Original Howard Rotavator Sale Price UK

[vhgmcbuddy]

Hi all, just wondered if anyone had an original price list for a Howard Yoeman. I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere but I can’t find the bugger now I need it to settle a discussion with a mate.

[alan]

The only image I have is an advert for March 1956. Basic price £157.10.0.

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[charlie]

According to ’70 Years of Garden Machinery’ by Brian Bell, the Yeoman was introduced in 1954 and cost £135.

[vhgmcbuddy]

Thankyou so much. It wasn’t exactly a cheap machine when new then.

I’ve been working on one that had been left outside for about 10 years. No spark, no fuel, carb had about 1/2″ of rust in the float bowl. Cleaned up carb fuel tank tap and set points and new condenser new condenser. I have a spark, it started first pull! It runs and will move under its own steam, but the clutch isn’t working (I’ve had the cables off and greased them) Looks like clutch is seized on. Any ideas short of getting oily?

[jwilkes]

Hi I have stripped and rebuilt a Yeoman – though I had to replace the Engine as I could not get it to move with 2 tonnes on the piston. The clutch is straightforward single plate on the hearbox, a spider spins the outside attached to the engine.

Support the Engine, undo the nuts and pull to get at the clutch.

Once out you should be able to get at the mechanism and some simple push and pull might get things moving again.

If you are forced to remove the clutch things get complex ad I remember making a tool to unscrew the Nut off the Gearbox input – Still have it somewhere if you get that far.

One thing to be really careful of is reassembly. The old plate is probably very weak and easy to damage the teeth. I think the replacement had to be custom made at about £120 delivered which is an ouch moment. I do now have a spare new original Yeoman clutch plate in store or the day it is needed.

When it is working well the machine is really useful. The detached rotor box can be replaced with a riding seat of home design really easily. My old Honda plough also fits but I tend to use the tractor for that job now.

Hope that this is useful

keep well, keep safe

[vhgmcbuddy]

Thanks for that. I had a look a bit further into it this evening. The dipstick didn’t show any oil at all in the gearbox so it must have escaped over the last 10 years at some point. The engine in a Villiers Mark 40 and runs pretty well. I filled it up with some new oil and cleaned all the moss and crap away from the clutch fulcrum. The clutch freed up after I worked it back and forward a few mm at a time and seems to be working fine.
I walked it up to my allotment about 3/4 mile away this evening with a plan to collect the rotor box, which is too heavy for me to manually get home.
Good news is the rotor box was free running and fitted on a charm. It has some almost new looking tines which would have been expensive to find. However I found out that I’m only driving one wheel and when the rotors engage its not easy to keep up with it even in low range and low drive. The rotors dig in to the surface and propel it along at almost running speed. And I don’t run so fast these days. As the clutch activates when depressed that means if it did get away, it would eat its way through the allotment until it hit a ditch. I don’t think there would be any way to stop it .So I decided to shut it down and go have a think

Now my old mate in his 80’s also has a Howard Yoeman that I’ve used and I’m sure his clutch worked like a dead-mans switch, like the reverse interlock seems it should. Now here’s a thought. If I move the clutch fulcrum around a bit, (guessing it is splined) so its always free running. Will the reverse interlock work to push it into gear like it does when you reverse, or is there some other way to make it operate like a dead-mans clutch, engaged when depressed, if that makes sense.

Normally I’d just take it round to my mate and have a look at how he has his set up. But at the moment its not really an option. How is it supposed to work, and do people usually have it set up the way mine seems to be right now?

[jwilkes]

With regards to the one wheel the Yeoman does not have diff-lock only rigid 0,1 or 2 wheel drive. If you push the drive engage lever to the second position you get the two wheel drive engaged which would make the unit earlier to use.

It is good that you sorted the clutch out without disassembly – lots of work. Just as background I think the clutch plate is different the Villiers to the BSA (which I have) not sure what the difference is.

You have something very special on your Yeoman that is missing off nearly all the rest, the Reverse clutch safety disengage. It would be really useful if you have some photos of the mechanism with measurements. I would like to fabricate the missing parts for my Yeoman.

I agree that the rotor box is heavy but not impossibly so. The tine situation is good. I did find that the Howard Gen tines fit the Yeoman. I suspect that the Gem tines are beefed up to cope with the extra power so they should last longer on a Yeoman. In my case it is essential as the original engine had to be replaced and now has a 13Hp Chonda unit rather than the orignal BSA420.

[vhgmcbuddy]

Here are some photos of the Reverse interlock mechanism. Also the ID plates for model etc. I don’t know if its possible to date it from that?

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[vhgmcbuddy]

I don’t know if those are enough to make parts for it but I can take more if they don’t make sense.
There are 2 parts to it as far as I can see. One lever shown in the 5th picture is activated when the gear selector lever is pulled back to engage reverse. It is attached to a rod which pulls the clutch in too (its called the reverse lock rod on the diagram in the owners manual). Then the mechanism reengages the clutch when you pull the reverse interlock lever.

Let me know if there’s anything else I can help with. My old mate just dropped off his owners manual into my letterbox. I think its an earlier one than the ones I’ve seen online. From my description over the phone this morning, he doesn’t have a dead mans clutch on his, it’s just same as usual, and his reverse interlock is missing too.
I think I’d be better to start a new thread on this as we are drifting away from the original one about sale price 🙂

[jwilkes]

Thanks for the pictures I will work on a solution. Good lick with the Villiers engine

[andyfrost]

My late father bought a Yeoman brand new for use on his smallholding. I think it’s fair to say they weren’t one of Howards sucess stories, over complicated gear /transmission system , that with commercial use gave unreliability problems. I well recall him fitting the sliding dog that engages the rotors on almost a yearly basis. Eventually he parked it up and got the well used 700 back into service.

Andy.

[vhgmcbuddy]

Yes this is only ever going to get light use on an allotment, maybe 40 hours a year. So hopefully that won’t be an issue for me.

[Author]

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