Joseph

It's been a while since I've posted on here, so I thought I would make a new thread about a project that I've started recently and try to update it regularly, hopefully it might be of interest to a few people. This machine is a bit different to most of our collection - it is a little Landmaster Super Deluxe Ride on (I believe is what they were marketed as). I bought this in April this year, having had it pointed out to us by a fellow forum member (thanks again Paul). I barely touched the tractor for a few months due to studying for exams, but since there is a couple of weeks left of the summer holidays and some of our other projects have slowed down I have finally gotten around to looking at this. Here are a couple of pictures of the tractor when we picked it up. This machine was a COVID project for the previous owner, and he made a number of modifications to the tractor. The biggest change is probably the engine swap that it has had. I am under the impression that it originally had a 4hp Briggs in it, but the previous owner said that he struggled to get parts for it, so he swapped in this 5hp model of a similar series. I have used the numbers on the engine tin to date the engine to the 15th of November 1978. From what I've seen from Paul's thread of the restoration of his Landmaster, the tractor itself was made in 1966, so the engine is 12 years younger. The previous owner told me he had it running and driving 18 months before he sold it, so a bit longer now but hopefully the engine will run without many issues. Other modifications include the chute on the side of the deck, which I quickly removed, pneumatic tyres, extensive deck repairs and the handlebars appear to have been cut off, and remounted upside-down using a T-joint. It has also been repainted, with some parts having the wrong colour on it such as the front wheels which should be white, and the engine could do with a lick of paint too, which should be white. The quality of the paint isn't the best, so probably needs some work in future Fast forward to a couple of days ago, when I began to look at this machine in more detail. I removed the handle bars and bonnet to gain better access to the engine, which seemed far more fiddly than it should have - this seems to be a pattern on this machine unfortunately! This wasn't helped by all imperial fixings being replaced with metric bolts of varying sizes. With these parts off I drained the fuel, as on this engine the carb is mounted on the fuel tank such that the tank appears to act as a fuel bowl - plus I didn't fancy pulling old fuel through the fuel system when I checked for a spark. We bought this pump years ago and have never used it for anything, beats syphoning the fuel by nearly drinking it. Glad I did drain it though, I wasn't very keen on how the old fuel looked or the sediment that was suspended in it. With the fuel drained I was happy to pull the engine over, so I used our spark plug tester to check for a spark, and as you can see below it did indeed have a spark so that's one less possible issues While I had the spark plug out (and it was easier to pull over) I took the opportunity to identify what all of the controls do. I don't have access to any sort of manual for the tractor, only for the engine so before this I wasn't sure how everything works. This uncovered a couple of issues, mainly that both the deck and drive belts coming off the engine pulley are not being disengaged enough when the clutch is pushed down, so I need to make some adjustments to allow the belts to slip when the deck is disengaged and the clutch pedal is pushed. The good news is that the brake appears to work, along with the forward-reverse gear change and 1st to 2nd. This is as far as I have got so far, next step is probably going to be lifting the front of the tractor to get access to the belt tensioners on the underside of the machine and making some adjustments. I'll post again if and when I make more notable progress.

Thank you very much for the birthday wishes and sorry for the late reply. I hope you are all well and I will try to get onto MOM more often

I have not logged onto MOM for a very long time but it looks like I timed it perfectly. Happy birthday Norm, I hope you are well and having a great birthday

Thank you for the birthday wishes Alan and Nigel, I had a very good day. Joseph

A second snow day – The sequel and time to try ploughing snow with the Westwood D1200 and the Bolens 1054. It was good to compare all three tractors

We did not need to wait long to try out our replica Bolens HT snow plough. It was a lot of fun and worked very well.

Our project to make a replica Bolens HT snow plough finished last week but it was a long session and we did not have the chance to talk about the project. In this video we talk about the project, the challenging parts and the bits we enjoyed most and what we would like to do next. This project would not have been possible without help from some great people. Thanks Chris Stoneman for letting us copy his blade, Rick (Bolens parts supplier) for supplying a hydraulic cylinder and Mark Smith (Restorationdecals.co.uk) for making and supplying the decals.

In this session we finish the project and we are very pleased with the way it turned out. All the parts are painted, everything is assembled and we gave it a quick test.It was a bit rushed and we were being very careful not to damage the paint, so we will do an overview of the project next weekend. We are now waiting for some snow! Thanks to Mark at restorationdecals for the decals

Very busy day today on the Bolens large frame snow plough replica as the aim was to get all the remaining parts made and all the existing parts repaired and cleaned ready for paint

Some more progress on the Bolens HT snow plough replica. In this video we start the repairs to the blade

A bit more progress on the snow plough. In this video we finish making the clevis forks and get the hydraulic cylinder cleaned up and painted with primer. I was very pleased with how the clevis forks turned out.

Further progress on the Bolens HT snow plough replica despite the workshop feeling like it is 10 degrees colder than outside and the outside temperature is at freezing point. The workshop soon warmed up or we got the hang of the temperature. We finished work on the swivel, started making the clevis forks and finished the main frame. Video of progress

Merry Christmas everyone! Hoping for a better year in 2021

We have put together a quick Christmas video. Merry Chrismas everyone and we hope to see you in 2021

We have a space heater but I think dad hides the fuel It would be great to have a wood burner in the workshop

A bit more done on the snow plough. This time we worked on the blade swivel bracket. We already had a swivel bracket from a different tractor which needed to be modified. A lot of work went into modifing this and it might have been easier to make one from scratch

A bit more progress on the Bolens HT snow plough replica. In this video we make up the brackets on the frame for the hydraulic cylinder and make the pins for the frame.

Thanks Alan. I think this is going to take much longer than I thought. Dad and I really missed not being able to catch up with you and the other members at RPT and TF this year. I hope you are well and a catchup is overdue

Further progress on the Bolens HT snow plow replica. In this video, we do more welding on the frame and finish the mount for the swivel

Thanks Norm. Yes, we are very lucky to have some good tools and it is great to have a project to help learn more about using them

We had another day on the project. It was a day of cutting, drilling, milling and welding. Video update of progress

Great to see someone else from Norfolk. We are still on the lookout for a roundhood. Looking forward to following this

We were hit had with the beast from the east a couple of years ago and it would be good to have something similar, but only after the plough is built and assuming we have plenty of fire wood in the house. I have been spending too much time on US forums, where nobody knows what you mean if you call it a plough

It looks fantastic as a four wheel tractor and it will be good to see it in action

It has been a while since we have have posted. We have started a new project which is to build a replica of the Bolens large frame snow/dirt blade, Bolens part number 18085. The simple rule is that it is not allowed to snow until we are finished This is a very rare attachment and realistically our only chance of owning one is to make a replica. Chris Stoneman recently purchased one of the few know to exisit in the UK and we picked it up for him which gave us the chance to take lots of measurements. Chris's blade did not come with the lift push rods and we need some help with those. In the manual, it says that the distance between the centre line of the holes in the clevis rodes is 26-1/2" which gives a bit of an insight into the lengths of the rods. We did some searching on the Internet and that highlighted that the push rods are 20" long for the early large frames and 22-1/2" long for the HT's. We will be fitting this to our HT20 which suggests we need to make 22-1/2" rods. If someone has this attachement I would be grateful if you can measure the length of the push rods and confirm if they are 22-1/2". Also it would be helpful to know the length of the threaded part of the rod. Thanks in advance. At the moment we get one tractor day a week so this project will take a while but it should be fun and I hope you follow along. I am making some notes of the work we are doing and making videos of the progress. In today's video I cover the preperation and cutting of the metal.