Friday. One week done

Set off from Illiers Combray, fairly confident the fuel problem was understood, and so it seems. Crossed the Loir ( the small one) at Montigny, and lunched at Cloyes. Slightly disturbed to notice the amount of oil issuing from the left rear axle, via the brake drum. This renders an already inefficient brake useless, meaning I now have one wheel braking. Setting off after lunch, was intrigued to notice the already hysteresis-prone speed governor now showed essentially 100% hysteresis. I suppose you could say it was binary - either shut right down or flat out. Depending as I do on engine braking to control it on hills, this was a complication I could do without. So, approaching my destination this evening, I stopped by the side of a small road, raised the bonnet, and got out the tools. I concluded there was a friction problem at the carburettor and was trying to fix this, when a French couple turned up on their side by side tandem. En panne? The usual stuff. It turned out that he a is a radio ham, and speaks good English, though his wife does not. So we had a multilingal chat. He advised talking to Bernard Sire, te local garagiste. Pictures of the encounter attached (Or I would if I could make it work - too late at night). Anyway, I saw the said Bernard, and he and a mate diagnosed the governer shaft as the problem. I explained why this was not the case, and they then applied a lotof force to the oil breather pipe which, I have to say, improved the linkage friction, all for 5 Euros. Now, speed control seems have some effect, but the more mathematically inclined of my readershio will recognise what happens when you don't have enough friction in a closed loop control system. That's right - it's quite underdamped, so I go along in a series of lurches until it settles down. As David has observed, a Ferguson tractor is designed to plough a field, not drive at (relatively) high speed across France