Hey, great to see someone else interested in these great machines! I am currently restoring my old girl to original. I am using wattyl killrust blue ocean hammertone. Only trouble is locally they only have it in pressure pack and they dont go far.
As it turns out I won the front slasher deck from the guy on ebay, I was also bidding on the blade and trailer.
I have done lots of research and i have still never seen a rancher 1. Even the very early ones all have rancher 2 on the bonnet. There were a few generations of rancher 2 though, the first had the wire steering wheel, skinny tyres, no i.d. plate, the footrest on the left side was the brake pedal and the foote gearbox. Then they widened the rear tyres, added a brake pedal, then went to a 5 speed and added a diff, the very late ones were red just before they changed the shape.
