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Offered without comment.....but not for the purist's among us.....

After cutting out, the hull was joined together with cable ties at 20cm intervals along it's length. There was a bit of trimming required to make the middle join how I wanted, but no big deal. The shape wasn't quite right with the bow rising too sharply like a banana, whereas I wanted it flat. This was simply a case of marking where I wanted it and then cutting. You can see the progression in the photographs. At this point I didn't have any epoxy resin so the whole boat was built then dismantled a few weeks later when the resin arrived. The transom (stern) was made of scraps and hollow except for reinforcing for the outboard motor. At this point the boat is just one sheet of ply - but I wanted style and safety so decided to add a deck to prevent water coming in. The outboard is a Volvo Penta Archimedes - a cracking little 2 stroke 4hp that cost exactly £50.

The scale model was built and then there were no more excuses - let's build this thing! Weapon of choice was a little Japanese pull saw - this project was almost entirely done by hand.

That's the funniest thing I've seen in a while! 28MPH would make me nervous. They must have really toned the steering down on that thing. Pretty sure his third point of contact has a good grip on the seat...

I'm surprised that he could set on it. Someone that would ride a lawn tractor at 108 MPH has got some big you know what's.

I’m happy with no snow here in central Ct. I did upgrade my walk behind Ariens snowblower, back in November, to a newer model with a brighter headlight and heated hand grips. Haven’t used it once! Kinda feel bad for the landscape guys that make a living clearing snow in the winter months, gotta be tough on them.

Just browsing a certain online auction site, saw these, and thought that these may be of interest? They are apparently for motorcycles and other small engines. Cutters are allegedly carbide, so should last a while? Price £22.99p, so not a huge amount. It would probably cost as much to have an engineering firm re-cut a couple of valve seats.

The next stage was a scale model, which I used to build the boat from. This also allowed me to play with concepts for artwork on the finished boat. It's also available to make if anyone wants the file

I have a set of manual seat cutters that were old when I got them over fifty years ago. They don't have the abrasive stones, just the cutters. I have used them on small engines and automotive applications.

One of the reasons I have been crazy busy was this little project. As usual my Christmas is spent at work away from family. We are no longer allowed to drink and the last few have been dire affairs. The three usual suspects onboard (Me, Captain Ian and Ivan the third mate) decided that this year we would entertain the troops. The format decided upon was a boat race in Lerwick Harbour on Christmas day. We agreed that to keep costs down the boat would be made out of a sheet of plywood. The engine budget was to be £50. Lots of discussion and debate ensued and then eventually we brought wood and got on with it. I started with a bottle of rum and some cardboard one evening and made a model to check my ideas worked. To be continued.....

He's going to have to find stainless steel blades!

Yep this wasn't gonna work...cleaned up and running good now. This was the offset lever style. On to other issues.

If you know anyone taking down a trampoline, the springs make great chain tighteners! 😉

The cutters shown are likely cheap imports and quality may vary. If the cost is low it might be worth a try. When using a carbide cutter, turn slowly to prevent chatter. I use Neway valve seat cutters, they are rather expensive but the carbide inserts are easily replaced. I grind the valves on a surface grinder using a Harig Grind All.

Not sure it works. About five years ago I was lamblasted for replacing my blowers with plows. "you'll cause some major blizzards" After this year, I'll probably replace the heated plow tractors with air conditioned mowers.

The day started at 0 degrees, high forecasted of 16. It’s a beautiful winter day!

I have never melted lead before so I decided to make a couple molds and give it a try. This was the first batch. The second batch looked much better. Second batch in the skillet. I finally got it all cut up and ready to process.

Personal preference of course. For me at least, I'd rather deal with low rpm vibes than have a window installed in the block. Very difficult to find a K341 block nowadays.

One of our cooks goes by the nickname "The Dude" due to his laid back approach to life. His boss had been trying to get him to replace his galley safety boots, and it's been a long running war with no winner. Everytime new boots are ordered they mysteriously dissappear so the old ones can continue. As the conflict escalated the dude asked me if I could paint his boots red. Of course that was no problem, but me being me I thought we could do better than that. I hate myself sometimes, painting them red would have taken minutes, whereas the logo took hours of painstaking cutting out. It was worth it though! I have now been commissioned to do it to the new boots with proper leather paint - that way everyone wins and peace is restored to the galley.

They were throwing this in the skip the other day at work. All her original searchlights have been replaced with tiny modern units. I thought it would make a great coffee table, remove the base and sit it in a nice wooden cradle of some sort. I also have the control panel from the console so will incorporate that into the design. It's a "next winter" projects still have another shed, porch and patio area to build.

So here it is… my newly acquired 1977 C-160. Drove 89 miles one way to scoop her up… So far here are the obvious things that will need doing… 1. Oil change 2. Check/ charge battery 3. Investigate why my electrical hoses were leaking smoke while I was trying to unload her. 4. Repair or rewire those smoking hoses. 5. When I get her running, flush and refill transmission. 6. Rub down her work clothes with a penetrating fluid to freshen up her threads. 7. Replace front wheel bearings… hope the lack of which did not ruin front spindles. 8. Replace shifter boot. And that’s just a start… here are a few pics…

C105, 416-H, 312-8, Legacy XL, 425, 420. Probably end of February ill order a loader for the 425. 420 is bigger but its got that Onan...and i trust the 425 more to invest in a loader.

yeah it’s cool. Definitely splurged for the 22hp predator engine…the 6.5hp couldn’t do that

Cause he don't want me to dig the gold out of his teeth with a rusty old hack saw blade to make some shims ...

Number 1. Yes, it's a cigarette lighter socket, the older 's came with one, when they changed the black dash cover they left it out, but the hole for it is still in the dash behind it. It's for the LED Amber beacon. Number 2. This is the L-R switch for the electric chute control on the snowblower. Once again it's in a factory hole that was for an electric clutch, & is covered up by the newer style dash. Here is a pic of an older style dash with the holes... Number 3. This is a LED license plate light I mounted to an old magnetic Hide-A-Key box wired to the light switch. It lights up the dash & controls perfectly without putting glare on the windows of the cab. All lights are controlled by the dash switch except the beacon. I don't like drilling holes in my 's if I can avoid it, that's why I mounted it on a magnet, works great.

Put this one to rest today. Thinking about the next one

Here's G II Don. I added the front weight bracket to both of mine.

Appears to be original Bosch starter. Starter mount looks OK and pretty stout. Tuff to bend that. No only other starter I have like this is on a '68 Raider 12. Was hoping some had one to measure or count teeth on. This one has 16 teeth. Just the pic Don they mesh fine.

Of course anything I touch mechanically will probably be painted knowing me…😆 will be hard to resist…

Well I repainted and semi-restored my 1994 520H and 1984 Work Horse GT-1600, so considering how the 1977 C-160 doesn’t seem to be beat up real bad I thought about going patina… just doing a little mechanical stuff…

You know, the more of these we restore the more I think that's the ONLY way to go...

I noticed this when replacing the solenoid. Shims behind the starter and coil mount. From the seen it all files... hacksaw blades??? Here's why. Bendix isn't even close to ring gear. Any thoughts why? Teeth don't look all that worn. Wrong Bendix gear?

https://www.surpluscenter.com/Power-Transmission/ They have the keyed shafts, sprockets, chain, bearings etc etc Compare what you ordered to the cost on here. You can go to town on this site for the majority of custom build stuff. Even get some inspiration for other things.

Here is one, you can go to the manuals section, choose year, then type in you model in the search box... This is a link, click on download this file below...

Done and installed. Keeps lateral plow frame movement to ±0.25"

I opted for 5.5mm plywood, and could have used 3mm for the deck but didn't bother as the weight was within allowances. Completed boat only weighed 27kg which was quite good. You can see the calculations on my boat building computer - we worked out that the hull could in theory hold 350kg. I built another model and using scale weights tested it in the ships galley at 3am. The depth the model sat in the water was incredibly accurate when later compared to the real boat. This was done due to boredom as the actual boat was at home and I couldn't work on it.

I've thought about doing something similar but, I just have to remind myself "it sure beats the manual lift".

I have used Neway cutters for valve seats several times. I have always turned them by hand, never with a machine.

Annoyingly I lost - will get to that later! But I am a firm believer in mind games, this was all part of the buildup - beat them before we even start. I also had custom made coffee mugs for the fanclub.

The old style carbon steel type cutters gained a reputation for losing their sharpness very quickly. This was generally a result of trying to cut seats that had ‘Work hardened’, (Hammered), over time. But if you first gave the seats a quick grind, with coarse paste, this removed much of the hardened layer and the cutters had a much easier life cutting the relatively soft cast iron. The carbide type cutters don’t suffer as badly from this. looking at the design of these, I would think that anyone with a lathe could quickly ’Knock Up’ a tool the exact size they need for pennies and a little time spent. The inserts could be any carbide insert they have ‘laying’ around, (within reason’). Even new inserts are not horrendously expensive, (e**y). Body made to accept different size pilot pins to suit the size of the valve guide in question. And while you’re at it, make a reverse ‘image’ of the tool, with an internal taper to match the valve angle, a bore to accept removable bushes to suit the size of the valve stem, slots cut into the tapered face to allow the inserts to be adjusted to suit valve head diameter. Insert valve in tool, hold stem in cordless drill chuck, switch on and pull. It would probably only take a few seconds to reface the valve. Another good reason for owning a lathe👍

All: A while back, I posted regarding finding a suitable replacement for the almost unobtainable Lucas Green X-Tra HD grease that some (most??) here regard to be the best suited product to keep our WH toys alive.... First off a tip of the WH cap to three members - @peter lena, @Handy Don, and our resident YT guy @Pullstart....... I recently bought 2 late 1960's gear drive cutting decks - a rather nice 32" and a roached 36". I intend to go thru the 32" with a cleaning, new needle bearings and seals. Here is the opportunity to do a side-by-side comparison of the two grease products run under the same conditions and evaluated. Per Pete Lena's advise. I cleaned out the 2 cross shaft bearings, one repacked with Lucas Green, the other with JD Green. I will be trading some deck parts with Don shortly to make the deck complete. I will assemble each side with it's respective grease - bearings, gears, spindles. I intend to gather "before" pictures and free running torque readings, then in MAY or so, mount this unit on a Round Hood , cut the grass, and take temperature readings and repeat the free running torque. There will only be data presented, NO YT video, Unless Kevin wishes to reinact this exercise and make his own, best done with cardboard cutouts and hand sock puppets !!! All in fun there guys, just figured why not use one of my own toys for this study. More later, a lot later....

Wheel Horses are not too commonplace in Louisiana so it may be tough to find comparable sales information. If it runs well and the Sundstrand automatic works well then an offer of $ 300 should be a good starting point. Sort of a shot in the dark if it isn't running.

Yes sir! Outside with a fan, face shield, and covered with leather.

Hey there, fellow Georgian. I expect they're in they're for a reason so if the bearings are good and any slop can be shimmed away, I'd keep them. Mine were shot and on their way to disintegration. Removing them brought unwanted vibration on the C125. Adding the vibration plate back helped lots but still working on getting rid of an off idle harmonic that rattles the hood.

He could strain gage the shafts for torque, radial and axial thrust. Bring the signals out with a telemetry system. Easy Peasy.

He did repaint and added a god awful stack on it. The thing was the loudest tractor I owned and still is. Kinda wish I never sold it. I think he has 4 more. A 520h, a suburban, 753 and one he’s been saying he was going to make a rat rod out of for years.

This Saturday about 20 miles north of Kalamazoo, MI Just before Christmas, 3 day long blizzard. All melted the next week..

Got it turning over and running on sniffing choke cleaner... actually had it running on her own for abit but now nothing. When i had the head off i lubed the bore abit for not a dry start. Lack of fuel I suspect and pump issues. Pull that apart and a full carb cleaning instead of just a bowl wipe out. Sorry @Achto... I have failed you! Switched teams on the plug. Only cause FF did not have a J8 in Chomponion... go figure. Like this plug better anyway. Nice bright fire. Tire valve stem rack was completely empty. Yah... supply chain issues. WTF? Flipped the condenser per @GAJoe and fitted my analness perfectly. Thank you sir. 😊