This RJ turned up at the workshop today

[nigel 1,876]

1953 rj 

[harryt 281]

Is that another restoration project? I like the look of them both!

[slf-uk 914]

Very nice, love it. Looks like Santa came early for you Nigel.

 

Iain

[Chris 642]

RJs & D200s

 

Lucky grumpy old man

[nigel 1,876]

It's not mine 🙁☹️ It's Neil's, at the moment, 🙄The suburban on the bench is mine

[nigel 1,876]

51 minutes ago, slf-uk said:

Very nice, love it. Looks like Santa came early for you Nigel.

 

Iain

I wish all I get is socks 🙁

[nigel 1,876]

16 minutes ago, Chris said:

RJs & D200s

 

Lucky grumpy old man

I used to be a grumpy babe magnet once I hope you know 😀

[neil 524]

Junior has gone to visit his baby brother at the hospital and was a little sad to see him on the operating table but he knew he was in safe hands and was delighted to see his younger brother was making a  massive recovery and was looking much better and that the colour was beginning to return to his once lifeless body . junior has desided to stay with his baby brother for a short while to have a little surgery done himself .

[the showman 4,074]

Nice looking pair, what size tyres did you put on the back of the 401 they look big ?

[DougC 63]

Awesome little horsey!  

[Ian 2,417]

A little RJ update, she (Is it a she Neil?) has moved onto my bench ready for work to start on it Friday, it's a kinda joint mini project with Nigel..

It's going to be interesting working on such an old and fine machine

 

 

 

[neil 524]

Wow , I'm delighted my little baby is is on the operating table  this little tractor used to belong to the Straight from the horses mouth author  Michael Martino  and if I remember rightly he said it was a He , 

[neil 524]

 

 

 

 

Here is a little guide as to what it supposed to look like , this model has the black rear wheels & silver front wheels .

these little tractors were actually built buy Cecil Pond himself .

 

 

[Cub Cadet 613]

27 minutes ago, neil said:

Wow , I'm delighted my little baby is is on the operating table  this little tractor used to belong to the Straight from the horses mouth author  Michael Martino  and if I remember rightly he said it was a He , 

 

Thats a cool bit of history to have! Great little machines 

[Ian 2,417]

On 18/01/2017 at 9:15 PM, neil said:

Wow , I'm delighted my little baby is is on the operating table  this little tractor used to belong to the Straight from the horses mouth author  Michael Martino  and if I remember rightly he said it was a He , 

 

It's a pleasure to be helping on such a machine Neil, a great bit of history with it too..   A "he" it is

 

On 18/01/2017 at 9:29 PM, neil said:

 

 

 

 

Here is a little guide as to what it supposed to look like , this model has the black rear wheels & silver front wheels .

these little tractors were actually built buy Cecil Pond himself .

 

 

 

Ta for that photo Neil, it helped a great deal working out how the pulley system worked

I'm not sure about the silver steering wheel though, what is the correct colour as I've seen em painted silver, black and red..

 

 

It didn't take long to get the belt guard and hood off..

 

 

 

The first job was to have a look at the engine, it has good compression and after a bit of plug and plug lead cleaning it has a spark

 

 

 

I expect with a temporary gas tank fitted and a bit of move juice the engine should come to life.. Something to look forward to on Monday

 

 

The engine pulley is not quite in the right place on the shaft, it should be closer to the engine..

 

 

 

Me thinks the pulley needs to turn a little on the shaft as well..

 

 

 

Having not worked on an RJ or any really early Wheel Horses before this er.. brassy bit on the back of the pulley confused me for quite a while until I worked out it's the reverse er.. cog

 

 

 

In fact the whole drive belt system confused me for a while until I disconnected this spring and then everything fell into place..

 

 

 

 

With the RJ's engine having a good spark the time had come to look at the carb..

 

 

 

An interesting find behind the carb... Me thinks that gasket might be a bit small!

 

 

 

Everything moved freely in the carb, so with a new gasket made (your see it in an up and coming video) the carb was bolted back on and a temporary fuel tank lashed up.

 

 

 

A few pulls of the cord (steel cable in this case!) and the engine coughed into life and ran for a few seconds before stopping, which was just as well as the carb was leaking fuel from around the float bowl in vast amounts!

 

Off with the carb again, ahhh there's the problem!

 

 

 

As luck would have it Nigel had a spare carb which I could borrow to check out how the engine runs..  Thanks mate

 

 

 

A few pulls of the cord later and the engine didn't start... One "big" pull later the pull cord came off in my hand but the engine did start, run and sounded very nice until it ran out of petrol and I gave myself a shock from the HT lead! 

All of which you will see in a video of course

 

I thought I had snapped the steel cable pull cord thingy (I hadn't seen on either) until a saw how long it still was and checked the (not so) snapped end!

 

 

 

As it turned out the nut that holds the end of the cable on was loose and the steel cable had simply pulled out!    Phew

 

 

 

While we have the pull start assembly apart let's turn it over and have a look..... What the???

 

 

 

Pull the cord and the center changes into a hexagonal shape!

 

 

 

Which grips on a hexagonal shaft on the flywheel!

I've never seen a pull start that works like that before... Me likes

 

 

 

Then this happened

 

 

 

 

This is a good point to put up a RJ Intro vid, the first part of "The RJ Diary's" should be up later today

 

 

 

 

[neil 524]

I am sooooo exited to see this happening & that my little baby is in good  hands , I have plenty more projects waiting for your expertise Ian . I have contacted Michael Martino to let him know that you guys are now working on his old tractor .

[Ian 2,417]

 

 

[neil 524]

Not sure if it was discussed with you guys but was there any talk in repainting said RJ  ? 

Loving the vids 

[nigel 1,876]

yes ime going to give it a spray coat of paint neil cos the bonnets full of filler and rusted up its a shame realy cos the rest wasnt to bad , but you wont match it

[Ian 2,417]

Speak with you tomorrow Neil, it's been a long day!

 

Here's a couple of pic's of what's hiding under the filler bubbles on the hood!

 

 

[neil 524]

Oo , that's not pretty , filler looks quite deep , although  I did know that there was some filler work on the hood .

 

[Ian 2,417]

On 26/01/2017 at 11:03 PM, neil said:

Not sure if it was discussed with you guys but was there any talk in repainting said RJ  ? 

Loving the vids 

 

Paint chat now had, he (I keep going to call him her!) will look stunning with fresh paint.

Glad you like the vid's, Part two will be along in a mo..

 

On 27/01/2017 at 5:35 PM, nigel said:

yes ime going to give it a spray coat of paint neil cos the bonnets full of filler and rusted up its a shame realy cos the rest wasnt to bad , but you wont match it

 

It's a shame about the cracked filler, but the rust has been caught in time before it chews holes through the hood..

 

 

On 28/01/2017 at 7:42 AM, neil said:

Oo , that's not pretty , filler looks quite deep , although  I did know that there was some filler work on the hood .

 

 

Lot's of filler in it, but it had been done to a very high standard.. Just a shame about the bubbling.

 

As promised here's Part 2 of the RJ Diaries..

 

 

[Ian 2,417]

More of an RJ update for you chaps, let's have a look at the hood/bonnet shall we..

 

Interesting, a repainted gas tank with no fuel tap (Neil did mention it leaked ) and lot's of paint cleaned off the bottom!

 

 

 

What's going on under (or is that above?) the tank?

 

 

 

Soooooo... Someone has ground back the filler smoothing out the underside of the hood/bonnet to weld on new fuel tank straps! 

I'd guess when the hood was painted no tank straps were fitted.. It so happen that the strap welds are in the same place as the filler cracks above!

 

 

 

Who ever did it thought something sucked as that's what it looks like has been written!

No idea why when I upload this photo it turns it sideways!

 

 

 

Oh, and the top of the tank never got painted!

 

 

 

Out with the grinder and a workshop full of filler dust later it was good to see the rust was surface rust only, and only where the filler had cracked...    And a random pop rivet!

 

 

 

As the bonnet/hood has quite a lot of ripples under the filler, there was no point in taking it all out only to replace it.. So with the surface rust carefully cleaned back to bare metal the first layer of filler went back in..

 

 

 

Easy sand no pin holes filler eh! At least the easy sand bit was right.. No worries, a second skim will sort it.

 

 

 

Meanwhile I catch Nigel dancing with some masking tape and a bench full of RJ parts!

 

 

 

Some parts like the gear (I'm not sure it should be called that!) lever had never be repainted, so here it is with all the thick surface rust cleaned off awaiting some red oxide primer.

 

 

 

Some parts in the "need to to have the paint flattened back to give the primer a good key" Que

 

 

 

Some primed parts hanging about the place.

 

 

 

The hood now looks good with a fresh coat of red oxide primer, I'm happy with the overall shape of my filler work, there's a just a couple of little spots that are annoying me.. I will sort them tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

[neil 524]

This is awesome guys , I'm so looking forward to seeing the end result & I'm delighted with this restoration thread , I never though it would get to have a dedicated thread on its revival .

[Ian 2,417]

On 02/02/2017 at 4:48 AM, neil said:

This is awesome guys , I'm so looking forward to seeing the end result & I'm delighted with this restoration thread , I never though it would get to have a dedicated thread on its revival .

 

Glad your enjoying the build Neil, how could we not do a thread when there are so few RJ's over here...  It gives me something extra to make a few video's about as well

 

More progress..

 

Getting the knackered tyre off the front wheel rim was fun, the tube put up more of a fight than the tyre!

 

 

 

Does anyone know what the random hole in the wheel rim is for? It doesn't seem to line up with anything on the RJ and I'd of thought it would have two holes for bolting a wheel weight onto!

 

 

 

I wondered why the paint off the bottom of the gas tank had been stripped, someone has done a solder repair..

 

 

 

What's Nigel spotted in the tank?

 

 

 

Nope, it's not a mini star system but quite a few holes instead!

 

 

 

 

Some detail brought back by cleaning up  the pull start casing..

 

 

 

Cleaning up the rear wheels.. Someone at some point had flattened the paint back to a beautiful smooth finish and then for what ever reason gave them a quick (very quick) spray with grey primer..   The odd rusty bit cleans up very easily

 

 

 

The other rear wheel decided it wanted to leak water on my bench!     10psi later and water was pouring/bubbling out all over the place!    I'm not looking forward to popping the tyre off the bead to clean the water out and see how badly rusted it is inside!

I must remember to take a photo of the tyre valve tomorrow as I've never seen one like it!

 

 

 

A hint of things to come

 

 

 

Not forgetting of course