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Snapped this cool picture today! 1445 Auto, Allis Chalmers WD45, and 57 Pontiac Star Chief I call it “Generational Wealth”

I dragged this machine home last summer and figured I might as well begin work on it. This is what I am starting with. It had no carb so I got a cheap china carb for it and it will start by jumping the solenoid as the wiring has issues. Hydro seems strong and engine runs quiet and as smooth as a single cylinder can.

Likely just a spare as I have a dedicated mowing 520H (with a 16 Onan on it), my 520HC is the snow plow tractor, and another 520H is set up for the two stage blower. I have 10 tractors now with most of them restored (my wife thinks I'm crazy).

Well, I found out why the tractor needed the solenoid jumped to start it. The battery connection terminal on the ignition switch is corroded completely. Here is the old connector for the ignition switch. New connector installed. The other connectors are in decent shape and will easily clean up. Since the indicator board is completely corroded as well, I decided to simply eliminate it and all it's associated wiring in the harness. I also eliminated the seat switch and associated relays etc. The neutral switch is gone as well since I will be installing a self centering foot control. Here is the harness as pulled. Here is the harness cleaned up and simplified. Here is the harness ready to be installed. I hooked it up to a battery and plugged in a new ignition switch, low oil relay, PTO switch, and 2 new fuses and tested all functions. Everything works perfectly including grounding the magneto for shutdown (yes, I do have the correct magneto ignition switch).

July 22, 1959 Ed Wood's cult classic "Plan 9 from Outer Space," often called one of the worst films ever, premieres starring Gregory Walcott and Bela Lugosi.

Tractor is mostly torn apart. Frame, engine and rear end have preliminary degreasing done. Don't mind the yellow wheels, they are just for moving the tractor around. Wagon load of parts. These are all cleaned up and ready for bead blasting and/or sanding.

My neighbor buddy moved down to north Alabama a few years ago. He’s back in town and posted on FB that they were thinning some of their flower garden and stop in to say hi. 5 hours later, we finished up our quick visit for this time. It was great to see Greg and his abundantly giving family! I hope I made his mother and father proud, planting their prized flowers the way they showed me, and giving them hair cuts to keep the energy into growing roots this year! Oh, and there were some sweet rides there, they are a hot rodding family and their friends are too!

Excellent work on the wiring harness, Cleat. I like the way you do things. I made up a bunch of harnesses in my shop wiring local agency police cars for emergency lights and radios. Later I worked 13 years for Virginia State Police doing the same thing. I must have used miles of electrical tape and nylon conduit. I always used the best grade wire and high temp conduit in my shop, due to the customer use (and abuse).

I miss those old science fiction movies. I remember one that had a rocket re-landing back on its launch pad. I said ' that'll never happen'. Hmm, and then along came Elon.

Nice driving car, my mom had one in blue. The trunk was massive. And the car was so easy to fix. Nothing like we have now.

That Olds, the owner has had for 65 years. It’s got a 455 in it, and he used regularly drive it from Michigan to Kentucky, like monthly or more. He’s built it more than 3 times. It was a delivery sedan, and he’s had it back and forth numerous times, but he likes his seat laid back too much so he took the delivery parts out for good. He had 4.10:1 gears in it for the road trips for many years too, then went to a 2.70:1! He said that big block would sing to the tune of 3,000 rpm’s on the road. Now it has a Holley Dominator EFI setup. He’s widened the frame, built different suspensions, tubbed it 8”, and it gets about 14 mpgs. I don’t recall the transmission, I want to say 4L80E? Now the intake. Years back, WestTech Performance out in southern California was running scuba tank intake charges of sorts and they had these individual runners to streamline the airflow through the carb. This is all on my memory, so I think I’m close. He loved the way it looked, so he built that intake setup because he had the room to do it. It’s a 4 into 1 exhaust collector and has a conical splitter inside to help direct the airflow as well. Behind the grille that he built, you may see the intake pipe split and run to two large air breathers. He said that helped his MPGs greatly and he’s always liked the look.

just a side note don't overdo the grease on that cage bearing, it will bleed out onto you clutch plate and you will have another problem, slipping clutch plate.

love that impala!!! i'm with ebinmaine, what's up with that intake? the sad thing about vehicles today is everything looks the same to me. just plastic jelly beans going down the road. if you lined up 10 suv's, same color, no badges, could you tell the brand?

Don't worry, 8" front wheels will be going back on.

All is well. Patience was the key. Eventually, I wound up putting in just about the same amount of oil as I drained out. Duhh! Makes perfect sense, though it sure went in a lot slower than it came out. Thank you all for your advice and thoughtful replies. ZT

@cleat I and probably a lot of others will be following along and can't wait to see how good it will look after you do your vodoo on it. BTW I really like the 8" fronts, nothing wrong with the 6' inchers, but really like the looks of the 8's better.

I grew up watching cheezy horror movies with my 3 siblings. It was always a fun time!

The lawn in our back yard has a lot of clover in it. The deer love the blossoms so I don't mow it until they have grazed on the sweet flowers.

Once you start the engine about a half quart of oil will be pumped into the new filter.

on that Impala. My Uncle traded his 57 Belair in for a brand new 65 Impala SS with one of the very first 396 Big Blocks. They switched from the 348/409's mid year. Aqua in color. I loved riding in it watching the in dash vacuum gauge!

Been some years since this has been built . I want to say 13-14 years ago @VinsRJ started this build . Every-time I walk past it in my garage it always amazes me the details on this machine .

Does this apply to yours?

Do we know anything about this intake or engine?? Me Bear 🐻 likes Daylilies. 👍

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They're excellent. Very well built. I have two. Absolutely would buy more.

@ebinmaine I really like that hitch

Yes that's on the list just trying to determine where the wires go for my Vanguard swap.

I think it is the coupling and the routing of the hose.

Just reading the service bulletin and striking the shaft on the top will make it take grease. I suppose if you hit the shaft and the space internal to the tube gets a little play, the grease will flow around into the cavity. You are that far apart, I would remove the bearings and look at the grease hole in the spacer tube along with the grease in the cavity. With the way the grease is coming up around the shaft to the nut, for sure those bearing are not getting grease.

You bring up an excellent point. LOZ makes the news for lots of weird things. It’s a hotspot of activity for the citizenry of MO where drinking, boating, and bad judgement collide. And there is a lot of haphazard DIY work going on. Dock shock incidents seem to happen with grizzly regularity there. Swimmers around docks are fine, then suddenly one (or more of them) perish while in the water. Many times, the victims aren’t even swimming around a dock that has power. It can be a neighbor’s dock or even one across the cove. What’s been found is that all it takes is for an electrical leak to enter the water somewhere in the vicinity. Water itself isn’t electrically conductive, the things ionized into it make it conductive. Heterogeneous concentrations of conductive agents mean that current isn’t conducted predictably between the leaking electrical source and its grounding point and instead can meander around finding the ever changing paths of least resistance on its way to ground. if a swimmer happens to get into one of those meandering paths, it is tragic. Several deaths have occurred when the victim approached or grabbed the ladder to climb back out of the water as the current had been using the ladder as its path back home. It is incredibly unpredictable where it might go. The poor conductivity of freshwater makes the current path for any leakages a wild animal. A properly functioning GFCI on every supply can reduce the tendency for these phantom electrical currents to claim victims, but their placement is critical and they need to be on every supply. In light of how tragic this has been in recent summers it’s a bad idea to swim around any docks that have power routed to them. Steve

There are tiger lilies in ditches and yards all over here. Except my place. I have always been fond of them, and hope someday they will migrate over. Our farmer is very proud of the way he manicures our road frontage. Having 2 miles of total perimeter, that makes about a mile of road frontage to mow. I wouldn’t mind if it grows up a bit but I see his allure. It does look nice when he trims it up. I was showing Tay last night where I put them. A rabbit was in close proximity checking out the place. I wonder how long they will last.

Yes Sir !! Same wheels and tires I had on my 70 Chevelle SS 396 4 speed

This I will try if, I mean next time, I have to do another.

My go-to for these is a tiny dab of hot glue applied to the tip of the arm.

I planted over a HUNDRED day lilies behind our house a few years ago. Turns out the deer find them very tasty. Haven't seen a bloom in a long time, tanks for reminding me how beautiful they are.

What about the outer bearing on the PTO. They go bad quite often. Napa # PP204RR6

Definitely worth $50 in parts or a restoration candidate. The right axle area looks quite dirty, so I suspect the seal is shot.

3 1/2 to 4 sounds about right. The system when complete empty with take closer to 5. The hydro pump, deck lift system remains filled when you drain. no need to lift front end, that is on manual transmissions. Fill and recheck the next day, as per the dip stick.

604/704. What's not original are the engine, rear tires, throttle and choke controls and the seat

Hood looks original, uncut. You have to remove the steering wheel (or wheel & shaft) to get the hood completely off.....

36 deck. Unless consciously abused, the transmission is likely redeemable. Might not be the original engine (I don’t recognize the starter/cooling air intake cowling). The two-spoke steering wheel is a personal favorite. Good rehab candidate in my book!

Thinking it is a 604 ,pull start Tecumseh 6hp...1964. Deck looks like it could be a 32"...maybe a 36". Tractor looks to be complete. No belt guard. Should clean up nice...put a Honda engine on it.

Today, I got the 42” RD mowing deck finished up and back on. I also tested it. It’s much quieter and goes great.

Vin did some incredible work to build that tractor. I'm guessing, but that might be the tractor they found at the Zagray show. I remember Vin and Matt found an old cable steer at one of those shows. There used to be some very good finds and plenty of Wheel Horse stuff down there back then. Now, not so much. I found an early 58 with the round rear wheel hubs about 9-10 years ago. AMCrules ended up with that one.

Well I went ahead and put a Farmall cub seat on my 10-8. Old seat was trashed and rotted so I had this. And I can put an aftermarket cover on it at some point.

I've been hanging my grease gun in a spot that's low on the wall and keep an old rag under it. Best compromise I guess. I’m having a good chuckle here at the inherent contradiction of wanting grease to penetrate once applied to a bearing or joint but NOT to seep out of the grease gun! Same applies to trying to constrain penetrant decanted into tiny bottles with needle nozzles or with threaded caps 😁

Couple pics of the 1973 8 HP 4 speed we've been working on with its owner @Natejc_98 Should be ready for a test drive!

If Cecil Pond saw that he would say the same thing he said when he saw my C-121 that I restored. “That tractor wasn’t that nice when it left the factory!” He said that with a smile which in turn made me smile for approximately two weeks straight 😁

That's definitely not enough. Static reading should be 12.45 or higher. Running reading should be more in the range of 13.5 to low 14s.

Final stage of the Big Show seat resto.