[trusty220]

It’s coming along and showing much improvement. The important thing is not to get fed up with it- maybe if you went to a working event so that somebody could show you how to set it up from scratch?
Sometimes a practical demonstration is far more use than trying to do it from the book of instructions.
Either way you know that you can always rely on us to help if you need it.

[trusty220]

You may have to modify the Ferguson share slightly. All of the ones that I have fitted tend to point too far to the left, but it’s easily corrected with a slight skim on the inside with a grinder to line it up.
You can get bolts from most agricultural dealers. They are a standard 3/8″ plough bolt with square/countersunk head (that means the head is a conical shape which incorporates a square shank at the base).

[trusty220]

Fired up with fresh enthusiasm (plus the missus was late home) I thought that I’d revise my plan of attack with the closing stages. If you remember, when I took it apart I was mainly trying to reduce it to small enough lumps to lift up and off the tractor so that I could dismantle it all further. I left the gearbox in situ resting on the rear of the engine bay because I needed to dismantle half of the engine compartment to get it out. I have now taken off the side with the steering column to make space to remove it, then cleaned all of the oily muck out of the way ready for the rebuild.
The gearbox will be taken to work for a good steam clean, then mounted back on the platform on the rear engine mount. The drive chain can then be mounted and tensioned up without having to knock my knuckles off on the surrounding footplate, then the whole assembly dropped back on the tractor.
One mystery (I think) has been solved by cleaning everything up. Originally I was undecided as to what colour this Steed had been painted because I kept finding Apple Green bits and RAF Blue/Grey as well- look on the gearbox if you don’t believe me- but it looks like it was green to start with and somebody in it’s past life has splashed a bit of blue paint around it. Probably war surplus RAF Blue/Grey by the look of it.

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[trusty220]

Further to the magneto repairs, I picked up the finished mag this afternoon. We spun it up on his test rig and it gave a good, bright blue spark, so then we did the very childish thing of seeing how far we could stretch it out; from the bare end of the lead we could get it to jump nearly 1/2″!!
Thoroughly impressed with his workmanship, he even let me have all of the old parts back that he had replaced. Have a look at the pictures and you can see for yourself. One week turnaround, two year guarantee and the cost of all this? £157 and a few pennies. I call that good service.
In the meantime I have stripped the layers of paint from the tinwork and started to re-finish them in primer, filling any rust pits as I go. It seems never ending at the moment but I’m getting there.

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[trusty220]

That’s the one that always holds the rainwater and rusts through from the inside. You can still buy the correct sized steel tube from any good steel stockholder, all you need to do is to cut the old tube out and replace it with new.

[trusty220]

Have a word with Dave Clark- he is running the Ransomes Register on the “Survivors” page. He was telling me the other week that the serial number is repeated somewhere inside the gearbox.

[trusty220]

I suppose that I’m going to have to come clean about the horse and cart then. Yes, it’s true, I have driven a horse and cart for some time now and learnt my trade as a baker’s boy, slowly progressing up the different rounds until I was given a round of my own. Everything was going great guns until my round was extended to cover another baker’s route that he couldn’t cope with; this was my introduction to Linley Lane.
Everything was fine for a couple of months until a young widow by the name of Sue (at number 22) started asking me in for a quick cuppa and a bun. Seeing as it was near the end of my round I couldn’t see the harm in it, but one day she suggested that we watch a film on the daytime telly. Nearing the end of the film I heard a strange noise outside and looking out of the window saw the milkman kick my horse; apparently, according to Sue, he was called Ernie (the milkman, not the horse). Most of the ladies in the road knew him as “The Fastest Milkman in the West” because he had a very unfortunate malady which none of them wished to go into.
Anyway, he wasn’t going to get off lightly after kicking my innocent animal and so I challenged him to fight for Sue’s hand. His first shot was a strawberry flavoured yogurt which knocked my bun out of my hand, but I got him underneath the heart with a rock cake and followed it with a stale pork pie to the head. That was my undoing because it finished Ernie, and the court case was very long and protracted. I was tried for murder but eventually managed to wriggle out of it with a plea of self-defence.
Bakers’ rounds are now a distant memory, as is my previous name before I entered the Witness Protection Programme. Needless to say, I find Redditch a much friendlier place than Teddington ever was.

[trusty220]

Well, there’s bad news and good news about the magneto. Last Sunday I took it apart and re-assembled it three times without any success, so I spent the Sunday night looking for repairers on the internet.
The general consensus was that an average rebuild would cost £400- £500 and take 8-10 weeks. After a comment by our workshop foreman I ‘phoned up a local Villiers bike repairer; he put me in touch with a chap in Halesowen who does it for a living, so I dropped it in on Monday. I think this bloke even dreams magnetos, he talks about them constantly and is undoubtedly an expert on them.
His turn around time is 2-3 weeks and has quoted £150. I’m expecting it to go up slightly because he called me today to say that somebody has turned 60 thou off the armature and this has made the air gap so big it’s touch and go whether it would work. No wonder I couldn’t get it to spark!
If you are looking for a magneto repairer at any time I would recommend this chap from what I’ve seen so far. His name is Tony Cooper and his ‘phone number is 0121 559 2405.

[trusty220]

It could be The Three Wise Monkeys- Speak No Evil, See No Evil and Hear No Evil.

[trusty220]

Don’t get too excited, the Norton isn’t in a bike. If you look under Trusty Steed Engine Rebuild in the Projects section you will see what I mean.

[trusty220]

How about one of these, then?

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[trusty220]

It sounds like your engine is running on the dry sump principle very much like the Norton engine that I’m doing on the Steed. The oil pump that pushes oil to the engine is in two parts (on the Norton at least); the first part is the pressure pump which lubricates crankshaft and big end and the second part (which has twice the capacity) is a scavenge pump that sucks up the oil from the bottom of the crankcase once the engine has finished with it. It then pumps this into a separate oil tank ready to be used again.
The reason for the scavenge pump to be twice the capacity is to allow for the tendency of the engine oil to drain into the crankcase when the engine isn’t running. At least when you start the engine up after lying idle for some time the scavenge pump will clear the excess oil out quite quickly. This would also explain why you are seeing a poor flow mixed with air bubbles when you look at the return flow- obviously the scavenge pump is doing it’s job and the crankcase is empty periodically (hence the air bubbles).
From what you describe is happening to your engine I agree with Jonathan- it sounds perfectly normal, and when my own Norton engines are running they also show quite a slow flow with air bubbles.
To put your mind at rest the only true way is to measure the flow going into the engine, but the fact that the scavenge pump is finding oil in the engine would point to the fact that the pressure side is working as it should.
I hope that helps!

[trusty220]

OK then, which one is Robin Hood out of this lot?

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[trusty220]

It’s funny, but I don’t remember Maid Marion having a beard. I may be wrong, though!

[trusty220]

As I said before, the BTH magneto is fitted with a remote advance/retard mechanism which relies on a cable control to work it. The cable was very stiff and the piston that it worked in the mag was gummed up with gunge, so a quick clean out with petrol and re-grease with LM grease sorted out the magneto end; now, what to do with the cable?
An old trick that I came across years ago when restoring my GT6 was to make a funnel out of plasticine and put the end of the cable through the base of the funnel. You then hang it up from a roof beam with the funnel at the top, fill the funnel with engine oil and leave for 24hrs.
Oh- don’t forget to put a drain tin underneath otherwise it will go all over the floor.
This method has a distinct advantage over the normal cable oilers that are available in that it uses engine oil to lubricate, whereas the cable oilers that you can buy rely on you using a can of WD40 with a straw to force oil into the cable outer. WD40 is designed to dry out in time, whereas engine oil stays where you put it and does the job for longer. My GT6 has now lasted 25 years since I rebuilt it and it’s still fine.

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