Darren Portsmouth (Darmic1)

Hi Pete
I have pm’d you…….
Regards
Darren

Had the tyres and tubes fitted yesterday, also reassembled the big cast 20″ wheels. The cleats are set different on each wheel. One set with an in/out pattern which runs on the unploughed ground…. The other with cleats set pointing out, this wheel runs in the furrow and doesn’t tear up the furrow edge set this way!

The last of the blasting collected and painted…… 20″ ploughing wheels and 8″ with rubber tyres too!

Handlebars all rebuilt, throttle cable and grips refitted……

I took advantage of some time off work and went to meet Titch at Machinery Decals…… What a great guy! Spent an entire day with him, chatting, drinking tea and watching how he makes his fine decals! Speaking of which…… Here are some made for the Farmers Boy, fitted and looking awesome!

More painting…… and a tiny bit of detail high lighting the Farmers Boy name…..

Next came putting the engine back together with the air shroud and fuel tank…..

Looks like I need to bring this post up to date?
well, the 8mm spacer has been cut, drilled and painted. Lifting the engine with this plate should give me about 10mm clearance over the new bigger tyres…..

Here’s the finished machine and a short video of it running……

A few last little jobs, 1st was to paint and refit the air cleaner, next was to make the support bracket and fit it…..

Ordered some 4mm rubber sheet to remake the soil/stone flap. once fitted I put the rotor cover back on.

Once the engine was refitted, the problems began…… This little engine refused to start, It would cough, it would chug, it would puff the tiniest amount of smoke…… But it would not go! I tried everything, the timing was set correctly, the points were set correctly, the plug was gapped correctly…. I lost count of the number of times I took…[Read more]

Once all the paint had dried totally, I started putting it back together…..

The wheels were given a makeover next…..

The frame and covers were stripped and followed the same paint regime as all my other restorations…

I took the engine cowling along to my paint suppliers and they matched some for me. Its strange that in 1958 they could make a metallic gloss finish in a one coat paint, yet today it has to be a base coat followed by a clear lacquer? The cowling, recoil housing and fuel tank were given a strip down to bare metal, etch primed, paint and finally a…[Read more]

The bearings and seals were also shot so new ones were collected locally. Was surprised to find that despite this machine being from 1958, the bearings and seals were metric? Once it was all back together, I gave the barrel a light coat of dark grey and also painted the exhaust with VHT paint.

I made a start stripping down the JAP 34cc engine and ignition to try to find why it suddenly stopped? Imagine my surprise when I discovered no points or condenser??? A bit more hunting revealed a small metal box screwed to the back of the magneto plate. It turned out to be a ‘Meco’ electronic ignition….. No matter what I did I could not get a…[Read more]

Hi Shaun
I would also like a manual for the Minor…… Unfortunately I haven’t been able to.find one either. I used straight sae30 non EP in my gearbox, there is a filler at the top of the gearbox……. I cant remember if there is a level plug or not. But there is a drain plug/bolt on the lowest point of the gearbox.
Darren