Vinnetrow

Took my display along this morning, heres a couple of photos of the set up day.
Met up with a few members, including Expeatfarmer and Stormin. (thanks again
Norman for the Baloon, James Loved it)
Looking forward to tomorrow., hopefully will get lots more photos.

The copper exhaust pipes on the Villiers Twin could withstand the heat, even with a 180 degree bend. I know brass has a lower boiling point, but they should be okay, if not slightly discoloured   

You need to look a couple of feet in front of you to see the pot holes.. The bouncing is so bad you can't see anymore than a couple of feet in front anyway
 
 
 
Thanks Mark.
 
 
 
Thanks James
 
 
 
Thanks Rob. As luck would have it, it's not my grass I'm tearing up so I don't have to worry about cutting it
 
 
 
Hi Alan, I wouldn't want the pressure washer jet anywhere near me.. It can strip paint off things 30ft away!!
 
 
Afternoon all, with Project Horse Gut finished apart from a couple of little bits, I have turned back to Project Why Not and the exhaust flame system..
Starting at the top, the green paint on the flame fuel tank just had to go..

That's better, paint stripped then blasted with some red oxide..

The flame fuel pump will be going about here... It is a little higher than the tank, but once it's been primed a fuel tap and not return valve should stop it from trying to drain out.

25ft of brake pipe and some pipe connectors turned up in the post..


I had been wondering what to use as jets in the exhausts until I noticed a couple of knackered Wheel Horse carbs on the rack.. Both carbs put up a fight but I managed to get the jets out..

As it turns out they are a nice tight fit over the brake pipe..

A bit of tweaking later had a small hole blocked at the end and the threaded bit ground away.

I expect the jets will get clogged up once in a while so I had to find a way of making them removable.. So into the lathe went a bolt..

A little while later..

Ta- Daa removable jets     They are both a nice tight pressure fit so shouldn't come out in a hurry...  How the brass will cope with the heat I don't know.. One way to find out I guess

The exhaust's a bit low.

Evening all another quick update , I've finally got the steering to as near as perfect as I can get it and u can steer it with one finger I haven got as much lock as the original tractor but not far off , I may still be able to obtain this with a few adjustments , I had a little drive on the tractor today in the work shop and every thing worked great so now I'm back to the fabrication part, because I'm thinking of putting a winch on the tractor I'm gonna put two 6volt batteries on wired in series to get my 12 volts I'm doing this for several reasons these batteries are very heavy so will act as good ballast , plenty of power and I have access to plenty of these batteries they have come out of a standby battery backup system they was 50 or so wired together to get mains voltage ,any way with me using two of these , I've made a battery Tray to mount them in under the seat ! Here's what I've done today

I rather like this beast, so thought I'd post it up for you all to grin at
 

There you go Mr Showman, an engine for the Lawn Ranger !!

bit more done today
 

 
bit of bling
 

Nope
 
 
 
 
Part of the problem as we found yesterday was the new float was too tall, which meant when the float went up it bottomed out on the carb body before shutting off the fuel!
 
Once the old float and jet went back in the flooding stopped.
 
One thing that was really bugging me was why the spark was so weak at the plug until the ignition was turned off when it produced a nice fat bright spark just the once!  This got me thinking, so I did a little research..
And found an external condenser on a car engine is wired onto the positive side of the coil, where  as small engines say a Kohler or a Mag the condenser is wired onto the negitive side of the coil...
 
No prizes for guess which way we had it wired
 
Soooo... armed with a condenser wired in the right way, and also the base jet settings for the Bing carb the engine was soon brought to life 
 
Of course all this happened before Nigel had turned up, so I carefully timed it that just as Nigel was pulling in I was driving Horse Gut out the workshop!!
 
The look on Nigels face was priceless.. At first he thought I was driving the Cammo 8 without a bonnet, until he noticed I was driving past the Cammo 8 which did still have it's bonnet on!
 
Picture a look of confused/think your seeing things/disbelief all rolled into one which after a minute gave way to a big grin
 
 
 
 
You have indeed
 

I can't help but grin everytime I look at Horse Gut.. She does look good
 

 

 
 
When I got into the workshop this morning I found Nigel had left me a kinda message on the bonnet!...  I can't decide if Nigel was just checking he had my name spelt right or it was just a hint that I should clean the paint off or not
 

 
 
Close up you can see how thick the paint is, you can also see how bad Nigel's writing is
 

 
 
Most of the front of the bonnet paint free.. It was nice to see the detail coming back that was hidden under many coats..
 

 
 
Trying the Horse Gut for size, not bad but the seat needs to be raised a couple of inches..
 

 
 
Until we dropped HG down almost ground level we had never noticed how skinny it looks around the middle!  Also lower makes it look longer for some reason!
 

 
 
So I had a play with some cardboard to see if some extra material of the chassis and fender pan would improve things....  It most certainly did    The fender pan needs a few tweaks to give the front a bit more angle.
 

 

 
As Nigel will have a very full workshop for the next week, HG found her way into my workshop.. HG is only 4 inches longer than the Cammo 8 which is up for sale by the way
 

 
 
I almost forgot!!
 

Thanks for that Angus, it's close. we did try to get some measurements from the seller but alas he has so far failed to come up with any!
 
 
 
 
Thanks Koen, as you know we have a new main needle, float and float bowl gasket on the way so hopefully that will do the trick.
 
 
A bit of a large update for you all..
 
With a bit of trimming the battery was made to fit in it's original postion. You can also see how the bit of WH bodywork under the dash surround is fitted..  Behind the bolts are a couple of captive nuts welded to a bracket which is welded to the chassis.
 

 
 
No idea what this fuel tank is from, but it's a nice size..
 

 
 
As you will of noticed we had to cut part of the dash surround out to make the tank fit.
Before you ask there will be some rubber going between the fuel tank and the battery terminals to stop and accidental shorting out from happening.
 

 
 
The gap under the front of the dash surround needed sorting..
 

 
 
So a patch was cut to fit the gap..
 

 
 
Nigel cleaning up one of the front wheels.
 

 
 
I think this plate came from a Wh 314 but I'm not 100% sure..
 

 
 
But it does make a nice heavy duty bracket for holding the fuel tank in place..  Tank and bracket upside down in this photo.
 

 
 
I thought I'd have a play with the camera affects setting for this welding photo..  If it's not blue it's black and white
 

 
 
We found that the welds that hold the steering column to the chassis had cracked, so as well as welding the cracks up we added a gusset to add some extra strength..  A view from the side..
 

 
 
From the front you can see the gusset has had a shaped plate plug welded to it..
 

 
 
So when the body under the dash bit slides on..
 

 
 
It's a perfect fit
 

Well......   The engine still isn't running right and won't do unless we find another carb, so the search is on..
 
So yesterday we turned back to the bodywork..
 
Bonnet now mounted and with a bit of trimming we found a way to hold the dash panels in place
 

 

 
 
Which also means that now we don't have to break the donor Cammo 8 up  

Many happy returns of the day mate, have a good one

Thanks mate
 
 
 
 
Yeah right
 
 
And so the engine troubles continue!!    Even with a new carb and posh inlet manifold the engine would still not run right, and then I noticed a bubble!
For what ever reason there was some liquid around one of the head bolts, and it was bubbling!
 

 
 
Only one thing to do.. Yep, start pulling the head off to see if the head gasket had gone!
 

 
 
As it turned out the head bolts were not as tight as they should of been and the head wasn't as flat as it shuld of been..
Hhhmm.. Plenty of carbon in there!
 

 
 
The valves badly needed grinding back in as they didn't sit to well, also the stems were coated in carbon and crud so out they came for a clean and to be lapped in.
 

 
 
With the engine back together it ran..... Just as badly as before!  :banghead:
 
It was then noticed that a lot of fumes were being blown out the oil breather which means piston ring problems! Hopefully the rings are just stuck rather then broken.. Time will tell..
 
 
Oh... And this turned up and a panel doner for Gut horse!
 

Thanks Charlie.
 
 
 
You guessed right Koen, it is a Bing..  Hold fire on looking through your carb collection for now, a new carb has been ordered which should arrive today..
 
 
 
Hi James, I knew about the Renault engine, I didn't know the rest of a D250 was Gutbrod!
 
 
The fender pan is hard work but it's getting there slowly. To see where the smaller dents are I had to strip off the red powder coating which wasn't much fun as it's hard stuff!
I gave the back of the pan a quick coat of blue paint and gave it a light sanding back once it had dried..
The blue bits left are all low spots which need to be beaten out..
 

 
 
Slowly the blue bits are going as the pan gets straighter.
 

 
 
This is the corner where the big kink was
 

 
 
That's enough about the fender pan, now onto an inlet manifold for the new carb..
 
Lathe work has been interesting due to problems with both Nigel's and my lathes but we got there in the end..
 
Starting with a bit of pipe being cleaned up.
 

 
 
The inside was bored out a bit so it would be a tight fit on the original manifold.
 

 
 
Boring out the mounting flange.
 

 
 
A taper was cut so the pipe could be firmly welded on.
 

 
 
Like so
 

 
 
Now that's a nice bead of weld
 

 
 
Back on the lathe to turn the welds down and give a nice flat mounting surface..
 

 
 
A bit of trimming, cleaning, welding and painting later the carb bolts on       It's a shame the carb has problems but a new one should be arriving today
 

Morning all, a small update for you..
 
Nigel and I have been having fun trying to get the engine running right. Were not there quite yet but certainly heading in the right direction.
Changing the spark plug from a long reach to a short reach made a vast difference to the quality of the spark, we now have a stong health spark but we will be fitting an electronic ignition kit to make it 100% reliable..
 
Although we did kinda have the engine running on the original carb (video coming at some point this weekend), the carb is so worn with lots of play (and air leaks) in/around the spindles that the best name for it is junk!
So out of interest we thought we would try a pit bike carb that Nigel had kicking about the place..
 

 
 
As we couldn't find any rubber pipe the right size for a temporary inlet manifold the rubber was removed from an old mower pedal and used
The engine wanted to run but as the carb is a bit too small it was never going to work that well...   So.. a correct size pit bike carb will be ordered and I will make a steel inlet fannymold..
 

 
 
I have slowly been beating the fender pan back into shape. It came from one of Karls racing mowers and as well as being battered during racing it gained a few extra holes... 61 holes in total!
 

 
 
You know it's been hit hard when it has a 1 inch kink in it!
 

 
 
Lot's of hammer work later it's looking straighter.
 

 
 
And by the end of play yesterday, even straighter with the cracks and some of the smaller holes welded up..
It's hard going panel beating a rear fender pan as the steel is so thick, but I'm really enjoying it
 

 
 
 

Morning all, yep the rear linkage just had to go..  It put a bit of "ugly" back on HG (Horse Gut) and we just couldn't have that could we
 
The electrics which looked a mess wasn't to bad once I had removed all the bits that were not needed such as indicators, horn and headlamps which had side and main beam!
As Nigel mantioned the Dynostart was full of water, but once drained and dried out the water does not seam to of done any damage which was quite lucky.
 
It would of been nice to of kept the original Gutbrod ignition barrel and key, but alas the barrel was a it past it.. So I fitted an odd WH barrel I had kicking about the place. Just a simple "on" "off" and "start" sort of barrel..
 
As for the engine.. Well, it want's to run but won't quite.. It trys to run but is having problems with over fueling.. I will have the carb apart again tomorrow to see if I missed any muck hiding away, but the carb is quite worn with plenty of spindle play, so a carb swap may be in order at some point.
 
Sorry for the lack of photo's, we were too busy (enjoying the build) to take any

on saturday i mounted the gutbrod lift linkage, ( ) and did not like it one little bit, but as this is a joint project i left it on for ian to see today, (hence its now on ebay )
 

 
anyway today i made a new exhaust so out came the trusty wheel barrow again
 

 
why i was doing all this ian hit all the wiring and got rid of all the crap we dont need and sorted the dynastart out ( it was full of water ) we are getting nearer to starting the engine now,   it hasnt run in years.
 

Never seen or heard of it but it does have a JLO look about it.

I can't help but agree chaps, it's nice doing a joint project and even cooler that the person in question is Nigelwith the same warped thinking when it come to fun builds... I think we have spent hours just standing back looking with a big grin.. Horse Gut just looks so right
 
 
A bit of an update for you all. The steel rod that holds the pedals in place was missing so a new one had to be made. To make it easier the engine was taken out.
 

 
 
Working out the length of the new rod.
 

 
 
A posh tractor this Horse Gut, it has fiddle brakes on the rear
 

 
 
Clutch pedal and the brake linkage on the left side.
 

 
 
Nigel cut down and re-welded the Gutbrod fender pan mounts yesterday..
 

 
 
Which got the new fender pan sitting closer to the wheels, it won't sit perfect until I straighten the fender pan out as it's rather dented and twisted.. But it was free
 

Gut-Rod

Building on a budget always brings out the best ingenuity and ideas! 

Got my front hubs today, very happy with how they turned out. Total cost of all parts and machine work £60.



Now that i can measure the width of the front axle i can make a start on narrowing the rear axle. The Vitara axle has a offset diff so i need to remove 280mm from one axle tube and 320mm from the other. Once cut i will add a sleve to strengthen the tube and the half shafts will be sent out to be shortened.

Need to go now and get a lend of a slide hammer to get the half shafts out and then the cutting can begin.

Not a pet parrot but a very well trained fire extinguisher..    It has been trained to hang on the wall behind me in that photo
 
 
 
 
Well, it is called Project Horse Gut
 
 
For you view pleasure a very short intro video.....   I might of got carried away with the "guts" side of it