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Oddly enough, I never made a video of this tractor "in motion". It was nice today, so I asked Mrs. R. to follow me around with the camera.

Regardless of their intended purpose...always buy more tractors.

Bought this for 150 bucks. Someone had already started stripping parts of it. I was told it had tranny problems. Tested the engine and it fired right off ! Then it caught fire! ( I hate when that happens!) Anyway I decided to take the tranny apart. Found nothing wrong. This tractor had been badly abused and mistreated but its coming back together! Before; Today's pics;

I got hit with 2 ft of snow when the Blizzard tore thru CT. The 520 looks pretty innocent but when she puts on her work dress she is all Biz. Grab a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the show, its a little long but I think its all good. Its not too often I get to push 2 ft of snow! The snow the plow truck left at the end of my driveway was wicked deep!

Multi-tasking means multi-machines, many multi is better!

Hey I didn't know C-series was you! The 520 has been an absolutely awesome machine for me! She cleaned up very nice and has been a bear of a worker. Hopefully I can upload the blizzard video tomm.

Good afternoon everyone. I am at the Annual tractor show in the Carl Sandburg Mall located in Galesburg Illinois As many of you know I am heavily involved with the Illinois Fallen Heroes Traveling Memorial Wall and am working the info table at this posting. The picture is of a C-125 Custom Puller. The owner brought his hood in last Month and wanted the original hood decals replaced with what you see on this photo. I think it turned out very nice. Please excuse my poor photos (phone camera)

I was cruising out in the country the other day and turned down a road I have never been on before. I felt like something cool was down here somewhere, but I was looking for a van to buy. Then I found this old Ford doodlebug tractor in a farmers driveway! I thought it may be a WH Senior but as I looked at it I could tell it wasn't, bummer, but hey this thing is bad ass! Looks like a early Ford AA truck frame cut down to tractor size and all Ford drive train. I talked to a guy that was renting the farm house and he thought the farmer wanted $1000 for it but he wasn't sure. I wouldn't pay that much but maybe $500 or $600 would be ok. I gave him my number but I haven't heard back from him yet. Dang, where was that road at again?!

IMPRESSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!! Good thing you babied the tractor to keep wear and tear at a minimum...

Cool vid Ken.... you got a lot of snow. This is how i have it for 4-5 mnd of the year..

At the dealer...when I walked in...I thought I over heard them saying...here comes careful Craig. Wife says no...actually, they were saying...careful, here comes Craig. "Whatever dude...just get my keys!"

Craig at the dealer getting the keys to his new ride.

Craig, glad to see you are on your feet, and on your wheels again. Good luck at work and with the new ride!

That can't be good for business!!!

I can't believe I acted so cool......

Here is what replaced my beater 518 Horse. Swapped the previous owner of this nice tractor the 518 for it. Got the tractor and mower deck. Then I got him to throw in a beater snow blade he had laying in the back 40. The cub and mower deck just need a good wax and buff job. The only part I plan to paint at this time are the front rims, which have the usual rust from the PO's letting cut grass stay stuck to them all the time. Cheers Mike

I had a C-120 years ago that did the same thing. Finale one day while sitting in the seat rocking it back and fourth with no luck I returned the motion control back to neutral and got off the tractor. Started double checking the control levers to make sure everything was like it should be, this was with the tractor running. I turned my back toward my tool box and then it happened. I heard the sound of tire chirp and away it went. The tractor had taken off all on it's own. Stayed going straight as an arrow down the drive about 100ft. Crossed the hi-way that was in front of are farm then down into a 12ft deep drainage ditch. Amazing how fast one can go when your a short fat guy such as myself trying to chase it. It had got a pretty good head start when I caught up with it, I had to wait for traffic to cross the road. By that time she was nose down stuck on some kind of a tree. So Warning just because the lever says it's in neutral, what ever was wrong inside that tranny said GO! be careful.

It's a new to me, used 2011 GMC Sierra K1500, just cracked 18K miles, got it enough below 20K to make for some easy payments. I'm happy with it, probably paid more than it's worth though...considering it's just a base model, with the 5.3 Vortec. Came set up with a two inch receiver for the hitch, beefed up front suspension for a plow, factory tow pkg, electronic trailer brakes, and a computer controlled, stability system to keep it going in a straight line...humm...considering all the black ice on the mountain, that just might come in handy. Providing...I can keep this one shiny side up, of course!

When I went shopping for trucks, I could not believe the prices. 15 grand for a decent used ext cab and 28 plus for new depending on incentives.I bought my 4runner for 8600 and after selling my old truck it only cost me a grand including tax,title ect. Love driving it. It like driving my living room down the road. not much room for Horsie stuff though. Now you can stack a couple of horses in the back of that! Love GMC's Better styling!

Nice lookin truck, Craig.

Not what the title seems... I needed some extra weight backing up the snowblower from the chicken house so I called my wife to help. She caught some rays in the process too

You made a good choice on your truck Craig! Lookin Good! Matt

persof , that welder can do more than a 1/4 " . this was built with a welder that you speak of or one like it ever hear of multi-pass . just learn how to lay them down for strength !! Over-lap each pass so the new weld is half on each of the last pass !!! each pass needs to have the same weave width so the spread is the same as well. do it daliy with wire feed , tig , and stick at work , done it for over 30 years !!!!!

Trouble is that instead of swapping attachments, I usually end up having to swap batteries!

You don't ever need to justify adding a new horse to the stable! One of my 953s is rough and rusty and gets most of the garden duty, the other one is hot rodded with flames, spinner hubcaps and a chrome Harley Exaust, but it gets out in the yard with a 48" mower, the 1055 has the snow blade on it year round, the 855 is mainly used with the mid mounted grader blade and pulling trailers but I plan to put the sickle bar on it, the 400 Suburban and the RJ 58 are mostly used to ride around the yard when I just want to ride around, the 312-8 has a 42" mower and gets to do about half the grass cutting, The GT14 with FEL and box blade has the heavy lifting duties and when I get the '57 RJ-35 finished it will be another ride around horse. The day I picked up the first horse (1055) the seller asked how many Wheel Horses we had, my wife was suprised at the question but was assured by the seller that they were not adictave, WRONG! If it isn't keeping you from having groceries and a roof over your head the only justification you need is that you want it! Any questions?

Frequent oil changes, I change oil way more then necessary in my Horses. I started watchin' oil many years ago when I owned diesels and Road Ranger transmissions. Waste oil was examined/tested for carbon, metals, etc., part of fleet maintenance. Fix it before it breaks. The UPS observation was just that. Why they did, what they do, doesn't matter. My Stallions are always clean, inside and out. Oil is inexpensive enough. FYI. I sold a 300D Turbo Benz with 375,000 miles on it for five grand, years ago. Oil changed every 3000 miles, used semi-synthetic Dryden (I knew Dryden).

I am the 2nd owner of this tractor. Bought it off of the original owner (who was my neighbor) in 2001. Has a 48" belly mower, 50" tiller, 60" rear mower, plow, wheel weights, and Brinly sleeve hitch adapter. Hours are unknown cause the hour meter stopped working years before I bought the tractor. The current meter shows 860 hours. Kohler K532 Engine has never been gone into but the hydro pump was rebuilt about 3 years ago. The rear end has been gone into twice. Great tractor!!!!!!!!

I have had DL on farm tractors and have it on my compact utility. I never use it. If I need it, it means I've done something wrong and should have stayed in the house to begin with. When I ran heavy equipment I saw a guy break the rear end on a self loading pan by using the DL, I learned from his mistake.

Definitely a good time to be looking at Chevy if you're interested. There's an "all-new" 2014 Silverado coming this summer, lots of "cash back" deals available on the 2013 models.

Boo, in the colder temperatures of winter, a higher charge voltage is actually a plus to the life of the battery. Standard thought on a "correct" 14.5 volts from the regulator will result in undercharging a battery in the winter months. Having said that, the advice from Jim and Mike is right on for a 3 amp stator system. Mike pointed to a post I made a while back about inserting additional diodes into the charge line to decrease the charge voltage. I acquired a 211-5 a year or so back that insisted on settling the charge voltage in at 16+ volts. I inserted 2 additional 3 amp diodes in series with the original diode and the voltage dropped to 14.8 at top engine speed. The battery will survive much longer at this reduced charge voltage. Any voltage above 14.5 will start to break down the electrolyte in the battery and "boil off" water in the battery. Not "boil off" as in a pot boiling on the stove but slowly breaking down the hydrogen / oxygen bonds in the water so the electrolyte slowly disappears from the battery in the form of released gasses. This of course is a slow process, but may take a battery capable of 4 years on the tractor and decrease the useful life down to a year or two. Radio shack sells the 3 amp diodes and the heat shrink tubing to effect the modification. I can vouch for the fact that it works. The reason it does work is a well known electrical property of power diodes - constant VOLTAGE drop across the diode under varying CURRENT flows. Each diode will maintain a constant drop of 0.6 to 0.7 volts under a very wide range of current flows.

Welcome to Red Square. First, I see an 857 and an 867, but not an 877...check your model number on the dash tower. You are right, it is not a hard job if everything comes off easy. The hubs, brake drum and linkage and the input pulley, and the slot hitch have to come apart. Drop the trans, drain it and set it on its side with the shallow side down. Pull out the shifter and the bolts holding the 2 sides together...split the halves, clean up where the gasket sets, place the new gasket and put it back together. The gasket is available fro Toro for about $6.00. Sounds easy and it is if the hubs and slot hitch come right out....threads on that. Here is the thing...you got it apart and you see sludge in the trans...you will want to clean it out...so you end up pulling out all the gears and you might as well replace the rest of the seals. If the bearings are good, the seals and gasket will cost you under $20. I guess I am saying do it right the first time. We have plenty of help here, including threads that have pictures and videos of how to do it. Plus you can get questions answered from a bunch of us that help out with the transmissions. All in all, once you do one, you will be surprised how easy it is. I think the hardest part is getting the trans off the horse and onto the bench. Here any time you have a question. I am assuming that you have a 4 speed manual transmission. :bow-blue: