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Thank you to all our Veterans for keeping America the Land of the Free because of the Brave.

Thank you to all you veterans for your sacrifice and service to our Country.

For over 40 years my parent's own a Auction house here in Ontario. And my Dad has had this little guy for the same amount of time. Hand painted by himself which won him many awards at our local tractor events. The last time RJ was in service was when my son was 3 years old. Dressed up as a Lamb with a bunch of stuffed animals in the wagon. At our towns Xmas parade. I believe that was 1998. Inheriting RJ after Dad passing in 2018 at the age of 80. Life was way too busy for me to spend time on RJ back to his original working self. So.... my winter project is now in motion to make my Dad's RJ a thing of beauty again. I will post more pics along the way. Any comments are appreciated. Thanks for your time. Cheers

The pessimist sees the dark tunnel. The optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel. The realist sees two lights at the end of the tunnel. And the engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks.

Well, this has never happened to me before... I work 3rd, and woke up recently in the afternoon to a voicemail and a free 416-8 in the back yard! My father in laws buddy gave me a 1990 416-8 with the Onan. Now, its not anything too special, but my teenage sons amd I should be able to get it going. Story is and from what i can tell by quickly looking it over, the guy bought a Chinese carb and hasn't been able to keep it running. It has ~525hrs on a probably non working meter and was left for dead. (It is One of those tractors where you can "see" the mouse nest behind the engine shroud. LOL) But there are still lots of good usable parts. Its rusty, but metal is straight, so I'm thinking of using this hood at least. PLAN: This machine is (i think) identical to the 1991 416-8 my dad bought new. I have that tractor and will basically combine those two into one decent unit. All in all, I wont need to purchase too much to make it a decent unit. Just LOTS of grease and rewiring obvious issues.

No 5-pin switches are all different. Up until now the 8362 switch was still available from Toro but looks like that has ended. It was a very expensive and heavy duty switch that carried the full current required for the starter motor. What many have done in the past is replace it with a lighter duty and less expensive switch plus add a starter solenoid to carry the starter load. The heavy wires going to the switch can be replaced with 14 gauge wires and a plug in connector can be added for the new switch. Your 8362 switch has 4-key positions. A less expensive and more common 103991 switch is a 3-key position switch which should work because you have a separate light switch. A 1960's - 70's Ford solenoid is a good choice

For a guy who doesn't need to know the time, everyday is Saturday

The oil has been proven to lose its Additive Package after a period of 3 to 5 years maximum. Every other year is good. Time to change it.

Finished this up Sunday and tested for leaks. I had a pretty substantial one from an elbow joint near the beginning of the expansion. I had to cut the next piece of pipe in two to get it out to fix the leak and then get put a union in it. Did that tonight, there are two more, pretty minor leaks still. One is about 14 ft up and I am not going to worry about it. The other is in the regulated line I use for painting and running my press. It had to be taken apart to do the original work, and has to come apart again because the regulator is no good. Anyway.... tonight I had PT for my be shoulder, which I of course agitated threading pipe Saturday, and I got a talking to about undoing all their work right before the ortho follow up.

Saturday the one boy helped me remove the mower deck and scrape the grass off. I gave the tractor a bath, including the insides of the wheels, which were kind of nasty. Got the plow and wheel weights on for winter duty. Yesterday I lubed the pivot points with oil and greased all the fittings. Checked the trans oil, looked good and not milky like the spring. I flushed and changed it back in march or April. Cleaned the foam prefilter and re oiled it, that was filthy. Checked air pressure in the tires, front left loses air only when it gets below freezing. Was a couple pounds down. Pumped that back up. Parked it in the garage and put the battery maintainer on it for a few days for some desulfating action. Still debating on whether I should change the oil and filter. Last time I did that was July of ‘24. The oil looks pretty clean with only 43 hours on it. Need to find a new seat compatible with the weird bolt pattern on this year 2000 machine.

I stopped by the hardware store after walking g the dog and picked up a couple different sized 'E' clip for the throttle linkage on Morgan, the 14-8. Next on the list was removing the dock from the lake. Was sunny and just over 60 today, so the trailer shirt and swimming trunks weren't too bad. Then, I waded out into the lake, which a water temperature around 50. Kind of like going swimming in Lake Superior. Wasn't too bad, once my legs and feet went numb. Fortunately, I didn't have to get much more than knee deep. I'm starting to ask my 70 year old self why I'm still doing this. Got some seat time on Morgan pulling the lawn sweep around to collect the drifts of leaves I blew out of the flower beds. That pretty much finished up the leaves that were in the yard. Then, I looked up: I've stil got a bunch more leaves coming - once the oak trees decide to let go of them. More seat time tomorrow (weather pirmitting) moving the dock sections from the shore up to the winter storage area.

My favorite four letter word, FREE