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My widowed neighbor brought this sign into my shop about 3 weeks ago. Her special needs son had tried to restore it with a rattle can. She said she had a dream about the sign and my name came up. Would I like to paint it.? No way I can ruin a dream for a wonderful neighbor. So it became a project. I took the sign to a local cabinet / sign maker for advice on paints and clear coatings. In 2 minutes he had it on his screen. He made the sign in 1995. I thought about paying him to make a new one, but I knew my neighbor would prefer the old one. It had taken a 1/2" warp over the 30 years and I decided to not correct it, but added two ribs to keep it together. Used some soldering irons as wood burners to reestablish the outlines. Three coats of brown oil based enamel, three coats of gold water based acrylic, and the fourth and final coat of water based spar poly today.

We've put a deposit on a 2026 Keystone Coleman 13B. Coleman Travel Trailers - Compact Comfort Trailers - Keystone RV https://share.google/unmuxzxyGQupcq8Qc Basically an enclosed utility trailer with a restroom and great storage. This will give us the storage space to keep all our standard camping equipment in a permanent place. Likely upgrades will be an axle flip for increased ground clearance and larger tires.

I've posted a few pics of Trina's latest woodstove restoration project. This'n is a Timberline. It's now located in the new basement apartment for her momma. Here's a before during and after pic set.

Over the weekend we flew down to see my daughter in Charleston,S.C. and decided to go check out this museum. I must say that I was super impressed by the quality of the restorations of these trucks. Figured I would take a few pictures for you guys, I know how much you love pictures!!

I recently had blood work, MRI, and a colonoscopy. Test results all came back good. No cancer. Next blood scan will be the end of December.

Found yet another use for the Horse. First year I didn't have to drag a deer over 100 yards uphill with a rope!

Hello, long time lurker finally joined. Just wanted to say hi and share pics of my slow growing collection. Started with the Raider 10 to pull a lawn cart. Purchased from the original owner. Thought it would be easier on the lawn than my kubota. I was right but it also started my addiction. From there bought two 854's to make one good one. Then most recently purchased a Suburban 400 with Clinton engine. This site has been very helpful along the way and I appreciate the effort you all put into maintaining it.

Hello All! Added THREE tractors all at once yesterday(09/16/2025). Two model 854, and one model 855. The two 854 look pretty nice, but are not running right this minute --does not look like much more than a little tinkering/refreshing after sitting for a long time. The 855 was labelled a "parts" tractor, but except for it being Really well-used looking, it seems to be all there so I am not going to consider it out of play yet. The two 854's have rear discharge mower decks...one is a square style deck, the other the rounded style deck. I think it is really nice that all three are basically the same machine, separated by one year, yet completely different styles--the end of one era and the beginning of another I guess. There is an ID tag on the 855 (serial number 135166) but on the two 854 tractors, there is No tag under the steering like late models. Are the tags in a different place on older machines? Looking them over, I do not notice anything obvious. The 854 with the lower Kohler engine serial number has the round style mover deck, while the one with the slightly higher engine serial number has the square style deck. All for now! Be well and stay safe. [rayg]

My A-60 Electric Wheel Horse has a chain final drive from the transmission to the differential. The master link on the chain gave out so I had my wife tow me to the shop. Since the brakes are on the transmission I had no brakes which got me to thinking. I have a rather steep driveway up to the house and if the chain had let loose there it would be a coaster ride with no way of stopping other than hitting a tree. Not a desirable alternative. I looked the situation over and decided to add a disc brake to the rear axle. Took a little bit of measuring and shade tree engineering but the outcome was well worth it. The disc is much better than the brakes mounted to the Peerless Transmission.

Everyone meet Jerry, Jerry meet everyone. my 5 year old stepson wanted to have a skeleton on a tractor. He went with his mom to go see his sister at her college this weekend. Can’t wait til he sees it. I’m going to get a different skeleton for the one who’s getting mowed up. Now the wheels are turning on getting Jerry some friends doing other crazy things. He’s temporarily mowing with my 12auto until I get the rusty 14-8 up from out back.

I have been working on my little shed at home and remembered how Dad would always put Masonite(tempered hardboard) down for a nice work surface. The great thing about it is it cleans up nice and when it gets too messed up you just pull it up and put down a new piece!! The 1/4" 4'x8' sheet was less than $25 I am still organizing this shed at my house since I got it a couple of years ago. My shop is 9 miles away, so I have to have stuff here too!

So Mrs. M and I took some much needed time off from the world and stood on a corner in Winslow, AZ

The ol girl worked good today. Dug up a brick and mortar foundation and hauled it away with no sweat!

Picked this lawn ranger up a few months ago and right away my youngest claimed it as his! Being all original we stared cleaning and buffing it up. We just have a few things to button up but for the most part it’s done. We did a makeshift muffler to keep the noise down being right in town lol. He was excited to take it for a few laps around town. FB3CA92C-1526-49E2-89A2-3FF456044131.mov D0676C82-8D93-4955-9852-853793D1A035.mp4

Not super rare, but equally they only surface once every six months and there’s a queue waiting to grab them! I managed to acquire a suburban 400 from a young lad who bought it then realised he couldn’t do anything with it! Had a very large Briggs engine fitted, a VW Beetle steering box and too many hacks to mention. he nabbed the narrow rears and left me with the rest! gearbox full to the brim with water! Interesting stretch chassis to take a Briggs engine. lots of chassis patching! rolling..... making a new hoodstand steering gears - same size and ratio as the original - but will outlast them! looking more like it onto that gearbox it was a mess, all the bearings were gone! they had chopped the bottom of the casing for some reason nearly together - amazon packaging to the rescue as a gasket done - with a modifed C series shifter onto the brake drum - I turned down and old cast pulley. reamed the inside to 3/4" all done - just the pedal and linkage to sort.... Ewan very kindly fired up the forge and made me a pedal. new brake/clutch pedal in place - I thought a bigger bush can't be a bad thing! donor Clinton engine didn't spark - home made puller did a reasonable job. Points cleaned up and all connections clean - we were in action! didn't have a pull start either - so made a start cup and used a new tecumseh pull start finally made two footrests to match. Hard work in the press, but a modified bolster chisel did the job! Finished - just needs the right steering wheel and hood! Does anyone have something that could be shipped to the UK?

A year or three ago we decided to invest in a generator powerful enough to run everything in the home including the well pump, AC, & electric heat and hot water. We've been hunting for a small enclosure for it but as we're all well aware many of the available products are just cheap 💩 Well yesterday the BBT commenced to making one on her own. As usual it's almost all free/recycled materials. It turned out EXCELLENT. It'll be painted all one color. The huge cord will be hung inside the enclosure.

We miss you @Stormin, today would have been his 78th birthday.

Never forget Our Nation is in mourning, for those lost for our freedoms. There will be hatred always, but the way we handle it seems odd to this country boy. ‘Nuff said. RIP Charlie Kirk, a man who would respectfully debate with anyone, no matter their beliefs.

Got tired of robbing parts machines so, Made a few shifter grub screws on mini lathe. Now the other horses want be jealous and everyone will have a shifter that works .

Did some more maint work on free 702 today. Also installed hitch I bought at big show from Brian @K&B Wheel Horse on Workhorse.

All six of my Wheel Horse RJs out for some fresh air today! 1958 and 1959s. Wheel Horse made about 24,000 in those two years and $2.5 million in profit- enough to buy and build a modern factory on south side of South Bend, Indiana on Ireland Road! I was able to save both original tires on the 67 year old tractor i bought s couple weeks ago. They still had the tubes loaded with calcium chloride but the old valve had started to leak bad!

The BBT aka Lead Logging Supervisor and I went off to the right side forest to get a few pieces of standing dead trees. 3? Small ash. A couple small maples. We sectioned them to 84" because we use 14" cuts of firewood. 6 pieces there. We hand hauled those 40 to 60 feet out to the pole trailer. Then brought that to the upper yard.

Rolled into crab camp at 3PM and moved in for the week. And the relaxing begins.

I took out some tractors I had stored in my enclosed trailer to put different ones in to go to a show yesterday. When I got home I didn’t feel like reloading them so I just put them in the garage.

Moved the 2” receiver from the Workhorse to the 520-8.

I'm past due for an update. The paint is cured enough and it was decal time. I've been anxious for this. I decided to go with stock decals from Terry. As any of you that have used his decals knows they are idiot proof. Soooooo easy to apply with no bubbles. I still have a couple minor decals to put on. The headlight tub got a quick coat of silver and pop riveted in place. 5000k led bulbs. I don't need taillights so reflectors covered the holes. I got this seat with no tears but it needed a good cleaning. I'd say it cleaned up pretty good. The electric fuel pump is installed under the seat. About all I need to do is the electrical, throttle and choke controls and the usual odds and ends. In the background of the first picture you'll see some mufflers sitting there. Big block and a small block Nelsons and a stack with a flipper cap thingy. I'm not a big stack person but for some reason it's calling me. I've been pondering what chore this tractor will have and I've pretty well decided on getting rid of the 314H and slapping the 42"sd deck on this one. This had a 42"rd but it needs work. I'm thinking that will be a project for this winter.

Well maybe not a new home ... but I could live there. A new man mall just opened very local that I have never heard of before and I consider myself a farm n barn store connoisseur. Very clean and very well stocked. Tractor parts, tools, hunting, fishing everything a guy needs. Very well priced too as it goes nowadays. https://www.theisens.com/ I doubt many here have ever heard of it either. Apparently it's a small chain based in Iowa. This is only their 3rd store in WI. I was impressed. A massive hardware aisle complete with Hillman style drawers that wouldn't quit. I thought it strange all their grade eights were bright blue anodized. The grade fives were a bright green. For easy id at the checkout I'm guessing. Best part like TSC and unlike Ace or other places sold by the pound. The 1045 may develop a blue glow...

Plastic lined the 2 stage blower chute today. Still need to make new rubber paddles for the impeller. They're worn down pretty far but ran for a good 5-6 years or so. Can't remember exactly where I saw this plastic thing done but it might have been from a geasy Pete post. Thought I'd give it a try this year and we'll see how it performs and holds up

If I could find the top of my bench I would probably do the same.

My first thought when someone mentions a garden tractor is my grandfathers 1965 Big Ten, as a young kid I can vividly remember my dad and grandfather hauling fire wood out of the woods across the meadow to the where he stored and stacked his fire wood. I can remember when I got to drive the Big Ten for the first time, I was king and he was there to show me how to mow and how to change the oil and how to remove the deck and put the plow on to turn the garden. So I was set on a mission to find a Big Ten. He sold his and upgraded to a 716. I tried to search for his but I got to two owners than it just disappeared. So I found this one in Erie, Pa. I dragged it home and showed him what I got I was so proud of myself for finding it and getting it running, I was able to get him on the tractor at 90 and he had a huge smile and talked about that tractor and memories he had. It is always amazing to me the attachment me have to just a simple little tractor. I was not able to get a picture of him back on a Big Ten, I made a promise to myself to redo this little tractor and show him but I didn’t make it. So it sat in my shed for a couple of years and now I’m ready to get this done. Started the tear down and these tractors are a lot more complex than wheel horses. I really enjoy the simplicity of wheel horse. I guess that is why wheel horse is so popular they are easy to work on.

LOTS done with the Wheelhorses and trailers today! Earlier today I got the newly acquired and painted steel weights from @Sparky on my 1974 C160-8 Cinnamon Horse. We used Cinnamon to yank this project trailer outta its hole. Someone else can tackle it... Then we cleaned out the slot of forest it was in. Trim. Rake. Blown leaves. Cut sticks etc... Now the big 7 x 16 flatbed trailer has a home. Trina and her momma been working on firewood again today. Super friggin hot 🔥 🥵 so momma takes lots of breaks. The shed is full. 2.5 cord. The barn overhang is starting to get there too.

Piece by piece, I'm gradually getting the paint sorted on my GT18. Here are the steps in fixing up one of the foot rests: A fair amount of rust had developed under the rubber mat: I slathered on a thick coat of CitriStrip, wrapped it in a polyethylene sheet, and let it sit for a few hours. About 98% of the paint came right off without any scrubbing or scraping: Here's how it looked after washing off the CitriStrip and removing a few bits of remaining paint: Next, I let the foot rest sit in a phosphoric acid bath for a while, which took care of most of the rust, and then hit any stubborn remaining pockets with my spot blaster. (Note: I don't use phosphoric acid on high-strength or hardened steel, since I want to avoid hydrogen embrittlement.) I applied the initial coat of self-etching primer, which contains zinc phosphate: Then I filled the pits with 3M High-Bond filler and sanded it flat: Here it is after more primer coats: And after a few coats of paint: Now on to the next one.

If anyone here has seen the movie "Hacksaw Ridge" knows about the heroics of Desmond T. Doss. There was a TV show, "This is your Life", and one episode, it honored Doss. To make this on topic, the show gave him a brand new Wheel Horse Ride-away. You can see it on the below video at 24:30. Dorothy Doss, his wife, died in a car accident in 1991 and Desmond, himself, died in 2006 at age 87. He was a real life American hero that most don't know about.

So, let’s get to some of the good parts! The biggest part of our journey was planning the road trip! Interstate 80 runs from Reno Nevada all the way to Southern Michigan. It was quite easy to plan our route. We never really made an exact goal, but we wanted to be home in three days. 2100 miles, three days, 700 miles per day was our estimated goal. That is not including any travel on Friday. If you can recall, I recently did a trip down to Southern Kentucky and home in one day. That was 915 miles. I set myself a goal to drive 800 miles Saturday, 800 miles Sunday and have an easy drive on Monday. I think I ended up around 900 miles on Saturday. We stayed just outside of Sparks Nevada on Friday and dropped $550 at Walmart on RV, fluids, food, and fluids for us. I wanted to make sure that I had enough oil, coolant, and transmission fluid for any surprise! We drove Sparks Nevada to Laramie, Wyoming on Saturday. We made it from Laramie all the way to the Iowa 80 truckstop on Sunday. That place is huge! Monday we made it home for 2 PM and was able to pick up Rylee from school with the big turd. We saw all kinds of cool sites along the way. We saw deer, antelope, wild horses, roadkill coyotes, it was all great! The views in the mountains never get old. I feel like every single mountain. I see I can take a picture of. I love it just as much as the one before and just as much as the one after. The colors that come out of the ground, the shapes and sizes, the objects that defy gravity, it’s also so beautiful! I also realize that when it gets dark out, there is a very predominant star to the east that I can see from home. Most likely anywhere you are if you look to the east, you’ll see what I’m talking about. I followed that star from Nevada all the way home. We set up a time, lapse camera, had fun, stopping when we wanted to, enjoy a little break at Bonneville salt flats, and all kinds of other cool places along the way whenever we road trip, I try my best to get up early and get a couple hours of drive time in before the world wakes up. we’re also battling time zones. Nevada is three hours behind Michigan and it seemed like we crossed a time zone every day. So, getting up at 4 AM kind of meant that we actually only got up at 5 AM. We lost an hour every day. now, we are home. We don’t exactly know what we will end up doing with this bus. There is enough water damage, body damage, and exterior needs, that we know a big project is going to cost even more money. I also don’t want to lose all the money we’ve “invested“ into this! for not now, I plan to replace the bushings in the track bar that are so sloppy. Then, we will take a breather from it. I did walk the roof today and was kind of impressed. It’s nice to know that it’s one solid panel, not a applied barrier of vinyl or other soft material. It’s hard, solid, and serviceable.

Dock removal day today. Tapped Clyde, the C-197 for hauling duty. Got 5/7 done. I ran out of daylight and energy. For @c-series don and @rjg854: Clyde, the C-195 at work, hauling dock sections and at quitting time:

Was talking to a good friend of mine last weekend at the coffee shop we meet up at every weekend, his son (also a good friend of mine) sadly passed away about three months ago, so he has been busy settling all of that. Anyway he brought it up to me last weekend that he was ready to sell some things, and was wondering if I might be interested in the camper his son had. We have been talking about buying one for a while, for years I have attended various tractor shows and just camped in a tent for the weekend, or a whole week in the case of our show that’s right around the corner. Never has bothered me to sleep in a tent, but Courtney can’t stand sleeping in a tent and informed me after our show last year that if she was going to go this year we were either renting a motel room for a week or buying a camper. That combined with the fact that I knew Rick was going through a rough enough time and not wanting him to have to deal with all the tire kickers and idiots that come with selling something these days, I went ahead and wrote him a check for it this morning. It’s a 2006 Forest River Wildwood LE 27’. We went and picked it up tonight after work, needs some cleaning from sitting for a while, Courtney is going to start on that tomorrow while I put 4 new tires on it and check bearings and all that good stuff before we drag it 100 miles to the show grounds next weekend. Will get more pictures of the inside tomorrow. Almost forgot the free boat that came with it too, he told me to get it out of there as well, no title and the floor is pretty well rotted out, but has a lot of good scrap aluminum in the framework, and two good pontoons I’m going to try and sell to someone wanting to build a floating dock. All I really wanted or had a use for was the trailer. Offered to buy it from him but he insisted that I drag it out to the farm and dispose of it.

I made a front weight bracket for flat plates. Free weight bar was cut. Old mule drive Bolt on receiver hitch. Extra unused drop hitch.

The white domed building is the McKim Observatory built in 1884. It is owned and operated by DePauw University. https://www.depauw.edu/about/campus/mckim-observatory/ 140 years old and very well preserved. On the National Register of Historic Places and has the original early telescope. The last picture is of the time clock that keeps the telescope aligned with what you are viewing- again clock technology from 1880s! This telescope was the 30th major observation telescope built in the USA according to to DePauw University.

I was given a 68 Raider 9 a while ago and had to ponder a while deciding if it should be rebuilt or parted out. I know parted out makes some guys cringe but the parts needed to save one have to come from something. This is going to be one of those 'somethings' and a lot of the parts will hopefully get in the right hands. The transmission, being a 5060 6-speed limited slip tweaked my interest. The hubs pulled without much of a fight. As I posted earlier, one of the lug bolts is mangled bad. I intend to weld a nut on the head but haven't done that yet. The hubs have two setscrews with both having a factory ground flat. I didn't know they did that back then. The input pulley slipped right off and the key fell out by itself. The brake drum put up a fight but I prevailed. The axle keys were ornery. I did end up getting one off with the usual hammer rocking method but one wouldn't budge. Enter the rotary tool and cutoff wheel. After 20+ wheels I finally created the clearance to get it out. Note the smaller brake drum key. It was like that before I attacked it. Fortunately, the keyway in the drum is fine. Of course I want to open it up for inspection. First I drained the oil. It was motor oil and pretty clean. Then I brushed on some Purple Power I've had on the shelf and hit it with the pressure washer. Not much need to be done before it turns red. Then it's flush time. As I've mentioned several times in the past, I hate the diesel smell. For years I've used Motor Medic Motor Flush. It does an incredible job with very little odor. I reuse it. After another couple days and spinning the input shaft now and then I'll drain it into a clean pan and strain it as it goes back in the bottles. I really don't know the fate of this transmission right now. I probably would have used it in the Dino project had it come along sooner. Now I'm thinking it would sure go nice in my 76 reborn B-80 since that tractor is now dedicated to the dirt/snow blade.

Got a few in the new workshop space.

My son sent me a link to a recent Flash Mob performance in Paris that I thought was worth sharing with ya'll. A lot of time and talent went into this one time show. Hope you enjoy.

We are prevailed to live in a nation that was founded on freedom of speech and religious belief. The protection of these rights against discriminatory practices is a balancing act. My rights should only go to the point where they will not interfere with the rights of others. That was the philosophy of Charlie Kirk, freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Charlie Kirk was an amazing young man who inspired others through his "Turning Point USA" campaign encouraging young Americans to live a life of purpose, become involved and vote their conscience. In his thirty one short years Charley Kirk did more to unite and motivate high school and collage students than anyone I am aware of. He used the Constitution of the United States and the Bible as the basis of his debate points and would allow others to make their point in open debate. This is a sad time in our history Rest in piece Charlie Kirk.

I did this on a Coleman Columbia pop up. In 1989 I traded my 3000 lb 30' Mobile Traveler for the 1000 lb Coleman to take a tour of the Western National Parks. We spent 30 days and 5000 miles on the road in the camper. Total cost for the trip was $2900. Best vacation ever.

Getting his Lawn Ranger cleaned up and ready to polish. Got to love saving some original paint!

Freaking awesome 'Fish... 1045 all back finally together after being neglected all summer. Go to tub puller. Nothin like a fresh tranny. Tried @Racinbob patented input shaft shimming but kept binding it up???? Needs hood hinge work yet. Thinkin maybe weld washers on??

Added a hitch to the C-125 from wheelhorsepartsandmore.com.

Celebrated on September 17, Constitution Day, also known as Constitution and Citizenship Day, honors the document that guarantees Americans their essential rights. Since its ratification in 1787, the Constitution of the United States has served as the basis for all U.S. laws. Our Founding Fathers framed the Constitution carefully, distributing power between three branches of government. The Constitution outlines the government’s powers, the limitations on those powers, and the rights of citizens. It also outlines an amendment process for making changes in the future. At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, delegates from twelve of the thirteen new states gathered to draft the document that would serve as the basis of all future U.S. law. Delegates at the Convention had two options for setting up the framework of the new legislative branch. The Virginia Plan, predictably supported by larger states, called for representation based on population. The competing New Jersey Plan called for equal representation for each state. The two-house solution known as the Great Compromise combines aspects of both plans and is still in use today. The Constitution also outlines the responsibilities and powers of the judicial and executive branches, how the President is elected, and other nitty-gritty details. In 1940, Congress and the President passed a resolution creating “I Am an American Day,” observed on the third Sunday in May. In 1952, the holiday was renamed to “Constitution Day” and moved to September 17, the day in 1787 that the Constitution was signed. More than 50 years later in 2004, Congress once again changed the name of the holiday to Constitution Day and Citizenship Day.

Well I didn’t make bread or pancakes but I did make progress. I got all the roof metal on. Just need to trim the ends a little bit. Wasn’t too bad. I ordered the metal 2” longer in case I had a bunch of sawtoothing on the ends from being out of square. I was a 3/16” off across 36’. Not bad for a regular joe.

No matter your beliefs, no matter what culture or lifestyle- No one deserves to die for what they say. We have alot to reflect upon at this time. Emotions are running high and the shock of horrible events doesn't ever really go away, whether 24 years ago or yesterday. I pray that God will be with us all. Regardless of your beliefs, it's clear more than ever that we need it.