have scince moved it on as I needed the space and the money.

Yes, prior to the gem there was a v twin, I sure there was a jap and a British junior version. Attached is a photo of one in the 2013 tractor world auction were sadly I was the under bidder- but the I did purchase the 5 and 6 in the background.The really gutting thing was this twin had the engined removed for a motorbike and the remains sold on ebay later in the year.

Been having a bit more of a dig through my archives today. This photo is the only period image I've got of these early type gems ( I guess with the war on there was more important things to photograph than rotavators). I believe this is probably of the prototype as there is no support for the rotor shaft on this side, in which case this photo will date from 1942. Due to shortages it's unusual to see a set of tyres fitted.

Todays job was to clean up the flywheel and fan shroud. Ive noticed in the past that war time Gems often had poor qualityfan shroud castings, probably due to shortages of good quality materials. As i'm aiming for a factory finish, I resisted the temptation to fill in the flaws.

Thanks for the suggestion, in the past I've had a mate drill the hole over size and fit a brass bush. However I like the idea of a silicone pipe, should be a lot easier to do.

Hopefully these taken with my proper camera will come out the right way up.Dug these 2 Carbs out my shed today to make one good one out of them as the tattier one has a lot of wear on the butterfly spindle, and the one on this machine was missing.