Failed attempts at restraint - Added a Bronco 14 and 8HP 4Spd

[dtallon 320]

Things seemed to have slowed down some the past week, but there for a while it seemed tractors were popping up right and left around here with people cleaning out their garages and sheds for winter.  Despite some attempt at will power, I ended up doing my part to help others with their cleaning projects.  

 

The first of my two most recent scores is a Bronco 14.  The seller listed this tractor on CL a year ago for $500.  Too high to interest me, but he relisted it several times, and finally worked his way down to $200.  At that price, my resistance weakened and I couldn't help but take a look.  

 

It hadn't run since before he listed it the first time, so I had to take his word that it would run and drive OK.  The engine, with the starter/generator setup is obviously not original.  The tag on it comes back as a Wheel Horse 10HP from '66 or '67, but there is also a sticker on it saying 12HP with a replacement spec number on it.  The engine block is primer gray, so it is probably a replacement.  The snow plow is a short frame that has been lengthened, and has the older style axle mount.  Not pretty, but I'd been wanting a hydro tractor to play with, or at a minimum, some parts to use on a project I had in mind, so after a little haggling it found it's way onto my trailer.  

 

 

 

The second tractor I picked up was a '73 8HP 4spd.  This one was a roadside-sale find that I had told myself twice I didn't need.  My mistake was taking pictures the second time I went by it.  After seeing the on here recently about an 8HP 4Spd, and looking again at the pictures, I reconsidered, but told myself only if it was a good deal. 

 

The seller was a nice older gentleman who told me it didn't have many hours on a fresh engine rebuild, but when the battery died he parked it in the barn and starting using a different mower.  There it sat for the past 20 or so years, until he recently pulled it out to sell.  He said he tried to start it and it would crank but not fire,  He accepted my $100 offer, so it came home with me.   

 

 

 

 

 

It may be a little crazy, but my plan for these is to merge the two.  I have been wanting a short wheel base hydro, so I'd like to use the hydro drive and lift from the Bonco, and the front frame and hood from the 8HP 4Spd.  For the engine, I'm going to try to shoehorn the 12HP in there.  I've done a bunch of measuring and so far the only real stumbling block I see is getting the air cleaner to fit.  I'm sure there will be other issues, and having the two side by side I can see it will be more of a challenge than I first thought, but it should be a good winter project.  

 

 

First things first though, My immediate plan is to get each one checked out and hopefully running, so I can see what is good and what is not.  Mechanically, the 8HP 4Spd is pretty similar to my 854, so that one is somewhat "old hat", but I'm sure the Bronco's hydro will prompt some questions.  

 

Thanks,

Dave

[AMC RULES 36,945]

Nice  score...     

great lookin' little trailer too.  

[Sparky-(Admin) 19,540]

Boy did someone cobble up that Bronco eh? The seat/hitch thingy...wouldn't want a big trailer hitched to the same thing that was keeping my butt in place. Was there some sort of bumper on the front of the Bronco?

  Mike..........

[hcminis 1,532]

He has been bitten....

 

Great find Dave...Good luck

 

OH, thanks again for finding my new toy.  Love it!!!

[stevasaurus 22,229]

You need to find a support group...    OH YEAH..here we are on Red Square    All the support you will ever need.  Funny thing about parts tractors, you end up looking for another to fix the parts tractor so you can use it.  Those look nice enough to do that to.

[dtallon 320]

I LOVE my little trailer.  I bought it slightly used, but it is in good shape and pulls great.  It's perfect for going to pick up tractor finds, but I run out of room quick trying to take more than one tractor to a show.  

 

That poor Bronco, they did a decent job modifying the snow plow, but the seat/hitch sure was a cobble-job.  The thing on the front does seem to be a bumper.  From the bends in it, I think it got some use too.  I know it was sure handy for chaining up the snow plow with the engine and hydraulics not yet functional.  

 

I do appreciate all the support and encouragement from this group.  Without your help I wouldn't be able to figure out half the things I've run into on these tractors, nor be able to rationalize the continued accumulation of "projects".

 

Dave

[squonk 38,913]

I like that Bronc with the Starter/Jenny! 

[KC9KAS 4,741]

Looks like you have been finding some really good deals!

Keep us posted with your progress!

[dtallon 320]

I can fast forward a little bit as I was late getting this topic started, and already have some progress to report on my two newest patients: 

 

I got the 8HP 4spd cleaned up and pulled the head to check for the "stuck valve" the owner suspected as the cause for it not starting.  Turns out the valves work fine, but the piston doesn't move when the crank turns.  I haven't pulled the engine apart to find the cause, but I certainly am curious.  Looks like I won't have to feel guilty about replacing a "good" motor.  

 

For a preview of what I would like this tractor to look like when I am done, I pulled off the smaller rear turf tires and put on some Firestone ags.  They are set out wider than I am wanting (the hubs sit way far out on the axle on this one) but it still was some good motivation to keep working.  

 

 

The Bronco continues to confound me with it's peculiarities.  The throttle cable appears to have been hooked up in such a way that it operated backwards, i.e. push in for more throttle, pull out for less.   Despite that, it did start.  It smoked quite a bit at first, but seemed to clear up.  I hooked it up the right way, and it seems to run pretty good now.  Still need to test out the S/G.  Obviously, it starts, but not sure about it's generating capabilities.  

 

The hydro on the Bronco has challenged me a bit so far.  The good news, the lift seems to work, and the tractor moves under its own power.  Moving is a good first step, but ideally I would like it to move the direction and the speed I ask it to.  Off the bat, it moved fine in reverse, but was pretty slow in forward.  The limiting factor seemed to be that the DCL wasn't able to go all the way forward.  I changed the fluid and filter (ATF & Napa 1410) to see if that helped.  I also have played around with the neutral adjustment and the friction adjustment nut.  I seem to be able to get full range of the DCL, or get it to stay where I put it, but not both.  With the friction nut loose to get full range, the natural position of the DCL seems to be full speed forward, so needless to say you don't want to take your hand off the lever unless you have room to run.  Hopefully I just haven't found the sweet spots in both adjustments, or there is something else in the linkage that needs adjustment or repair.  

 

A few more curious things about it I am hoping others have some experience with:

 

With the tow valve off (hydro engaged) I can still push it forward but the hydro stops it when trying to push it backwards.  

 

The engine lugs more going forward uphill than it does going backwards. I haven't tried pulling anything uphill yet, but suspect it might kill the engine if I did.  Then again, not sure the engine is running full power or the governor is set right on it yet.

 

Not surprisingly, the parking brake is MIA.  I suspect it is the same issue many of these have.  

 

A somewhat superficial problem with this one is it smells terrible.  I thought between vacuuming out the blower housing and a thorough pressure washing it would be cleaned out, but it still is blowing little mouse droppings out when it runs, and from the smell, there must be more in there.  I will have to take all the tin off the engine and clean it once and for all.  

 

Any experience, advice, or encouragement on the hydro is appreciated!

 

Thanks,

Dave

Edited November 12, 2013 by dtallon

[Tankman 3,515]

Nice Horses! And, a serious case of WHA (Wheel Horse Addiction). No cure or treatment is known.

 

Thanks for posting! Us WHA folks love old Stallion pic's.

[Wheel Horse Kid 104]

Great scores! I just scored a Bronco 14 myself a couple of weeks ago and really enjoy it alot!

[dtallon 320]

I was able to get to the bottom of the speed control issues on the Bronco.   The friction collar is stuck on the pivot shaft, and the cone and cup are stuck together.  The only way I was getting any speed control out of it was slop in the system and some loose bolts.  I guess maybe it's good that I don't get much movement of the lever when everything is tightened up, which means there is less repair to do, but man that collar is tight on the pivot pin.  I tried turning it with a wrench on the flats (like the adjustment procedure says) and also tried heating it up and pounding out the pin.  No dice either way.  I will let it sit for a few days with some penetrating oil and then try it again.  In the meantime, I am going to try to pull some of the valves and see if some broken springs or debris are causing some of my other issues.  I also found the source of the smell under the blower shroud.  Now just need it to warm up a little bit so I can wash it off some more.  

 

Dave

 

[dtallon 320]

I'm happy to be able to finally report some progress on the project!  As some of you may remember, shortly after my last post in this thread, we had a little distraction in the form of an F4 tornado that came by our house.  Thankfully, we were fortunate that our losses were much less than others, but nonetheless my hydro custom project went on hiatus.  Even after things got mostly back to normal,  other tractor projects popped up that were too good to pass up, pushing this tractor further down the priority list. 

Before getting in to the more recent developments, I should catch up on a few odds and ends from the past 18 months. 

Just days before the tornado, I was able to get the speed control mechanism apart and fixed up.  It took some more heat and PB Blaster, but it finally came apart.  I had to weld it up to take up some wear.  It was sitting out on my work bench ready to put back together when the tornado hit.  Despite sitting in close proximity to a door that was blown out of it's frame, it amazingly didn't get scattered everywhere.  Fortunately I took the time to put everything back together before I moved the tractor out to storage during the home repair process, otherwise it would have been a much bigger job finding parts and getting it back together. 

Over the winter of '13/14, while we were waiting to get our house fixed, I wasn't really able to work on the tractor project.  I was, however, able to think about it and refine my project plan.  I knew the engine in the 8-4 was bad and the engine out of the Bronco (A K301 replacement motor with the S/G and covers from a 1057) was good.  My first thought was that the '74/75 B-100 has the same 43.5" wheel base as the 8-4 and uses the bigger motor, so it should fit.  I was partially correct.  I found that the mounting holes in the frame were the same, but my measurements showed there just wasn't quite enough clearance for the K241/K301 air cleaner.  The hood on the B-80/B-100 slopes forward to make more room up front.  The 8-4 grill is vertical.  

As I saw it, I had two options.  Find a B-80/B-100 hood, or figure out an alternative for the air cleaner.  I liked the look of the 8-4 hood, so started down the air cleaner path.  I stumbled across the setup for the John Deere 210-214, which has the carburetor recessed into the center of the air filter.  This also required a different setup on the choke control arm on the carburetor.  I found a air cleaner and carb for sale and took a chance I could make them would work. 

The 2 tractors sat in storage for nearly 6 months until we moved back into our house. Even before the repairs were finished, I picked up a C-160 that turned into a nice little project, but well worth it as that tractor continues to serve me well as my main work-horse.  I was finally forced to do something with the Bronco and 8-4 when we moved back in, simply because the C-160 pushed me over my storage limit by 1 tractor too many.  Rather than shuffle things once again and try to cram one more in the shed, I decided to bite the bullet and get started combining the two tractors. 

Combining the front of the 8-4 and the rear of the Bronco was actually a fairly straightforward process.  The engine bolted in fairly easily as well, except for a small tweak of the grill side sheetmetal to make room for the engine blower housing.  As expected, the stock air cleaner didn't fit, but the Deere one looked like it would.  

To get the speed control for the hydro, I had to use the pedestal from the Bronco, but I kept the dash and gas tank from the 8-4.  The only modification I made was drilling holes to use the 8-4 PTO lever on the Bronco pedestal, because I wanted to have the option of using the PTO safety switch.   In true Wheel Horse fashion, it all bolted up without any issues

With that, I considered the fit-up stage complete.  It looked like it all would bolt together, so the next step would be actually doing the wiring, throttle/choke cables and fuel lines to make it work.  Before I got started on that phase of the project, a B-100 Auto came up locally that (like them all) was too good to pass up .  I'll have to save that for another thread, but while it was a great deal, it needed a fair amount of work.  It bumped the custom hydro project out of the shop, and between it and a few other projects, the custom hydro project sat in the shed for another 9 months.  

[dtallon 320]

So that brings us up to the past month or so.  The B-100 auto that I bought, in all reality, fills the role that the custom hydro project tractor was supposed to.  I debated on just killing the custom project all together, but in the end I decided I had collected too many good parts to quit on it now.  Before I spent any more money finding additional parts, I decided to finish hooking everything up and at least make sure it ran and drove.  I recalled that the engine seemed to run well, and the hydro worked, albeit with a few minor issues, so combined, they should work.  Unfortunately it had been long enough ago that I tested them that I couldn't quite remember all the particulars. 

The first task was the wiring.  I found the key switch bad so I had to replace that.  For the electrical system, much like the rest of the tractor, I decided to pick the best attributes of multiple tractors.  I kept the S/G on the engine, but wanted the safety switches and the starting solenoid from the newer electrical systems.  It wasn't hard, but did require a little bit of though on how to merge the two.  The fuel line was pretty straightforward.  I used the 8-4 plastic tank, which just has a barb on the bottom so I used the shut-off valve mounted on the left side of the pedestal.  The throttle cable was installed as normal, but the choke on the JD carb had to be activated by pulling up, so I ran the choke cable over the top of the engine.  I had to use a series of pipe elbows to route the exhaust to clear the hood, and ran that into a Gravely muffler.  I left the air cleaner modification for later until I was sure the tractor was going to work like I wanted it to. 

I started bolting all the rest of the sheet metal back on the tractor.  The belt guard for the 8-4 didn't work with the auto trans, and the belt guard from the Bronco was hacked up.  I went to put a better guard on that I had collected along the way, and found why the Bronco guard was modified.  The engine had a non-original pulley on it that stuck out farther than the original.  I found an original one from my parts collection and put it on.  The belt guard fit much better, and I'm sure the belt alignment was improved as well.  Just out of preference, I used the Bronco steps with punched tread holes instead of the 8-4 solid steps with tread tape.  

With everything bolted back together, the moment of truth arrived to see if it would actually run.  After sitting for over a year, it took a bit to get the engine fired, but once it did it ran great.  The hystat seemed to work good although it made a terrible noise, which I later found to be the belt guard rubbing on the PTO clutch.  The bracket on the 8-4 frame doesn't line up with the lower front guard bracket on the hydro belt guard, so the guard could move and hit the pulley.  For now I took the PTO clutch back off until I can weld another bracket for the guard.  With the clutch out of the way, the noise was gone and it was much more pleasant to drive. 

Before driving the tractor too much more, I figured I should get a functional air cleaner on it.  To do this I had to relocate the holes for the carburetor so I could rotate the air cleaner to make it fit inside the front of the hood.  The air cleaner is shaped like a camshaft lobe, and on the Deere there was a hose that took fresh air from the blower housing on the engine into the "lobe" part of the air cleaner.  In that orientation, the lobe was in the way of the hood closing.  I was able to fit it inside the hood by rotating that lobe to the top part of the engine.  It was tricky to get just right to clear everything, but I eventually found an orientation that worked.  I drilled new holes to bolt up to the carb, and filled the original holes with washers and weld (and lots of grinding).  While I was at it, I covered the fresh air opening on the back side of the cleaner, and drilled holes in the cover to draw air in through the headlight opening.  

With that, I had a fully functional tractor.  Now the fun could really begin…

[953 nut 51,655]

    Mother nature sure threw you a curve ball, glad everything is back on track. Lots of good information, Thanks