Ian

A nice job Norm, it fit's a treat and almost looks factory

Very funny Noel, thanks for posting it

Nope, not a "making something on a lathe" thread, but a "using the best bits from two lathes" sort of thing My 80+ year old Southbend lathe has served me well for many a year and all sorts of things have been made on it, but lately it has been suffering with belt slip problems and as you can see from the photo the bench it is on is starting to bend! My other lathe is/was a TW Monoturn which to put it politely is very worn! The base is good (apart from a crack in it) and the motor is very strong.. The rest is scrap really! Strip down of the Southbend to make it lighter to move about.. A chance to give it a good clean as well.. The TW Monoturn soon looked like this.. And eventually it was reduced to a pile of parts. Rather than use the lathe base/tray legs I will be using just the tray. The bench will be strengthened a huge amount to take the extra weight of the tray and bigger motor. This is only a mock-up so the big bits of box will go and the tray mounted level on the bench once I have cut a hole for the drain bit on the tray which is lower than the rest of the tray.. The lathe and tray look good together, a good time worn match

That's a cool machine, it does well for it's size.

Nice work on the barn doors Mark, the green front door in the photo looks very small in comparison!

I think it will lift the front wheels up Nice work Norm, and much more fun than a lift cable

That looks like great fun Mark For some reason we don't seem to do "mudding" on our tractors in the UK, maybe this is the UK introduction to mudding

We are very glad it's sorted Chris, I'm sure I even saw Nigel crack a smile and do a little dance when it ran properly

That will be a nice workshop when your done Noel, it looks quite a handy size

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!

Nice work there Norm, of course you understand that we need a "first lift of the 3 point with someone standing on the arms" video

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

That's a nice find Noel.. Of course you know that once you have bought one Wheel Horse you will find it very hard not to buy more... The red paint gets in the blood you see

As snow goes it could be a lot worse, but it was still a bit of a shock to see this this morning!

I have no idea Harry, I wonder if any other machines use the same type of pad? Do you have a photo of the old ones?

Although I'm busy with Project Horse Gut at the mo, I'm still thinking about the flame throwers and how to make them... During the week a small fuel tank turned up (thanks Dave ), I think it's from an Atco? It is a nice fit under the bonnet By the time it's painted red you won't even notice it with the bonnet closed.. Stealth flames

My wife was asking me what I want for a preesie this year... Think I know now

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

I have just found this video, so I thought I'd add it... Maybe the best sounding Grey Fergie ever

A couple of nice finds there It's a shame about the fuel tank, I'd be inclined to cut it in half, beat the two halfs back into shape and weld it back together.. It's worth a go and you have nowt to loose

That's a fun little video, thanks for posting it It reminds me of this vid which I'm sure you will of all seen before..

Happy birthday Doug, here's wishing you a good and pressie filled day

A slightly late Happy Birthday Koen, I hope you had a good day without too much of a hangover the following day

That's not good mate, keeping my fingers crossed for a drier winter for ya..