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So my father called all excited today about a 702 tractor he sold to a guy down in Long Island NY. Apparently, the guy he sold it to then sold it to a purchaser for Ralph Lauren. Now that 702 is in the window display at their flagship store on Madison Ave in NYC. Here's a pic of it

Not a problem Jim. My local drug pusher has me on a daily dose of lisinipril and simvistatin washed down with a shot of Sea Foam.

LARD....Brings back many fond memories of BUTCHER DAY. Watching Grandpa put down the 400 lb hogs with a single well placed 22 short from his little cat gun. Riding piggy back (yeah, that's me about 1946) as they were dragged from the pig pen to the big sugar maple butcher tree with a team of ponies. This large sugar tree offered a big limb to attach the rope fall. Later it supplied enough sugar water to make a couple gallon of syrup. Hoisting the hogs with a rope fall and swinging them over the scalding barrels. That's my Dad in the bibs with his back to the camera. Removing the hair with hog scrapers. Watching the blur of flashing blades as Grampa sharpened the knives on the steel. Pinning the pig tails on Grandmas apron strings while she was scrubbing the casings on a washboard. Sampling smoky meat from the boiling puddin and scrapple kettle. Blowing the stomachs up and tying the ends tight to make footballs. Now worth 10-12 bucks each wrapped in plastic and sold as hog maws. Cranking the press to squeeze the lard out into the 50 lb lard cans. The remaining skin (cracklins) were put in a mesh onion sack and hung in the smoke house with the hams and bacon sides where they were snack food till they became rancid. Then they were used for bait on my trap line. A few of you geezers will understand this, but unfortunately most will never know...

Had venison wrapped in bacon last night for dinner... yum!!! Any edible derivative of pig is ok by me...

The lard and bacon grease trick is the best for cast iron pan work.

My mom always had a bowl of lard on the stove. We save bacon grease and use it to fry eggs, burgers and other meats. Works and tastes way better than pam.

A few more - he completed the drive flanges, so now the hubs are driven. onto final bits = the rear axle keyways were badly wallowed. So fresh 1/4 slots milled ready for much longer keys.

Especially in pie crusts ...

Wow, that is so cool. I wonder if any patrons have walked into the store and asked to buy one of those cute little tractors in the window. ♪♪ How much is that tractor in the window? The one whose size is subscale. How much is that tractor in the window? I do hope that tractor's for sale.♪♪

A snow shoe needed repairing and I need to practice my welding. Laid piece over it and buzzed away. Didn’t get a pic when done ... . Actually didn't do the worst considering my welding skills suck.

If the pig was considered to be a vegetable I could be a vegetarian. Pork is about the only meat I eat. I resemble that remark. One of my uncles raised a couple of hogs each year and I remember my aunt rendering the fat and the tubs of lard kept in the dug-out underground food storage area we always referred to the Larder. Canned goods, apples, smoked meats and lard were kept in there. Year round temperature was about 50*.

I just laugh at some younger kids, they think meat comes from a super market! I had hogs of my own but never butchered, ran them up on the hill to some Amish folks named Yoders. I did help a friends dad do about a dozen each fall. When were done, his wife had taken some of the fresh meat, fried it up with taters. You talk about fresh.

When I still had blowers., I also liked the old style with wheels. Made the blowers so easy to move around when off the tractor

Worked on restoring the headlights on the 522xi. I had good luck with the headlight reflector, but not quite as good with the lens. For the reflector, after cleaning and a light bead blasting to roughen the surface slightly, I sprayed it with "Rust-Oleum Automotive 600 Degree Aluminum Engine Enamel," which is great paint. It's quite shiny and adheres really well, although the overspray is messy as it sticks to everything within several feet of where you're spraying. I then top-coated it with "Rust-Oleum Automotive 600 Degree Gloss Clear Engine Enamel." I think the reflector is 'almost' as reflective as the original surface, and it should hold up well. The headlight lens is much better than it was before (brownish yellow, almost opaque, and heavily oxidized), but it's still rather milky after I spent almost two hours polishing it halfway to China, using all kinds of approaches, including progressively finer sandpaper, headlight restorer kit, polishing compounds, wax, etc. I think the milkiness is very deep, so I guess I'll either have to put up with it or buy a new or used replacement lens. New ones are still available, but kind of expensive. By contrast, the headlight lens on my GT18 (the same kind of lens) cleaned up beautifully (below) and is crystal clear. I guess my 522xi must have spent a lot more time outside in the sun than the GT18.

Nothing to worry about at your age, but when you get older your cardiologist will no doubt talk with you about limiting your fat intake...

I stock pile the cheap fatty bacon when it is on sale for $1.99 a pound. Then grind it with my venison 1/5.

This is one example of where Wheel Horse employees downgraded their quality in my opinion. The old steel wheel snowblower setup was a better idea.

You would be surprised to know what I would trade for bacon.

Sorry for the long post, but this story needs to be told. My oldest Grandson Reed has a fellowship granted for his Astro Physics PHD at Lehigh University. He has been there for 2 years and has 2-3 years left. Last year he got tired of paying the college town land lords rent and bought one of the row houses to house himself and a couple room mates. His Dad Mike operates a HVAC/ Plumbing business so he installed a new gas furnace and a new Mini Split air/heat pump System. The existing gas hot water heater was only 2 years old and tested good so it was not replaced. Mike also installed smoke and carbon monoxide detectors as required for a rental property. About two weeks ago a CO detector tripped. Reed reset it and all was OK, but Mike sent him a second CO detector as a back up. Friday when Reed came home the CO detectors were sounding and when reset they kept tripping. He called his dad and Mike told him to disconnect the main breaker, open the doors, go out and wait in his car till he got there. Mike called the local fire company and left for the 2 hour trip to Bethlehem. He suspected the gas hot water heater that he did not replace could be the problem. When Mike got there, the fire company had allready checked Reeds house and appliances and could not find the source of the CO. They went to the attached row house and found the house was filled with CO from a faulty furnace and the family of five were all sick with flu like symptoms. Thankfully the loose stone basement foundation wall allowed the CO to leak into Reeds basement and trip the alarms and thankfully Reed did not come home for the weekend and was there to hear the alarms or the outcome would have been much different. Per the fire company, the family would not have survived the night. Sometimes we get lucky. Don't rely on luck...install smoke and CO detectors for everyone you care about.

Yep ... it seems no matter how tight those bolts are they always seem to be they always move. In the heat of the battle the blower gets dropped a little hard and that's what does it. Then they get covered with snow & ice & go unnoticed until spring thaw. Along with the scraper blade they are meant to wear I guess. Actually a good thing to advance my welding skills. PO had them like this but the adjustability goes out the window.

It works! 😄

That, or you coulda just used that thin part to set your points! LOL You got your money's worth outta that one

@squonk have provided the chickens also.

The plastic front ‘bumper’ (for lack of a better term) of my 522xi had a chunk broken out of it and several cracks radiating from that spot. Fortunately, I had the missing piece, which made the repair a little easier. After thoroughly cleaning and degreasing the area around the breakage, I glued the piece back in and cemented the cracks with a water-thin plastic solvent cement that had good capillary action to flow into the cracks. Here’s the back view of the breakage area after applying a few applications of the cement. It seemed to work very well. Even though the cracks were completely welded shut, I shifted into my usual over-engineering mode and decided to reinforce the back of the repair with a few layers of thin fiberglass cloth. I wanted a molecular bond between the fiberglass cloth and the plastic, rather than mechanical, so instead of something like epoxy or polyester resin, I used a thickened plastic cement that exhibited some solvent action on the plastic. Here's the back of the bumper with at least three layers of fiberglass cloth adhered with the plastic solvent cement and with a coat of red paint over it. This part of the bumper won't be visible. Here's the front after gluing, sanding, and a coat of clear “Adhesion Promoter” primer: And the damaged area after the first coat of Regal Red paint (two more coats to go). The color looks a bit off because the photo was taken in the shade. Note: The red bumper is made of PC-PET plastic (a blend of polycarbonate and polyethylene terephthalate). The black bumpers on similar models (such as my New Holland GT18 / 518xi clone) are made of ABS plastic. However, the cements that I used were actually designed to be used with other types of plastic, such as acrylic or PVC, but they still had a solvent action on the bumper and seemed (to me) to work fine. I guess time will tell.

My son doesn’t come on here anymore, but here is a 704 that he has been making into a 4x4. complete scratch built axle, and a lot of lathe and milling…. I’ll try sort some build pics out!

yep the good old days, when life was simple and days lasted twice as long. sometimes I long for those times again.

If you have no more than a couple of thousandths of play vertically and horizontally with the spindle locked in place, you might be able to mill a slot with one of these: You will need a cross slide such as this: I'm not recommending this rather poor way of milling, just showing some ideas. Typically a drill press holds the chuck using a Morse taper that works well pressing down on a drill bit, but any upward load would tend to loosen it.

it wasn't, but with a bigger table on the mill it could've been done. The shafts were still left in the diff housing

One of my great uncles was a butcher. There was always a container of lard in their refrigerator. His popcorn was a family favorite. Each batch started with a lump of lard, butter, and bacon grease.

That's the basic thought process I have as well. It's been indicated to me by someone here in real life that, instead of making standard small long thin Mill style cuts, I could potentially lock the depth up and down and make a whole bunch of drill holes in a row, then, straighten the slot. I'm no machinist so I don't know if that's realistic. Just what I've been told.

A drill press usually doesn't have the rigidity to do milling. The one you bought might do better than most but I wouldn't count on it.

No offense taken You are 100% correct, it's so easy to get in over your head on projects. My biggest problem is I seem to bounce around from project to project, which extends their timeline considerably at times. But, I figure as long as I'm enjoying myself that's all that matters. I look at it as being part of the journey, not the destination. Thanks!

Now John, that is just downright cool. I’m sure your dad is proud as you are.

Very cool! Couple hints. To set "max up", jack the plow up TO the front axle and adjust/ replace the middle linkage to hold it tight there. When the plow blade is let off the jack it'll settle away from the axle and give you max available ground clearance. IF you want occasional down pressure, you can make a solid link to go from the proper hole 🕳 in the center rock shaft, to the plow. PAINT THAT POOR MISERABLE BLADE. Will you be adding a front center stabilizer? How's your weights & chains situation?

My 1971 Bronco had a OEM filter when I got it around 2004, so it may have never been changed. That Sundstrand hydrogear still has ATF in it and it is the fastest and strongest hydro like it that I've seen so far. My FILs Charger is a 1972 and is nearly as fast. Also always had ATF in it as far as I know. I've been inside the Bronco transmission, and it was not only spotless but it had zero visible wear. I've always attributed this to ATF- but I'll never know. So the answer to your question has already been said: with proper use and maintainence, these old transmissions last decades.

All depends on how they were used or abused. If well maintained the Sundstrand and Eaton 1100 will continue to operate for several more decades.

If they have had reasonable care, real well. Reasonable care is cleaning the cooling fins, making sure the fan is working good, and oil changes. Especially the Eaton 11 that has filtration in front of the oil feeding the charge pressure to the pump and hold up well.

Nice pro tip Idea! If I can add, I put one longer bolt in the corner near the battery and use it as a stud for hooking up the ground.

I needed to remove the fan shroud so I could blow out the mouse nest. As luck would have it one of the bolts snapped off. This was the bolt on the lower left corner when looking at the shroud. I didn't want to leave it like that but I also didn't want to remove the flywheel so I figured I might as well at least try and drill it out and re-tap the hole. I have a 12" long set of drill bits in 1/16" increments so I decided to give it a try. I started with the 1/16" and succeeded in getting it centered and drilled all the way through the bolt remnants. Next was the 1/8" and then the 3/16". I don't have a long #7 drill bit so I had to settle for trying to use the 1/4-10 tap in an undersized hole and see what would happen. My biggest fear was breaking the tap off. I didn't have a long enough tap handle so I had to settle for a small wrench to turn the tap. Beyond all expectations I managed to succeed with the tap. I hope to never have to try that again The tip of the tap sticking through the hole is shown circled in red in the last picture. 1/16" drill bit 1/8" drill bit The tip of the tap as it broke through.

Hmmm. Some of us would do a lot get room for even one or two more tractors or even a warm place to work over the winter. Enjoy!

Installed 3d printed chute retainers and motor cover on the XI

That's what scares me, I have a half empty 30' x 40' foot barn and a 40' x 50' shop that still has a little room in it

I got several things I need to get finished, but my Bronco has been marking it's territory in my garage. One axle seal was leaking quite a bit, and I had not seen it because of how it was previously parked. Guess I should get it out more, right? As is usually the case, a leaky axle seal left alone long enough made the hub removal super easy. Didn't even need my puller for it (lucky since I couldn't find the darn thing). Anyway the hub came right off with some wiggles. Made a couple small dings in the metal face of the new seals because it was crazy tight but it shouldn't affect it. The axle and bearing seems fine. A couple hours after and no leaks yet. I'll try to get it out over the holidays and see for sure, but so far so good.

A few more of the build

Depends on what all the parts are and prices. Nashville is 2 hours or so away. @sqrlgtr is probably 15 miles from me give or take. Possibly we can both benefit

The last 2 times I put an 8 in the hole, I used a 1/4" dr. 1/2" flex socket stiffened up with electrical tape with an 8" extension to get the bolt in place and hold it before putting on the push nut

Plumbers putty works as a bolt holder. I think that's how I got the fuel tank mounted in the 953.

True Americana right there!

Hi. My name is Eric and I am Justin's enabler.

Absolutely amazing. I'm always in awe of any custom machine work. I'm lucky if I can drill something on center with my lathe. This is some serious fabrication skills!