Yesterday and the day before yesterday was a blur of tractor visitors (a big Massey Ferguson turned up (driven) to have a chat about another tractor followed by some interesting people looking for a Ferguson for a community composting scheme they are setting up which resulted in Jeff's being driven to South Norfolk to look at a possible purchase.

Jeff came back with a stack of pictures of all sorts of weird and wonderful tractors and implememnts for tractors and parts for tractors. In the meanwhile I'd taken advantage of an empty workshop to get on with the bonnet cleaning. I'd got about anothe six square inches to do when the (new) wire wheel started spitting out so many bits of wire that I knew it was time to stop. With most of it down to bare metal Jeff was able to see where there were dents and depressions and by five 'O'clock he'd knocked it back into a very respectable shape.

While he was doing that I started to take the frames off Charlie's rusted wings. The bolts with nuts came off relatively easily but there were also four 'rivetted' on bolts which eventually had to be ground down, then centre punched then drilled out, first with a small bit then one just slightly smaller than the hole. This job was finished off this morning by Steve doing the grinding and me doing the drilling out.  

Meanwhile Jeff had been checking Chester's brakes (Chester is the '35) and discovering that some rather strange thing had been done to the one which didn't work properly. I hope he's going to do one of his detailed technical accounts of what he found- the cracked drum was only part of it!. 

This afternoon found him muttering things like 'Why didn't I stick to jet engines?' and 'How could anyone have put this engine together like that!'  as he delved into Charlies block. (You may remember that Charlie had a mass of rust inside the rocker cover ). What he found 'ain't' too good. He will be talking to Charlie's owner as soon as the full extent of the damage is assessed.          

Jeff came back from his holiday yesterday. He’s taken loads of super pictures of rocks and rough seas, Myhren (my 9 year old grand-daughter swimming in freezing cold water and of baby Tabitha doing all sorts of clever baby things! Boy! Am I glad Jeff is back! There were so many phonecalls asking for technical information (which I couldn’t answer) and requests for work which I couldn’t say’Yes’ to until I’d conferred with Jeff etc. There were a few crises as well like a flood which nearly reached the threshold of the workshop and an angle grinder nearly setting itself on fire! Oh, and, despite my intention to do a catch-up blog the blog site did something funny and went off and I had to wait till Jeff came back to fix it! While he’s been away Steve has continued to add to the huge pile of shiny clean Charlie tractor parts while I’ve started to reduce the pile by putting the red oxide paint layer on. Steve and I also moved some large pieces of furniture stored in the workshop which left more space to move about. Yesterday Jeff started the day by sorting out a carburettor which was malfunctioning (largely, I gather, by having all the jets set wrong). Jeff’s paint gun which I was using snapped its paint flow handle. I was in despair thinking that all the painting would have to stop but Jeff merely took a piece of metal and made a new part which works perfectly! While I was alternately painting and cleaning Charlie’s bonnet down to bare metal and Steve was steadily getting on with cleaning parts Jeff sorted out Charlie’s petrol tank. While Steve had been cleaning the outside he had noticed that every time he turned it over a positive rattle of detritus shot arounfd inside. It was so bad thatJeff decided there was no alternative to getting inside and cleaning it properly on both sides of the ‘wall’ which partially divided the tank to reduce the way fuel slops about. By the time he’d finished there was not a single piece of rust inside- we know this because however hard it was shaken there was nothing rattling inside at all. He also got Mikes TEA running beautifully and smoothly and adjusted the brakes (they were relined, refitted and centred earlier) to the point at which he was swing the tractor round the yard just on the slew brakes. Today Jeff’s gone out to refit a radiator and of course it started to bucket down. Now I’m going to go back to the bonnet cleaning…   more »