A little yanmar story. As some of you know, I am staying with a friend in PA at the moment after having sailed to the cessapeak from the UK about 6 weeks ago. Now he has an old tractor that had not been moved since a walnut tree fell onto it 12 years ago. To give you an idea of what the situation looked like, when I found that little gem, well A lot of scrap got pile up around it, it had a new walnut tree growing up through the chassis, moss growing on the remnants of the seat and engine block. the copper in the wireing was a nice shade of gren / blue. Well ye get the picture. I started to haul the scrap to the yard where it belonged and dug the olt tractor out . The neighbour was mowing his lawn on his new Kubota mower and came over asking me if I was going to break the thing down for scrap as well and at that moment a little devil on my should gave me a nudge and I said I was getting it ready to race him for the pink slip of that Kubota. He left laughing and shaking his head and I was stuck with a bit of a project. After having taken the rocker cover off and having a look inside the engine I thought I was in with a chance. Six hours of spannering around on it and rigging bits of wire, I had the old girl runnig and drove her out of the hole with her flat tyres and to the back of the garage. I did not have any new diesel so just draines the tank untill it looked more like fuel then water and hit the starter. A few seconds of coughing up a bit of black smoke the thing ran like clock work on the 12 year old vintage tuck tuck juice still left in the tank. The neighbour is getting worried now I think. Next task is to give the mow deck a once over and she will be good to go. I have since driven the old girl up into the woods and hauled a few trees down for fire wood without so much as a hick up. I did change all the oils on it since and shot at it with a grease gun, rewu=ired the esential bit, so it starts without using a hammer to bridge the contacts etc.
Diesel engines, ye just can't beat them.
She still ain't pretty but runs like clock work
ATB
Michael
