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hi pat, yes honda engines can be reliable if looked after, however after working on them five days a week about 10 years ago for a few years I'm no real fan. They are very prone to smoking and can be a bit of a bugger to stop, allthougth I did discover a trick that sometimes helps, I will show it in the photos when I rebuild the engine hopefully next week if the parts arrive. I was finding aswell that as the years went on the quality of Hondas definatley dropped off, I believe that most are built in tawain these days ( even the genuine ones). This machine I would say has had a very hard life, definatley missed a lot of oil changes and been badly knocked about.

Been having a bit of bad luck with the engine. As the carb was gunged up I ordered a new Chinese one off ebay, this took over 3 weeks to arrive and when I unpacked it the butterfly shaft etc had been poorly machined so it slops around and this will cause the engine to hunt. The seller is doing the typical ebay thing of ignoring emails, good job I paid by PayPal so I can get a refund in a couple of weeks. Next was to order a new oil alert unit. When it arrived I discoverd that the early and late Hondas use different oil alerts, so I had to have another hunt around and I eventually found an early spec short engine in the far shed to rob one from.(it's really annoying as I sent a skip full of Hondas to the scrap last summer! Never thought in a million years that I would ever be restoring one). When removing the crankcase half the governor self destructed, then to top it all I accidentally ripped the oil seal, at least early and late ones in this instance are the same so no problem getting a replacement, just have to wait for it to arrive. Photos to follow.

It looks like a yeoman, which was the model inbetween a gem and bantam. Looks like the engine is a villiers mk 40.

Today I removed the engine and hydraulic tank from the frame. After a pressure wash I was amazed just how good the engine started to look. I was right with the fan, nearly 4 solid hours to get it off the crank, with lots of heating and penetrating fluid it eventually gave up the fight! The good news is though, that the engine looks in pretty good condition internaly, I will probably fit a new set of rings for good measure, and regrind the valves,but that's about it.

I was very happy.its not often that I have much luck.

Had a bit of luck today. At work we are in the middle of moving to new bigger premises, and whilst clearing out a draw I came across this collection of new old stock spares for a Beaver 1 that I didn't even know was there. They are all obsolete and if I hadn't purchased this machine,they would probably of ended up in the skip.

Today I managed to remove the hydraulic pump, this in turn has allowed access to the drive cog and cooling fan which both have been soaked in plenty of freeing oil, in readiness to try and get them to come off the crankshaft. As the pump was filthy even though it was below freezing in my yard I gave it a quick pressure wash.

Have been sorting out some of the engine parts this afternoon. The Recoil starter in my store was lightly beat back into shape then given a small skim of filler to make perfect. I found a brandnew but slightly dinked fuel tank in my one shed(I know you can buy Chinese ones but the profile is different and new genuine Honda ones are horrendously expensive and recently the design has changed slightly aswell). A very light skim of filler was again needed to make perfect.Both have been given a coat of filler primer which once set will be rubbed down. At the bottom of a cupboard I also found this old type badge, again not perfect but if I cant turn up a better one, then at least ive got a pattern to get it reproduced.

Ive been digging through my brochures today and have found out these related sales sheets and workshop manuals. The exploded breaker in the last photo is the model im looking for. Apparently manufactured by Krupp and rebadged a JCB until they introduced their own hammer in 1992.

Looks a nice machine paul, hopefully we will see it at a few shows this year.

You say that but the early type honda parts are proving a challenge as well. This is a pre 1992 honda so the recoil, air filter, exhaust and fuel top are all different.( all damaged or wrong on this one). Going through my store of engines I've found a usable recoil(but am still looking for the honda badge), a good fuel top and I think I've got an exhaust comming off a colleague.Buried in the bottom of my scrap pile there is the remains of a lot later beaver 4 so I will extract it and see if the cooler is any good and see if it fits. Hi pm sent.

It's most common application would of been driving a hand held breaker( I've got the feelers out for the correct one). Other uses was any hydraulic equipment, i.e water pumps, compressors, drills, generators, and chainsaws.I've been giving it a proper look over this afternoon, unfortunately some idiot has cut the oil alert off so I will have to strip the whole engine down to replace it, (and the fans are allways swines to get off the crankshaft. ) Also they've welded the axle in place. I'm hopping the hydraulic pump is ok as they have long been obsolete, but i won't be able to flow test it until I've got the engine running and sorted out the cooler.

As some of you may know, the arthritis in my hip and knees is slowly getting worse,and im finding on top of my job mauling big gems around is starting to get too much. Therefore ive been looking for a project that is a bit more light weight. My day to day job is repairing hydraulic breakers etc, and I couldn't help but notice that the early hydraulic equipment is becoming almost extinct. For nearly a year now ive been looking for a JCB Beaver 1. Finally around Christmas this one popped up on ebay. Its in a very bad way and missing the oil cooler, but I hope I can resurrect it. Doing some research Ive come to the conclusion it dates from around 1986.

Yes, happy new year from Hereford.

It's a 5.5 hp single cylinder air cooled diesel, with electric start, made by the Jintan engine works in china. It was one of a batch of two imported to the uk by lifton a large plant manufacturer in 1980, for evaluation, however they were never used and stored on the bog roof in the warehouse. My father owns the other one(hand start). Apart from a quick trail run it's never done anything, but when running it actually sounded very smooth.

Thankyou for the link. Heres a couple of shots of the proposed engine, very squat in construction, so should give me a low bonnet line.. I know perkins badged some up a few years ago, so the quality should hopefully be ok, but its only going to get light use anyway.

Thanks Richard, do you have a link to the manual by any chance? I will have to note the serial number down to find out the age, I know the engine I'm planning on using is a brand new Chinese engine but built in 1980 and stored. It's unlike any of the modern Chinese stuff, as it's such a lump I hope the quality is going to be up to par.

Ok thanks for the advice, I was thinking maybe to use some classic type mini rims on the rear, will just have to see how much work is involved in re drilling the hubs? Everything is now soaking in diesel to try and free it up as the horse has apparently sat outside for a very long time. I'm moving my workshop over the next couple of months so will not have a lot of spare time for a while but hopefully work will slowly progress, only decision to make now is wether to paint it green or orange as the series 3a's were?

Ok that's explains why I couldn't find reverse gear. Does anybody have any spare narrow front rims they want to sell? I got the perfect squat single cylinder swan Diesel engine to fit allready on the shelf, photos to follow.

This project is something that ive had at the back of my mind for a long time. Ive allways fancied building a scale Field Marshall Tractor. The other day on ebay this very sad looking Wheel horse turned up fairly local to me. The tin work and engine are pretty far gone, but I only really wanted the gearbox, chasis and steering set up. As im a bit of a novice with wheel horses can anybody answer when it says 4 speed does that include 3+ reverse or 4+ reverse?

it probably will be all right. I've just had a lot of nightmares caused by customers trying to use modern hammers of the packs then getting cross saying i hadn't fixed them right. Due to a combination of age and higher pressures I've found the packs can be a bit of a bugger to make oil tight aswell.

the pressures are higher than a lot of pumps avaliable, I'll have to look up the figures but from memory they were 6liters a minute at about 3000 psi, most pumps today are around 20-30lpm and 1500 psi,

Hi I'm after a pair of track rods for a wheel horse raider 10, if anyone can help me please?Photos to come once I get it home.

Just watch the pump it is a low flow,high pressure one on those Williams and James packs.

Try Hancox engines in Worcester .