Oh No! The Ignominy of getting home on a rope!

[Brian]

Managed to get a day off from the workshop yesterday and got is some time with Dotty and the topper in the morning and after lunch took Henrietta down to the field to collect a couple of containers of cut flowers for sale. We have two rows of "Sweet Williams" about 100m each just coming into full bloom.

I had only just left the field gateway on the return trip when Henrietta spluttered to a stop! My first thought was that I had run out of fuel, even though I had checked it before I left home. Looking through the filler cap, I could see quite a lot in the tank so I got off and worked the primer. Nothing!

I started to walk home to get some tools and more fuel but luckily my neighbor from the garage, who was road testing a 4X4, saw me and gave me a lift home. Five gallons of paraffin and the tool kit in Wolfgang, drag my son out of bed from his afternoon nap, he had been up early on the Norfolk Show Ground, and we set off back.

Put the extra fuel in, still nothing through the fuel line, so she was not empty, must be a fuel block. It was getting close to school leaving time and the road we were on has a traffic increase with buses and many cars ferrying children backwards and forwards. Henrietta was stuck under the by-pass arch and in the relative dark. There was nothing for it, out came the tow rope and she was hooked to Wolfgang and soon moving at a steady 25mph towards home. I always find that people towing tractor with cars seem to forget what it is like trying to keep from weaving from side to side and hopeing that the brakes, designed for 10 mph, are going to stop you before an expensive dent appears in Wolfgang’s back.

We got home OK and pushed Henrietta into the yard. Today I have stripped the fuel system and removed a large amount of gunge from the fuel tap. Been trying to work out where flakes of red oxide are coming from as the inside of the tank is bright unpainted metal. Must be from inside one of the 20lt fuel cans but everything goes through a filter into the tank. Something to work out at a future date.

Henrietta is back running again but an interesting observation, I did not have any petrol so I filled the tank with pure paraffin meaning to top it up with petrol tomorrow. Thought I would just try to start her, just for curiosity. She started and ran perfectly on straight 28 sec Kerosene heating oil from cold!