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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

Hi I'm after a howard gem with a British junior engine, for spares,don't mind if its totaly knackerd or incomplete. Can arrange collection from anywhere in the country.

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.

Don't know if these shots will come out the right way up, but heres the 2 brass plates that im having reproduced. Ive been digging through my notes on these early spec gems today, and have come to the conclusion that its probably the second oldest Gem left. G358 is the lowest that ive ever heard of. I own what is left of G367, but as its too far gone it will only ever be a doner so doesn't really count as its not a survivour. This one is G621 which is next. Then comes G667, after which ive seen 2 in the 900's (one is G927). I would love to hear of any more with a number below G951 (when the more common type handlebars were introduced.)

Just noticed my photos are coming out upside down, I don't know why apple products do this? Would a member of admin be able to turn them round please?

One of the next jobs is going to be to sort out the cover over the engine. Unfortunatley these early engine use one of a different design as can be seen in the photo. The very tatty orange one is the original and is going to take a heap load of work to smarten up. The black tidier one would only take a few minutes to give another flash of paint.

Remembered I had a camera on my iPhone so heres a few shots of the progress.

I was thinking at tractorworld that the engine on 137 looked very similar. I believe in Australia the very first Howard's had a sturmey archer engine, then jap developed this engine for howard, so perhaps they copied it? Even Howard's own engine the British Junior was after a similar design.

I'm actually welsh born and bred, can't say I've ever taken a shine to a sheep though. Lol.

All the gaskets have been made (except the head gasket as it's good enough to reuse) and I've started building the engine back up. It was quite tricky to slide the cylinder down with the exhaust still attached but there's no way that it's going to separate from the cylinder without shearing off the outlet. I had to remove the piston from the Conrod, fit it to the bore then try to line everything up and refit the gudgeon pin and Circlip with the whole assembly trying to crush my hand. Whilst at tractorworld I met up with Chris Austell again from www.vintagebrassplates I've had some of his products in the past, and whereas they are not cheap they really do finish off a restoration so I've commissioned a couple of the badly damaged plates for this project. They should be ready in a couple of weeks. Photos will have to wait until after the weekend as I've forgotten my camera.

all I had was a wide open door.

Try ebay.com ( the American site) usually only a few pound with carriage, and even if the sellers don't offer to post to the uk most do if you ask, also on something of that value there shouldn't be any import duty either.

well I shall leave entering again until 2018, I'm not prepared to freeze my bum off at a show like I did at this years malvern. I spoke to a number of exhibitors this year who felt the same and even overheard a few spectaters saying its to cold to walk round. A great pity as apart from the temperature it was a great show.

Did you say to me Paul that the heat is going to return to the two top halls in two years time?