Kitchen Garden Forum

Ok, so my rotovator fleet has lost the current game of battleships.
First to go was my second Howard 350, a condensor or coul in the ignition went so though complete it wouldn't start.
Then on my first Howard 350, the gearbox main gasket went. So I did an engine swap, taking the powerful Kohler 181 off No-1 to replace the less powerful Kohler 141 on the less worn No-2 unit.
Last year the 181 started but wouldn't run. Carburettor issurs, either an air leak in or a fuel issue.
So I made do with my trusty Merry Tiller, which is now refusing to spark.

Action plan is;
1/. Repair the Merry Tiller, it's been in the family about thirtyfive years.
2/. Sell the Howards to fund a replacement machine of similar type and capabilities.

Im hopeful that two Howard 350's, plough with attaching bravket, front weight with mounting beam, wheel weights, single axle extension for usevwith plough, bouter(furrower), rear six tine harrow and complete set pf manuals on cd might fetch sufficient to get a decent replacement.

Thing is unless I look at the expensive £2,000 upwards Italian walking tractors like Bertolini the available things like Mountfield, Husquvarna, Lawn Flite, Earthquake, etc, are lisyed as either one, two or three gears, sneaky marketing euphemisms for, single forward speed, forward and reverse, forward and reverse and neutral's a gear, respectively.

Best I can find is the Apache RTT3, anyone got or used one and care to express an opinion?
It already has a positive extra in that primary drive from engine to gearbox is by v-belt, whic is a good shock absorber and sacrificial failure component instead of bent or sheared metal.

Anyone know of some make or model I've missed?

Evening Peter, i'm sure that is the exact model Old Codger has got. He has three allotments, so it gets a fair amount of work. I should think he has had it for about five or six years and it has had it's first service this year. The only trouble it has had is, petrol pipe chewed by a mouse and the petrol cap fell into two parts. The working depth of the blades, matches, or even betters my Howard Gem's.

Codger got a really good deal from a supplier i used to get my machinery off of.....i think it was £600, but i think they are just over £1000 now, but still worth it, in my opinion.

Hope that helps a little.

OH please could you check if it is whathOld Codger has?
Currently best price online is £979.

Evening Peter, i will see Codger tomorrow and check....
I'll see if he will give you a few details on it.

Could you not get a replacement engine for your howard

The engine issue is repairable, but, it needs new blades soon and they're nearly £300 a set.

Decided I have too much Howard 350 stuff I'll never use and the parts I want to use will fail every year or two. The collection fills an entire shed on its own. So one good new item where parts ard more available and reasonably priced.

Afternoon Peter, i've checked with Codger and it is indeed the same make and model....it is six years old.

We do have fairly heavy ground here and it tackles it well...one thing we do, do though is, we do dig the ground in autumn/winter, so i'm not sure how it would takle very solid undug ground.

You find some strange stuff when you search for Apache RTT3 on eBay. I dig but find breaking it down to a tilth afterwards quite painful even though my soil is quite light, not sure it justifies almost £1K I'll have to look for something else.

oldherbaceous wrote:........We do have fairly heavy ground here and it tackles it well...one thing we do, do though is, we do dig the ground in autumn/winter, so i'm not sure how it would takle very solid undug ground.

Ditto OH ditto, Hertfordshire clay.
Hence the slower, almost patient, Merry Tiller with its mattock like blades, I compare it to two (or four) good friends wielding mattocks slowly., steadily hacking away.
It never manages a tilth as it flicks lumps up to the surface, with its open rotors. Rear tine beasts have (generally) thinner, faster rotating, enclosed rotors, from which lumps cannot escape.

Two simular but different tools each better suited to a different task, MT breaking flat, set ground, 350 mincing up previously turned (up to spade sized lumps) ground into seedbed.

Hi. Peter, This was the best money I have ever spent buying the Apache rotavator, as OH said I dig the garden in the autumn, then just rotavate it as i need it in the spring.It has two speeds, I go over the garden half depth on slow speed then fast speed on full depth, it gives a good spades depth and a good tilth. I don't think it would be that great on just solid ground. It has a 6.5 Ohv engine, forward and reverse gears.