igor

The seller described the condition of the tyres as "they hold air". I am not convinced that they will continue to do so much longer.

Will need to find some replacement tyres quite soon too. This is the worst one. It made a weird noise while we were playing with the mower.

From the serial number we have been able to deduce that the second tractor was made in 1954 so is three years older than the first one. One seriously annoying issue we have (knew about it from the handbook but it still pisses me off) is that the pto (722 shaft rpm @ 1600 engine rpm) and three point linkage hydraulics do not work independently of one another. It is a case of both or neither. The other tractor has an optional extra raised pto stepdown box which gives 540 shaft rpm @ 1600 engine rpm and most importantly enables the driver to disengage the pto while the three point linkage remains operational. This will be swapped over at some point. Other jobs on the list include replacing this bodged ignition switch with a key switch. I have a BMC/Lucas switch (purchased a very long time ago for use on my Wolseley then found to be the wrong one) that I hope will work for this.

It didn't have this tree growing out of it when I bought it.

Shortly after acquiring the first tractor I purchased this mower. It was cheap and, as we have recently discovered, a lot more fucked than I was led to believe.

On Monday last we took a family trip to Te Anau to retrieve the loader that was included in the purchase of the second tractor. Three old barries used a forklift to load it onto the trailer for us. When we got home the boy and I separated the (really heavy) bucket from the frame and lifted it off between us, forklift not required.

The BP here in 'clutha has an old Wingroad similar to Tori's one in their rental fleet. I've driven it several times. It isn't total shit.

This does not surprise me in the least. Would be more surprised if there were not some parts cross compatibility there.

Thanks for the suggestions gentlemen. Will def be giving them a clean with something non/minimally abrasive in the first instance and see how we go from there.

All the other hydraulic rams I have here do appear to be hard chromed as would be expected. I was more than a little surprised to see the state of the ones on this tractor. Our youngest and I had another play with it yesterday. More, including pics, to follow.

This pic is from the seller's ad on the tard. The water pump leaks a bit quite a lot, hence the drip tray under it. The seller has supplied another (equally old) water pump which is supposedly in good condition. I will fit it at some point. Still need to take a drive to Te Anau to retrieve the loader arms and bucket. Anybody got any helpful suggestions for polishing the rust off the hydraulic ram spears so they don't chew up their seals when I start using them? There doesn't appear to be any pitting, just surface rust. I do have some spare rams off another loader that may or may not be the same so will look at swapping them over if I can't clean up the ones that are on it.

Our youngest and I had a play with this today. Took us a while to figure out which was on and which was off on the bodged up push-pull ignition switch (turned out the transporter driver had left it with the ignition on which explains the flat battery), then a while longer to actually get it going as it had been delivered with about a cup full of petrol left in the tank. Once we gave it some fresh petrol it roared into life and we took turns to drive it around the yard a bit just because we could. Pics to follow. The boy shot a short video but the file size is too large to upload here.

Pretty sure it is 1977 for proper motorbikes. My ex's '76 CG125 didn't have them and it always got wofs like that.

Would not a vented cylinder largely eliminate that risk?

Why not allow SUVs? Sure they're tall but so were a lot of 50s cars.

Thanks Bart. I have done that and it worked a treat. Just now came back in after removing the second battery. Supposedly dead and gone battery now happily receiving electrons.

Tractor arrived safely early Thursday arvo. Went to start it just now and discovered that the battery is as flat as a witch's tit. Hooked up the charger and it went, "nope, that battery's fucked". Lying bastard machine. That battery took a full charge a couple of weeks ago and started the tractor at least twice when it was driven onto and off the transporter.

Not a terrible idea.

The transporter is reported as having left Te Anau about 0900.

Beaumont is probably kind of central for many of us given how widely spread out the Otago/Southland crew is.

I'd be interested.

That part was rusted to oblivion you say?

This thing just appeared in our facebook feed.

It is not possible to have too many spares.