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Independence Day was good in granting me a day off to put my recent purchases and thoughts into full swing!I took my ordinary 67 L-157 Lawn Rangers tired teccy out and swapped wit a revived 8hp Kohler.Got the gas tank remounted perfect with a home remedy bracket and mounted voltage regulator to the bottom of it.I got so lucky with time I decided to strategically cut the uprights on the consoles and add a tool box and fenders from an rj and taper the remaining console into the new height of the toolbox for a nice clean look.I had a little time left and pulled the hubs and added some temporary 12's.I have some vcc 6x12 rims and just bought two Hankook Novak 155-12 snow tires today to add.I am gonna relocate the battery under the seat as it turns out,the darn thing fits right in the tool box on one side!Just need a 4 foot lead to connect!Little more work,find a six speed rear end,swap out spindles from a b or c so I can add 8" tires up front,tear down and paint!Nothing gets done around this house with Horses in the stable!LOL

Hi, I just made up these pics from my commando 8 and I think it looks pretty cool. Here ya go: P-J

Today me and dad took the Figure 8 car to to where he works to put it on the frame machine. Before After On the Frame machine Drivers Side Before Passenger side Before Hole in drivers door Working on Hole

HELLO, YOU SHOULD BE OKAY WITH A STANDARD IGNITION PRODUCTS COIL. PART NUMBER IS UC15 IT WAS COMMON FOR THE OLDER IMPORT CARS AND FARM EQUIPMENT. GOOD LUCK BOWTIE IN OHIO

Wasn't me! :auto-swerve:

Well first second that is almost to nice to restore, I vote clean it up and see what you have, they are getting harder to find in orig. condition, but it is yours to do as you want, and would be a nice machine to start with.

Thanks Jake! Thanks! Yeah I am hoping to get rear AG tires and weights to put that plow to use this winter!

looks much mo gooder wit du big boy shoes on it. can't wait to see it with the 8 in fronts. great project. Jay

Yeah, I spose...gooder is better. Can't wait to see more progress.

Hi Neil, thanks for your kind words. My real motivation for pushing hard is so all you fine chaps can see this thing drive and turn as it should at Ardingly. Hi Mark, yep so close and yet not that far now (I hope) I've just heard the weekends weather warnings on the radio, I think your doing the right thing heading south to the show. It sounds like your neck of the woods is going to get hit pretty hard! Hi Jeff, yes chains and sprockets would certainly help with the problem, but at this moment in time changing from belts to chains is well out of my price range. Hey Rich, I had a look at the price of cogged pulleys the other day.. If I had been sitting down I would of fallen of my chair!! Price wise they make chains look really cheap Your powers of sight are working well, even with the belt slippage the ol girl managed it's first 360'd turn in the garden. Hey Scott, yeah I was quite chuffed when both trans'sss worked as they should with no leaks from anywhere. Hi Vincent, I agree tractor tires would look better and give more traction, I just need to get the power to all of the wheels first! Thanks Zeek. It's been another busy day in the shack, really cracking on with making the tracks. So not many photos again I'm afraid.. The chances of getting both tracks built and fitted in the timescale were very small indeed.. Until my secret weapon arrived in the form of a Garry! Here he is cutting the steel parts. Thank you Sir for all your help today Working out the spacing.. Much to our surprise it didn't take long to find all the nuts and bolts needed! Track one almost completed. Fitted!! I just need to finish fitting the white strapping. Track two well on it's way to completion, only four more steel hoops to fit.. Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day, I've other things I need to get sorted in the morning, but then I have a few hours in the afternoon to finish making and fitting the tracks.. I'm still not 100% sure these flimsy tracks will work, It's looking like it's next test drive will be when I go to load it on a trailer for Ardingly late tomorrow afternoon! "But what if the tracks don't work", you ask? Well it will be going on the trailer working or not, so yep Guys it will be at the show :D

Good question Frank. Actually, things haven’t changed all that much for me. Although I do have nearly all of the items on my bucket list checked off. I’d still like a 2007 Classic edition and an E141. And I added a few other brands to my stable including diesel Simplicity, Cub, and Deere examples. By no conscious decision, I seem to be accumulating each model within the 5xi series having just added a 522 this week. For me, the “milestone†theme is still alive and well. My list with explanations is below: 1. Lever – The Alpha 2. Walk Away – the first “big seller†and the tractors that bridged the gap from 1948 to 1954. 3. Senior – Big evolution over the Lever, and a “real†tractor 4. RJ-35 – The start of the true residential tractor 5. RJ-58 – Introduction of the Uni-Drive transaxle 6. 701 – Introduction of the standard tractor configuration that ran until 2007. 7. ’62 Ranger – First lawn tractor/economy model 8. 953 – first heavy hitter 9. 875/1075 – First Hydrostatic 10. 867/1067/1267 – First dual range unidrive 11. GT14 – significant because it was such a heavy duty machine 12. V7/V8 – first vertical garden tractor 13. 18-Auto – WH’s first Super Garden Tractor 14. C-160 – Top of the C-series; the most useful, versatile, and prolific series made. 15. D250 – The “Edsel†of the line. W-A-Y ahead of its time and amazingly sophisticated. 16. C195 – An improved and more versatile Super. 17. 520 – The top of the foodchain for the conventional C-series arrangement. 18. 5xi – Drive one and you’ll see why it’s on my milestone list. 19. 2007 Classic GT w/swanky decals – The Omega, end of the line. Those are the “milestonesâ€. Others that I feel sort of fit as “significant†are: 1. 400/550 had the first cast iron front axles. 2. C161 twin – first twin cyl engine (was supposed to be a C171) 3. GT2500 – Anniversary model 4. E141 – WH’s designed-in-house electric. 5. 420LSE – Should be obvious 6. 1996 model 520 – Another anniversary model And there are the less plentiful models as well that seem to garner attention: 1. RJ-25 2. 603 3. 754 4. 520-8 I might even put the YT-12A on the “rare†list. Maybe not… For me, the milestones or major leaps forward in design are where it’s at. I like almost everything WH made during their run, but I view most of the different models as very slight variations on the same theme. For example the 702, 753, 654, 854, 633, etc are all fundamentally the same thing. Same goes for any of the shortframe square hoods. The C-series…etc. WH made a LOT of very similar models what often didn’t vary much from each other or from year to year. Realistically, any of the B/C and 300/400 series tractors can be considered as a “significant†piece. They were the bread and butter for WH and certainly as a group were the best sellers. If you had to have just one tractor to do everything, these are probably the most suited to the most applications. Unlike most of the guys on this site, I have an appreciation for the vertical shaft series of machines since they were hugely popular and served the LT need for thousands of people. For their intended tasks, the WH vertical shaft yard and lawn tractors were probably some of the best in the market. Especially with the newer models, they mowed very well and were exceptionally nimble. And most were quite heavy duty compared to discount store items. Heck, some of them accepted tillers and plows! And, my fascination with this stuff started with a vert, so… Many won’t consider stuff after 1990 as “true†Wheel Horse products since the Toro name started to appear on the decals, but I don’t share that philosophy. Toro bought the line in 1986. AMC and Munn were before them in, what, 1974 or something. Other than subtle improvements, some styling changes, and improvements in manufacturability the designs practically stalled after 1973 (excepting the D250 and vertical shaft lines). If I were to throw the Toro-guided products out of the mix I’d also have to toss out anything after 1974 to be fair. Not gonna do it! Thanks Ja-Tee for dragging this topic back out of the cellar! Steve

Yes that is the place In mason

Kerry Craig, The tractor pictured, we think, would pass for a 655. We have been trying to make them general enough to meet a variety of needs and still hold our costs within reason. Will speak to the wife and see if she can leave the number off to allow for the Commando 6's-8's maybe an 867 too!

Dad is racing this friday at a local stockcar track called Spartan speedway We put stock car tires on it. The trailer hitch for the Trailer figure 8 The car with the stock car tires I will post a pic or two of the trailer later.

Its so hot and dry here in Ft. wayne, IN. that I saw a dog chasing a cat and they were both walking. After the big storm and 4 days of no electric. Its so nice to have AC again. Yesterday it was 94 at noon, news stated it finally top out a 107. Yall try and stay cool it is dangerous out there. The electric company called in crews from Okla, Ky and several other states to help restore power. I can not imagine what those guys/gals are going thru working 16 hr days in this heat. Its not the humity, it is the high dew point that makes so unbareale.

well i am thirteen and have grow up in the back woods and i come from a long line of engineers and have grown up with some kind of toy with a motor to work on and last year my grandfather gave me a 1970 wheel horse charger 12 and my addiction started with three and 4;5;and then i sold one and now at and now 6 so it is slowly going up and up but it started just me then my dad got into it and it is a bonding exspirans for both of us and that is my wheel horse story

I better hide right now because if I had the money for it, the first thing I'd do is fire it up and :chores-mowlawn:

My story also began with my dad who is now 80 years old and in poor health,when I was 5 years old(I'm now 50} my dad started collecting hit & miss engines I would go to the show's with him just about every weekend he was a hooked on the old engines as we are on the old Wheel Horses he and I would go out at least a couple eves a week on the "hunt" of them we would find them behind barns,in the scrap piles etc...it got to the point he would wait to bring them home after dark so my mom would not see him lol! so back in those days the old Wheel Horses were still pretty new to the market and were being used not collected you didn't see them at tractor shows only the old engines,farm tractors etc..as I was growing up my dad always was working and repairing garden tractors and lawn mowers for extra cash and we had a garden tractor to mow with and to use around the house he had various brands but the Wheel Horse always stood out in my memories.In later years my dad began to collect the Wheel Horses and always said someday these tractors will become collectible and will be at the tractor/engine shows and he was right as we know from our hobby today.One Thanksgiving day I was down at my dad and mom's for dinner his neighbor has a small wrecker business with scrap cars which we had lived there for 40 years my dad asked if I saw the old tractor setting on top of the scrap car next door,so we walked over and looked at it,it was a 1957 RJ35 at the time we had not seen one that early so really didn't know what kind of tractor it was all we knew we didn't want it to go to the scrap yard.So the next day we asked the neighbor if he wanted to sell it? and his response was are you planning on restoring it? we said yes the next day he pulls in the drive with his wrecker and on the back was this little tractor he said the only thing he wanted for it was to see it when it was done it is yours! That was my first one and is restored today,,, so that is when the Wheel Horse collecting began for me and the hunt was on! Now that we are in the Wheel Horse collecting hobby my wife and I (which has her own tractor too) have met some great people and have some very close friendships through out the years.

Just to refresh everyone's memory this is Roy and Betty Stewardson's 1976 D-250 from up in Canada. They have some of the nicest Wheel Horses I've ever seen up close.Roy and Betty Stewardson

OK...UNCLE on the heat. We are looking at the next 3 days hitting 100+. What a complete waste of time hiding in the shade and drinking beer. OMG...did I really say that???

Hope this help with making a rear bracket. There are off course many ways to do it, here are some photos of what I came up with. It works well for me, doesn’t look great but works. For me it had to be low cost and hold up under the pull, it does that. One of the club rules is, (The pulling hitch, wheelie bars must be able to like the tractor with all the weight on it for the class you pull in). It’s a good thing to do for safety. No one wants to find out on the track that it cant take the strain. How ever lifting is not the same as the pull, this just gives a good idea of strength. I also have a B80 and really enjoy taking it to pulls. I like being around all the good folks out there & the fund raisers the club in involved in. I call my B80 RUSTY and it was put together on a Low Budget. I am happy how it pulls. Good luck making your puller. Please post some pictures as you go. I hope the links work. Jeff I recently replaced the 8hp kohler with a 20hp kohler. I pulled against this Allis Chalmers and we both had a full pull in the 2000lb class I think I weighed in @ 1905 lbs. In the pull off he beat me by 6 feet. Not bad for 8hp kohler he had 22hp. It took almost 4 min to get down the track, My B80 turned some heads that day.

should fit the b and c series and 300 and 400 and 500 series

Way to go!

If he types like he talks, he will be there in no time!!!

So hot...I saw two trees fighting over the same dog today. How hot was that? :banana-rock:

I mow between planted pine trees...nice straight rows with the D200s 3 point finish mower. I Also have a 6' finish mower I use behind a Case VAC or Case DC farm tractors. Mowing in areas with obstructions (trees rock out crops etc) with a rear mounted mower is not the easiest thing in the world. I have banged a few trees and fence posts over the years. (Remember a rear mount mower swings out on turns...getting close to any obstruction is not easy and by the end of the day you have a stiff neck from looking back over your shoulder. For more obstructed areas I bought a belly mount mower for my Case VAC. It is a whole lot easier to maneuver and lets you trim up closer (on one side) without having to keep twisting around to watch your mower. If your wooded area has a lot of obstructions I do not think that any of the pull behind self powered units would be that easy to use. Also a sickle bar in a wooded area would be a real pain....(unless you got one of the old front mount styles...) I use a 7ft sickle bar on the DC but only in open fields. For an area with obstruction a regular power deck would probably be the easiest to use

I have used rustoluem (sp) Regal Red and gloss ivory for wheels. Jim

I have used regal red on mine and it looks good.

Searching the archives for something and stumbled over this in the basement. An oldie but a goodie... let's see what some newer members have to say!! You know since this was about 1500 members ago! :thumbs: