S1g

Thanks for the compliments, due to my arthritis getting worse I'm going to have to seriously thin down my collection. I'm finding it difficult to bring myself to part with them but hey-ho.

Just thought I'd offer this machine on here before the dreaded ebay. For sale is the 475th howard 300 ever made, from the first year of production 1963. Engine number is original as well, a Briggs and Stratton, I restored this rotavator about 5 years ago and have only shown it twice, I tried to start it around two years ago, but I seem to remember the ignition was playing up. For anyone who's interested it's the machine on the howard 300/350 page on my website www.howardgem.webs.com there's also a new set of blades somewhere. Open to offers as I've no idea what it's worth,would rather it goes to a good home. Carriage to any uk address fine at cost price. Also series 2 howard gem with steel wheels for restoration or spares £80. Again carriage at cost is no problem.

Thank you for the birthday wishes.

Who's comming to this show on the weekend?

Going to have the pleasure of moving this out the workshop, across a muddy track, around two corners then across the estate to a new unit next week, should be fun!

Anything involving wood is beyond my skill,I'll have to keep watching on ebay.

Where do you get display boards like in the picture from? I've been looking for a while and have only found some that are really expensive so far.

no doubt you will, I've found in the past it's often amazing what turns up if you're patient enough.

Are you bringing these to tractor world?

After not having the best of weeks, - My shingles is still causing great pain, and suffering yet another attempted break in at the workshop, I finally had a bit of luck when a college sent me this pack of period brochures free of charge. Going from the dates on them Ive realised my two packs are actually slightly older than I first thought, probably dating from 1985 and 1986.

He has allways done a top job for me in the past, and have allready packaged up the sketches etc to send to him. I've had to do a lot of detective work and educated guessing at the missing words where the decal has been damaged, just hope I've got it right.

Thank you Nigel, painful is certainly one way of putting it. Ive spent this afternoon, measuring up and sketching the decals with a view to getting them reproduced.- I'm unable to do much else due to the pain.

Wow! Looks absolutely stunning.

I've not been able to make much progress for a week now due to a bad case of Shingles- anyone who's ever had this ailment will know just how painful it is. The good news is though that I've come across a couple of the krupp breakers in the workshop, I knew they were in there somewhere! I've also been talking to a college who was involved with these packs when new, he's told me that the very first were supplied with NPK breakers as well, so will have to now try and search one of these out, but what I've got will do. Hopefully I'll be on the mend by next week and can get some photos etc of the breakers and report what I'm finding with the newer beaver.

Just had the new fuel top arrive from the states, only fit for the bin. Why do people do this? Probably yet another fight through PayPal. Think I'm going to stop using ebay alltogether soon, to many crooks in my experience. Allthougth I have got another new fuel tank on its way to me, and if it's anything like the last one I will be very happy.

That's what I'm hoping, plus two power packs will go in the back of my Astra van with the rear seat up, no more bouncing around in the cabstar, and with the Nissan's horrendous thirst for diesel, the Astra should see big savings!

It's either your trimming out or the exhaust is coked up with carbon.

Been giving them a proper once over today. The new beaver has had a later pump conversion so for the sake of originality I'm going to borrow the one off the compact for the time being. The hardest thing to overcome is likely to be the rotten exhaust, I don't think there's any good ones left in my store.Everything else should be ok to source, although I may again struggle for a good recoil badge. The one beaver 4 above has allready been sold, the other one has been put aside for a rainy day. . The plan is to do them up and show them with the original spec hammers(if I can find them). I've got elephants feet to demonstrate them on so the neighbours paths are quiet safe. I've managed to dig out today a couple of jcb's own hammers,probably from around 1990, hopefully I can make one good one out of them.

Bet its cheap on fuel aswell.

You know what they say, "In for a penny, in for a pound". After a 120 mile round trip ive just collected another beaver 1. This one probably dates from about 1988, and differs in it has the more conventional type controls etc. Also included in the lot was a Compact II, probably from about 1992, and a lot later bitsa that is for spares only. Better photos to follow once ive got them unloaded.

The new covers arrived but sadly they are of a different size, at least the supplier is prepared to have them back. Finally got my money back through paypal for the carb, after the seller said thy would only send a replacement once id removed my negative feedback, and accused me of ordering the wrong part etc, it had nothing to do with it being machined wrong! In order to pay the bills ive had to refurb this much later Beaver 4(almost a before and after shot with the two side by side.) bar the frame the unit has changed very little over 30 years.

Whilst moving some more junk out of the one unit today I came across a very reasonable recoil badge. Thought I was never going to find one! I also about a week ago spotted some new take off genuine fuel tanks on ebay (fitted to generator that had a long life tank built into the frame probably) so for twenty quid bought it. Finally today it arrived. After regrinding the valves, I have refitted the cylinder head and started to sort out the exhaust. The original one was beyond salvaging, holed, tatty and missing the spark arrestor. Where as later type exhausts are easy to obtain, and cheap ( if you go the Chinese route), early ones are almost extinct. This is where my store comes in handy. There was one left, the chrome cover was a bit battered, and after beating it back into shape it looked ok, but I am a bit of a fussy bugger so found a company that still has some new covers in stock ( £50 ouch!), hopefully they will arrive tomorrow. Also I managed to find a better oil alert switch. At long last though the Honda is starting to look like an engine again.

Just be like my wife, her last car she had for 5 years and it was never washed in the whole time she owned it. Saves a lot of time with a bucket and sponge!

Finaly got chance tonight to redo the bottom end. Firstly I honed the cylinder, then I fitted a new set of rings. Three tips I discovered years ago to reduce the risk of the engine smoking is firstly never use anything other than genuine rings,secondly allways use a later set that comprises of a 3 part oil control ring, and thirdly ignore what the workshop manual says about fitting the gap in line with the arrow in the piston, but instead fit it facing the opposite side. A gasket set was only £3.50 delivered so I am using new ones throughout. After reassembly I got the engine as far as rebolting the flywheel on and fitting the airshroud. The final photo shows an original instruction manual that arrived off ebay today.

Removed the piston, conrod, flywheel and crank today. I know the flywheels were originally bare metal, however this leads to rust so I have given it a coat of matt black. The paint has also cured on the air shroud/recoil starter so I have fitted a new starter cord and handle, along with 3 genuine bolts ( a whole £3, lol!). I also had a lucky find on ebay which was an original spec nos air filter cover. The last thing on todays list was to find out some original 80's spec dipstick out, a bit over the top perhaps but I like to keep things original if possible.