Iainr
Part of things
Posts: 34
|
|
Dec 17, 2018 17:19:26 GMT
|
This is my first real post to this forum but I have been lurking for about three years. Work and family commitments have curtailed my car time over recent years however all is not lost and I have found something smaller that better fits the time I have available. A combination of a large garden and a dislike of modern equipment pointed me in the direction of 1960-80's garden tractors. For those that don't know, these are a similar size to a ride-on lawn mower but capabable of using ground engaging attachements (eg. plough, rotovator, etc) much like a compact tractor.
My son, Joseph who is now 11 has also taken an interest and we now work on projects together, which is great. We are in the process of discussing what will be our Christmas projects.
We post on a couple of subject related forums but I was unsure if this is of interest to people on here. If people are interested please let me know and I will post more.
It looks like my pictures did not post, need to try again.
Thanks Iain
|
|
Last Edit: May 12, 2019 8:43:07 GMT by Iainr
|
|
|
Iainr
Part of things
Posts: 34
|
|
Dec 17, 2018 18:42:29 GMT
|
1962 Bolens Ride-a-matic 1971 Bolens Husky 1054 Wheelhorse D-160 1961 Bolens Ride-a-matic (painted blue by a PO)
|
|
|
|
Frankenhealey
Club Retro Rides Member
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death
Posts: 3,875
Club RR Member Number: 15
|
|
Dec 17, 2018 18:53:38 GMT
|
You know, they say that after the nuclear/environmental/asteroid strike apocalypse that the last thing moving on the surface of the earth would be a giant cockroach driving a 1960's Wheelhorse. I love them
|
|
Tales of the Volcano Lair hereFrankenBug - Vulcan Power hereThe Frankenhealey here
|
|
|
|
Dec 17, 2018 19:37:16 GMT
|
owned 3 wheelhorses, worked every one of them in heavy ground maintenance, including ploughing an ground levelling ,clearance etc with homebuilt heavy duty, towed implements, criminal to work them that hard but they took it all,
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I am pretty sure you know Stigian by now, everyone does. I keep looking for a sub £80.00 one with steel hood and parts rather than plastic cowls etc, as they do exist. One day, I will have one too, regardless of brand, and probably not alas good or vintage as yours. Keep posting.
|
|
|
|
ckerr
Part of things
Posts: 257
|
|
|
Quick question and it may be a stupid one, but what are the legalities of riding one of these on the road? Do they follow the same law as say a vintage tractor? or is it completely out of the question?
|
|
|
|
Iainr
Part of things
Posts: 34
|
|
Dec 18, 2018 12:58:23 GMT
|
You know, they say that after the nuclear/environmental/asteroid strike apocalypse that the last thing moving on the surface of the earth would be a giant cockroach driving a 1960's Wheelhorse. I love them
You are not wrong, engineered to a quality not a price
owned 3 wheelhorses, worked every one of them in heavy ground maintenance, including ploughing an ground levelling ,clearance etc with homebuilt heavy duty, towed implements, criminal to work them that hard but they took it all, Even though some of our equipment is over 50 years old, it is still worked hard and always delivers
I am pretty sure you know Stigian by now, everyone does. I keep looking for a sub £80.00 one with steel hood and parts rather than plastic cowls etc, as they do exist. One day, I will have one too, regardless of brand, and probably not alas good or vintage as yours. Keep posting. Yes, I know Ian. He was kind enough to let me drive one of his tractors around a show arena last year.
I have bought project tractors for around £100. Depends on your use but if you are not planning to use ground engaging attachments, an older Westwood could work well.
Quick question and it may be a stupid one, but what are the legalities of riding one of these on the road? Do they follow the same law as say a vintage tractor? or is it completely out of the question? A couple of my tractors are road registered and the insurance covers road use. As such, I would assume it is the same as a vintage tractor but I have not tested this assumption with plod yet. As they are legally road registered, I don’t see this as an issue.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dec 18, 2018 13:58:09 GMT
|
Certainly for me its just a toy to make pretty and have it make me grin.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dec 18, 2018 15:55:30 GMT
|
I am pretty sure you know Stigian by now, everyone does. I keep looking for a sub £80.00 one with steel hood and parts rather than plastic cowls etc, as they do exist. One day, I will have one too, regardless of brand, and probably not alas good or vintage as yours. Keep posting. yup Stigian is a clever guy,paid 80 for the 8 speed,91 for the 5speed,both needing work,but didnt mind doing it, they lasted over 4 years,box disintegrated on one,chassis broke on the other, then bought a black hood for 65 as they are not well regarded in wh circles,however installed an 11hp briggs an stratton,with a mounting plate,(original was blown) and it took everything that was thrown at it.worked over 40hrs a week,and just ploughed on through,far as i know its still in the mountains in spain,it towed 40/ft plus trees when i cut them down,towed a 8ft trailer loaded with concrete blocks which actually flattened the aircraft tyres it was running on,it even dragged a ten foot by 8 foot shed across some rough field! had just changed the oil and put a new belt on it when we left,and was locked in a shed, may go an see if its still there next year when i visit, As to you searching for one under a hundred,so am i, LOL HAVE IT SAVED in ebay searches,however just had a knee operation last week,so am out of the game for a while till it heals and we know what its going to be like!
|
|
|
|
Iainr
Part of things
Posts: 34
|
|
Dec 24, 2018 16:55:31 GMT
|
yup Stigian is a clever guy,paid 80 for the 8 speed,91 for the 5speed,both needing work,but didnt mind doing it, they lasted over 4 years,box disintegrated on one,chassis broke on the other, then bought a black hood for 65 as they are not well regarded in wh circles,however installed an 11hp briggs an stratton,with a mounting plate,(original was blown) and it took everything that was thrown at it.worked over 40hrs a week,and just ploughed on through,far as i know its still in the mountains in spain,it towed 40/ft plus trees when i cut them down,towed a 8ft trailer loaded with concrete blocks which actually flattened the aircraft tyres it was running on,it even dragged a ten foot by 8 foot shed across some rough field! had just changed the oil and put a new belt on it when we left,and was locked in a shed, may go an see if its still there next year when i visit, As to you searching for one under a hundred,so am i, LOL HAVE IT SAVED in ebay searches,however just had a knee operation last week,so am out of the game for a while till it heals and we know what its going to be like!
Agreed, Ian is a very clever guy. Great story on your Wheelhorses. I hope your knee heals quickly
|
|
|
|
|
Iainr
Part of things
Posts: 34
|
|
Dec 24, 2018 17:04:09 GMT
|
Over the last couple of years my son has chosen our Christmas projects. Today we got his chosen tractors out of storage ready for some workshop fun. A very diverse choice this year A 1980's Westwood D1200 diesel lawn tractor. We last used this back in 2010 and I can't remember what's wrong with it. Our Wheelhorse D-160 which was last running about 18mths ago and has some electrical issues and a Bolens Husky 1054 which we have never had running but have already put a lot of time into
|
|
|
|
Iainr
Part of things
Posts: 34
|
|
Dec 28, 2018 20:14:08 GMT
|
We have the Westwood diesel working without too many issues. A few wiring issues, new battery and oil etc. The biggest issue was one tyres was peppered with thorns and in addition to picking them out of the tyre, we had four punctures to repair. With the Westwood up and running, we gave it a quick clean and polish and it looks much better
|
|
|
|
jabbo
Posted a lot
soy un perdedor
Posts: 1,151
|
|
Dec 30, 2018 19:20:15 GMT
|
Nice collection.
The Westwood is definitely looking better after a little tlc.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I was looking at the first pic's you posted Iain, and I thought I'd seen the tractors somewhere before!! Fancy bumping in to you here
|
|
My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
|
|
Iainr
Part of things
Posts: 34
|
|
|
I was looking at the first pic's you posted Iain, and I thought I'd seen the tractors somewhere before!! Fancy bumping in to you here
Hi Ian, I have been a long term lurker on here and I thought it was about time I contributed something, even if it is tame compared to your builds.
|
|
|
|
Iainr
Part of things
Posts: 34
|
|
|
After getting the Westwood sorted, it was on to the Wheelhorse D-160 which did not go as well. We first threw some new electrical components at it - coil, points, condenser and HT lead. We didn't change the plug because this was changed in an attempt at a quick fix a while back. A quick test highlighted the same issues, so each component was carefully checked and the fault was as simple as the spark plug. It looks like the spark plug was failing and the new one I replaced it with had the same issue. This is the first time I have had problems with NGK plugs. Having sorted the electrical issues, it was onto the fuel side. The carb and fuel pump were stripped and cleaned and a new fuel pipe and tap fitted. The tractor was started up and after waiting for it to get warm, I started the fine adjustments on the carb. This is when my son, Joseph started to jump up and down pointing and screaming something I couldn't hear over the sound of the exhaust. I walked around the other side of the tractor to investigate and discovered we had smoke and flames under the battery tray, not good! In fact it is never good to let the smoke escape from the wires :-) Investigation showed that the rectifier is toast
|
|
|
|
Iainr
Part of things
Posts: 34
|
|
|
I have been reading some threads and I noticed that workshop cats appear to be a theme. As such, let me intoduce Sherbet. He is great company but yet to understand the difference between a A/F and metric spanner All of our cats are wild and work for a living. Despite being wild a few like Sherbet are remarkably tame and affectionate.
|
|
Last Edit: Jan 8, 2019 18:14:48 GMT by Iainr
|
|
|
|
|
I have been reading some thread and I noticed that workshop cats appear to be a theme. As such, let me intoduce Sherbet. He is great company but yet to understand the difference between a A/F and metric spanner All of our cats are wild and work for a living. Despite being wild a few like Sherbet are remarkably tame and affectionate. Welcome Sherbet As long as he realises he will be working for a living here too..... Entertainment for the masses. I think even feral cats know a good thing, and they are affectionate and will sucker punch you just when you least expect to fall for them.
|
|
Last Edit: Jan 8, 2019 17:50:32 GMT by grizz
|
|
Iainr
Part of things
Posts: 34
|
|
Jan 13, 2019 20:46:58 GMT
|
Very little progress on our projects this weekend as the parts we were waiting for didn't arrive in time. I like to plan for the worse and hope for the best. As such, last weekend we borrowed some parts from another tractor and got the Wheelhorse D160 running.
My son likes to create videos of our projects and host them on Youtube. Clearly subscribing to his channel is optional but if you did you would make him very happy. Here is the video of the D160
His channel also contains videos of some of our other tractors.
|
|
|
|
Iainr
Part of things
Posts: 34
|
|
Jan 19, 2019 19:03:09 GMT
|
We have just completed a LED headlight upgrade on our 1974 Bolens HT20. The standard lights are a sealed unit, which is also fitted to full size tractors of the same age. They are an odd size and some research was required to find a unit similar to the original. This is a picture of our Bolens HT23 with standard lights Many people who do the upgrade fit a more common size unit but they don't look right. We did mock this up first and we did not like it. I am sure we could have modified the frame but it would have still been a flat lens This is our HT20 after the upgrade My son Joseph made a video of the work we did and some background information about the lights fitted to these tractors. I made him edit out the bit where I fell off the back of the tractor holding the camera, although I suspect he would have got more views if he left it in
|
|
Last Edit: Jan 19, 2019 19:05:36 GMT by Iainr
|
|
|