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136 Posts
I would like to enter our 1971 Bolens Husky 1054. Until last summer this tractor had been in storage for over 10 years. We were planning to go to two tractor shows and wanted an original condition tractor to take, so this tractor was ideal. The Howard decal on the side was added by the UK importer Howard to all Bolens tractors. The decal on one side is missing.
The first problem was that having being in storage for so long, meant that we had forgotten what was wrong with it. I was not even born when this tractor was put in storage!
Progress on the tractor started well, we flushed the fuel tank, rebuilt the carb and fitted replacement throttle and carb cables. It is great working on this tractor as all the nuts and bolt are easily removed, set to the right torque and all the washers are still in place. We found one modification to the wiring which was easily sorted.
Things started getting difficult when we noticed the exhaust valve was stuck open and it took a lot of effort to remove it. The biggest problem came when refitting the valves, the exhaust valve went well and before we started on the inlet we ensured both valves lifted as expected and the gaps were still good. We fitted the inlet valve and spring and turned the engine over but the valve only opened a little! Turning the engine over with a pry bar taking the spring load resulted in the valve opening and closing as expected. We felt the only option was to strip the engine down and were surprised to find a broken camshaft.
It looks like this has been been broken for a while and could be something to do with the damage we found on the face of the inlet valve. The place on the shaft where it has broken has a ridge which suggest it has run like this. We don't know the history of the tractor but when it was bought it did run but not very well. As time was getting tight, we used the camshaft from a spare engine.
It looks like the hydro lift kit was added at some point during it life and fitted poorly. This was removed and fitted correctly.
With made a video introducing the tractor
and another of the work we did
The tractor worked well at the shows and we even used it for ploughing. This is one of our show videos which includes footage of the tractor in the working area
twowheeler63 said thank you
