Wristpin

Not tried it myself but have read that Coca Cola is good for freeing stuck pistons - or is it an urban mythe ?

Not sure whether Brimotor still exist but they used to assemble gensets in s small factory tucked away behind a pub in central Tunbridge Wells - buying in engines and alternators . They then moved to a unit on an industrial estate, still in Tun Wells and produced trailer mounted lighting towers for road works etc. Somewhere along the line they acquired the rights to produce Tarpen hedge cutters from whoever was making them in Nottingham - I think. Brain is a bit hazy on this. We supplied and installed several of their Lister powered stand-by gensets and this one found its way home!

Making progress. The cutting cylinder and bottom blade are de-rusted, painted, sharpened and reassembled with new reaction springs and felt seals. The old springs appear to have been attacked with an angle grinder; can't see why as the new ones are far from coil bound with the reground cylinder and refaced bottom blade. The rear roller had spent the weekend in the diesel tank which had done its job and the roller didn't put up too much of a fight. The grooves on these roller sections are good so no tedious re-cutting required! Chassis and grass box etc off to "blasters" for stripping and epoxy coating. Unfortunately they are busy with all sorts of interesting things so wont see them back till mid next week but there is the engine to strip and re-paint. Might even tidy the workshop!

Interesting that you make the point about the ipad, I've given up trying to upload images to some forums and end up emailing them to myself on the PC and uploading from there! May just be an age thing - the user not the machine, that is ! Anyway, nothing special about the C30, just a bigger version of the Villiers family. Got a manual somewhere and will dig it out, scan and Dropbox it and post a link. On edit Apologies, memory playing tricks, it's a C25 manual not 30.

Often found that the Briggs are unhappy at low enough revs to disengage the centrifugal clutch and would "bog down" when the throttle is opened. Never managed to get to the bottom of whether or not stronger springs are available to allow 1700 rpm idle on the Briggs. Machine is now a pile of bits but before stripping down I had the engine running - code '79 and points ignition and surprisingly it ticked over and accelerated with no hesitation so maybe it has the phantom stronger springs. The whole machine had been treated to a thick coat of brush applied household gloss. I've cleaned up all the small bits with the rotary bush on the bench grinder and my rather "domestic" bead blaster but the chassis, chain case cover and deflector plate will go for professional blasting and epoxy priming next week. The cutting cylinder is in the rust tank and the seized rear roller is having a soak in the diesel tank. Hopefully next week will be better paint spraying weather!

13kva , split over 3 phases. Not the most civilised machine compared with modern "quiet" units but very economical on red diesel and allows life to carry on uninterrupted. The only thing that causes a change of engine note is the ordinary domestic 800 watt micro wave when it pulses. no doubt someone with an electrical "ology" can explain that. Control panel

Time to fire up the Lister and make sure it's ready for any power cuts!

Fetched this home from darkest South East London this afternoon - not far from HMP Belmarsh! Looks like it's been exposed to the elements for a while but is basically OK. Never been a great fan of the Briggs / Marquis combination so once it's all running I may retrofit a Sloper.

Paul at Meetens http://www.meetens.co.uk or Mike Hitchins at http://www.guypartsandservice.co.uk

Looks like the repro Lawnbugs were built for Countax/Westwood's racing team with a couple supplied to the Tecumseh team and one possibly shipped to the States . The man responsible for them was Ray Kilminster, Countax's technical director ( and builder of some other interesting machinery such as a DAF saloon with an Oldsmobile V8!) at the same time he built up some racing Westwood W8s, with rack and pinion steering, solid back axles and disc brakes. The W8s ran BS engines and the Bugs Tecumseh's which my informant remembers as being powerful and reliable. He also recalls that Ray built up a Bug for use by Sterling Moss to publicise the the sport in its early days. I would emphasise that it is unlikely that there was much record keeping of these activities and that this information has been pieced together from the memories of those who were there at the time so are more of a snap shot of what was done than an official record.

I will ask the question.

My Westwood contact says that Bug production had ceased well before his time with them; so no definitive answer from there. My guess is that any chassis change was as a result of the need to accommodate the revised blade engagement mechanism. However he tells me that after he left Westwood and moved to Countax they (Countax) produced a specially commissioned batch of Bug chassis for the racing fraternity and that as patterns they had two different versions of the chassis.

Just sent you a pm Ben, someone you may know has just bought a pile of new, surplus to requirements, Tecumseh stuff including a lot of carbs from a Sussex distributor who is having a clear out / change of direction. I've never heard Bugs referred to by chassis type, just Mk1 and 2 but the alteration to the cutter engagement mechanism did involve a certain amount of re-design work. Unfortunately I gave away all my early Westwood parts lists and service bulletins when I retired so have nothing to refer to but I have dropped an email to a friend who worked for Westwood in the early days but I'm not sure that early!

Nice to see an original unmolested Lawnbug, can't be many left. Plenty of new Tecumseh carbs out there . It's strange the way that so many people rubbish the Tec engines when in many ways they were of a higher spec than the equivalent Briggs . They just needed a bit more understanding and TLC. That Lawnbug looks to have the later blade engagement mechanism - top mounted engagement and locking lever, sliding spindle and single B section belt. I had one of the Mk 1 machines from new, - fixed blade spindle and twin A section belts, 7hp Tecumseh. Strange thing is I can't remember selling it; may have let it go with a house move. Westwood's quality control of that era was decidedly iffy , the parts lists were littered with " use as necessary" when it came to washers and spacers etc! I once bought a pack of three Lawnbug cutter spindles and there was five sixteenths of an inch difference between the lengths of the longest and shortest! You'll do what you like with it but it will be a shame to spoil its originality, once gone, it's gone and Hondas aren't the be all and end all of mower engines !

Think that to get the most effective clean up you will need several anodes - even one on the floor of the tank. I've got my tank completely lined with sheet steel, sides and base. Just need to keep the items bing cleaned fom touching the sides.

This may be useful to someone at some time! https://www.dropbox.com/s/v0q7m1iin4hkzl3/WH%20Quick%20Reference0001.pdf?dl=0

I think that there are just too many tractor mags ; all competing for contributors,advertisers and readers. The market place is not big enough to make them all commercially viable without lots of advertising revenue, and that will only last so long until the advertisers do their sums. In my opinion, one of the best was Old Tractor when edited by Stuart Gibbard's but that went down hill when he left. He took over the editor's chair at Vintage Tractor & Countryside Heritage and turned it into a very good mag, but here again, the figures didn't stack up. Dependant on your point of view, for better or worse, Kelsey seem to have a viable commercial formula for their dummed down offering of tractor and plant machinery magazines . For my money the best tractor mag at present is Classic Tractor from Sundial Magazines, but its content is possibly too modern for some tastes.

The Honda engined machine also had its issues despite bills for over £1100 (yes, you read that right) in the last six months! Problems included collapsed front roller bearings, seized/worn out traction clutch push rod, sticky, incorrectly set up main clutch , four inch crack in the engine platform and strangely enough considering that new cylinder bearings had been fitted, unequal length reaction springs on the cutter unit! All fixable with knowledge, attention to detail and a bit of graft. The collapsed roller bearings were a bit tricky as the outer races were buried deep in the roller end caps and required the old trick of running a bead of weld around the inside of each race which when cooled shrinks and loosens race. A sharp tap and they fell out. Have tried to upload some images but although I succeeded yesterday, today it just sits buffering. The only thing that's changed is an upgrade to iOS8. Hope that it's not that as it will mean a bug fix from Apple! Going to email the images from the iPad to the PC and see if I can post them from there. Looks like that has worked!

No appreciable wear to either the shaft or the bearing areas of the rollers. Think that the excessive outer wear resulted from the roller being seized ( no diff action) and being "skid steered". The machine was bought by a private owner at the "closing down sale" at Wye Agricultural College for £20, where, with their extensive grounds it had a hard life, and it was only when they got it home that the extent of its issues - seized roller and smokey engine - were realised! It was given to me together with another Marquis as payment for "services rendered" - long and complicated story, but I'm quite happy with the deal!

Saw some similar at a dealer near me yesterday !

Was recently given a Marquis 51 in a fairly sorry state including the two rear roller section seized to the shaft ( no diff action ) and much of the "tread " worn off them. The recovery process involved dunking the whole roller in diesel, "easing" it a bit at a time with more soaks in diesel between sessions , a session under a farmer friend's press and finally recutting the grooves with an angle grinder !

Afraid not. Rape, wheat and beans all done. Only the maize left and that's not fit yet.

Every bit as good a find as the mower itself!

Find any illegal imigrants ?

Seem to remember that Alum was the main ingredient of the "styptic pencils" that we dabbed on shaving cuts! Stung like b******y but stopped the bleeding.