'86 Westwood T1200

Replaced the pads, plate, small rods and the brake arm from a spare transaxle onto the MST. The brakes worked really well but after a while stopped working, I think they went out of adjustment because the lock nut has lost the 'locking' bit. Also adjusted up the belt idler and it works really well, the clutch is much smoother when engaging.

Put the Westwood to work drawing sticks. The trailer behind it is one I made years ago for my first mower. It used to have 3 sides but the welding broke on the angle iron holding 2 of the sides on and I never got round to welding them on again. I plan on fixing it up again, and I'll probably just put the progress on it on this thread. Also I found out that the trans that used to be on this was an Peerless 832, not an 801 which is what I thought previously.

I like your new profile pic a lot!  That's great that you got the brakes working again.  Maybe you could double nut the adjuster instead of using the nylock?

Thanks! I just put another lock nut on, works well although I probably need a new brake pad.

Tidied up some random things on the Westwood that I needed to get done.
Put this cool recoil cover on the engine, I think it came on the newer Westwood 'T' series. Mine is the older style.

Also found this seat, it's almost brand new and I'll probably swap it for the old one sometime. Although the older one has a higher back which I quite like but it is quite worn.

Made up a drawbar pin with a R clip. It's a handy thing to have when this is a utility machine and pulling a trailer is a pretty regular thing for her to do.


The fuel tank that I have in it at the minute is not the original, it's from a Dynamark or something similar. The issue is that it's too low and the fuel takes ages to reach the carb. So I'm going to make a bracket to mount the tank where the cutout just above the tank is. Should improve fuel flow.

Good stuff.  That seat looks mint and I like the handle on that drawbar pin.  Do you have a fuel pump?  Moving the tank up will help it prime and possibly make it easier to fill with gas.

Just put a seat cover on that seat so you can keep the tall back, I say. And good call on moving the gas tank up, who wants to pull the thing over 20 times just to get it primed?

Crazy_Carl wrote:

Good stuff.  That seat looks mint and I like the handle on that drawbar pin.  Do you have a fuel pump?  Moving the tank up will help it prime and possibly make it easier to fill with gas.

Thanks, I don't have a fuel pump but using gravity is the cheaper and more reliable solution.

RichieRichOverdrive wrote:

Just put a seat cover on that seat so you can keep the tall back, I say. And good call on moving the gas tank up, who wants to pull the thing over 20 times just to get it primed?

I'm going to swap the seats and see what the lower back is like. If I don't like it, I'll put the taller back seat on and maybe put a seat cover on it.

Here's the progress on the tank bracket.


Although I think I'll modify/redo it because it doesn't sit flat and the hole for the cap isn't very good. I did test it out though, and the fuel reaches the carb much quicker and you can run the engine right until the tank is empty.

Looks like you have proof of concept.   Great.

Thanks! It looks a bit rough but at the moment but should look better when finished/painted. Talking of paint, I'm thinking of painting her up (when she's done-ish) in orange and matte black, older Westwoods had this sort of colour scheme and I think it looks better than just orange. For the engine I'm thinking of just polishing up the block and carb (leaving bare metal) and an orange shroud & recoil and black air filter box. Let me know what you think!

That's a great color scheme to go with! A lot of classic muscle cars have that color scheme.

Thanks! Here's are a photo of a Westwood T1100 with the colour scheme I'm going for, maybe with orange fenders instead of black.



And here's a photo of how the tank should be mounted, I'm probably going to remake mine to look better and function better.

I'd definitely go with orange fenders. I'd go with orange floorboards too.

Crazy_Carl wrote:

I'd definitely go with orange fenders.  I'd go with orange floorboards too.

Me too.

Yeah I'm definitely doing orange fenders. I'm not sure about orange footboards because they are welded to the frame and it would be a pain to get a good line between the black and orange. I think orange hood, rims, fenders and linkages would look good and contrast the black frame and centre piece.

Also, I now have to change the seat because the old seat pan is rotten and the front mounts have torn away. Should get the new seat on tomorrow.

Well all 4 mounts broke off on the seat now so I definitely have to replace it. Just gotta get the rusted bolts out of the holes and find some new metric M8 bolts 

Yikes! That is some rust!

Yeah it is indeed!

Got the 'new' seat mounted, only with 2 bolts for now. I have to drill out the holes for the front too. She looks pretty good with the low back seat I think.

Oooh looks good on her!

Looks sharp!

Thanks! I actually think I like the low back seat more than the high back one, it's more comfortable.

Tomorrow I'm going to modify the exhaust, it keeps working loose and falling over and it blows into your face, especially when the wind is blowing the opposite direction that you're going in. So I'm probably going to have it exiting underneath the foot boards, and I also might open up the muffler and take out some of the packing/baffles that are in there to make it a wee bit louder. After that I need to remake the tank mount, cuz at the minute the only thing holding the tank in is the gas cap.

Worked on the exhaust today.
This is the approximate position of where the silencer/muffler is going to be.

Modified the exhaust pipe, cut off the short bit of pipe at the 90 and welded on a longer piece, it will need shortened to be the right length. I did driver her around with the exhaust like this and it sounded pretty cool and definitely keeps you from breathing the fumes but it is way too loud which is why I need to put the muffler on. Also I think it looks cooler with the 45 peeking out of the footboard.

Should look pretty good Matt! I agree the tip will look pretty neat peeking out at an angle.

So you didn't like the fumes in the face that the stack was causing? Oh well this looks pretty cool too. One thing I wonder about these custom exhaust run under floorboards is getting damaged by a tree or rock or even worse starting a fire when you're driving through tall grass in a hot dry summer but maybe these realistically aren't big concerns.

Crazy_Carl wrote:

So you didn't like the fumes in the face that the stack was causing?  Oh well this looks pretty cool too.  One thing I wonder about these custom exhaust run under floorboards is getting damaged by a tree or rock or even worse starting a fire when you're driving through tall grass in a hot dry summer but maybe these realistically aren't big concerns.

As a person with an underfoot exhaust, I hear you concern. In my case, I am not worried about catching something like a rock or tree with my exhaust. Matt here may get hung on his muffler. If mounted solid, it would be no different than anything else under the tractor. Now the big one, and the one that I am concerned with as well is the starting a fire issue. Not worried about the heat of the pipe catching something, it would be the sparks! We don't typically have any spark arrestors in our builds. That would be the biggest concern.

This worried me too.

Courtesy of @CraftsmanQuad19

Heheh yeahhhhh

It really only does that when I rev it up hard and let off fast. Haven’t seen a governed engine spit fire or sparks like that, and since he is running a muffler I doubt anything would shoot out...right?