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It all strated with a wheel horse 520h that i bought in early August .wanted one for a long time and got a nice 1995 with 650 hours, then I found a 1974 c160 and a 1966 lawn ranger for $50.00 for both.that started me on the road of no return.then i found a 1978 c160 for $225.00.that gave me a good parts tractor.and this is my story in pictures. i want to thank all the wheel horse members for all there input and help and parts ,thanks to shuboxlover , TT and all those I forgot about. I could not have done this without your help. Not done totally got to pull rear wheels and paint them. I did change hydraulic lever handle ,I liked the one that the 1978 had so I changed it , 2 new hoses , 1 hub,1 axle 1 1533 bearing ,needle bearings and seals did not replace parking pawl just grinded it smooth . I got my plow on it now and it runs great starts and idles nice. pulls and lifts just like new. I had fun pushing dirt today ,I will put tubes in rears and fill with rv anti freeze , And order all new decals tomorrow .its not a show tractor but it looks really nice. I LIKE IT !! THIS OLD HORSE IS NOT GOING TO THE GLUE FACTORY I want to try to rebuild the 78 which has a good engine and rear axle and the lawn ranger next year if the good LORDS willing. we need to show this younger generation that they can do this , I am 67 years young and I can do this. and the lights I added I made fit the holes so if it ever needs to be put back to original it can be. I don't like to cut or modify a work of art.

Out playing in the dirt today

I just told my wife of 41 years I had sent a deposit and was buying another 520H. A 1988 with snow blower, rear tiller and mower deck and that Friday was the expected date of delivery................ I thought post menopausal women werent supposed to be so volitile and explosive with their tempers.............. Holy cow!!!!!! I hadnt ducked and put my head so far between my shoulder blades since I was a kid and my mother was swinging a wooden spoon at me. Shes at work now so I thought I would try to get my pulse and breathing back to normal and seemed a topic on buying and news breaking was in order. How do you guys do it????????????

Three easy steps. 1. Take off the apron. 2. Bust our your man pants. 3. Put 'em on.

Doug, I would change the locks while she is at work and sleep with one eye open. She might get a kick out of you changing the locks. Here is another piece of advice that always works. When she gets mad like that again for no reason...look her straight in the eye and say "You are choosing to be angry". It sets them back on their heels right now, and leaves them speechless. I will tell you this...it only works once...but it does work.

The edit added the apron bit.............Classic.... But what if your man pants are dirty and in the laundry and you can't get to the washer because it's surrounded by RJ's and Suburbans?

Hey Slammer...did she type your reply when you were not looking or were you typing as fast as you could before she saw it??

As long as she can park her car in the garage in the winter she doesn't say anything. She knows I won't spend money we don't have and I know the same about her. We see eye to eye on just about everything, 'course I do have to stoop a little to look her in the eye. She's kinda short.

I always send a text just saying "I'm Sorry". Then I let the flood of scenarios go through her brain and 15 minutes later I send a picture of the new tractor. It's never as bad as what she was imagining.

Ive got 24 wheelhorse's with some in bits, when I buy another tractor I strip it down in the back of the van and sneak it in the shed when she;s not looking and mix it in with the others

The Squaw here supports every hobby that I've ever had.She NEVER questions any of my purchases.Without a doubt,she's the best woman that I've ever had in my life.

I always ask first. It is easier on my life expectancy and I usually lie about the price.

Very hard to tell what's going on there. I'm thinking either a mutt, or an 867 with a replacement engine. PTO shaft coming out of the engine is way long... motor is not original anyway. They probably took the battery tray off to accommodate the engine/starter. Measure the width of the seat pan... 67 and down were narrower than 68 and up. That flip up seat base appears to be just drilled and bolted on.... it would have been from a later model with an under-seat access need. Measure the frame length. For me kind of hard to tell proportions with wrong engine, and wrong/no tires mounted up. Based on the hood mount, I'd expect it to be a short frame. Cutout for headlight bucket would fit with the 867. Bottom line to me is that you saved a horse from scrap that sort of looks like an 867. Plenty of workers out there with mixed, modified and replacement parts (mutts) and no identificaiton. Enjoy it, should make a good worker!

The Wife could care less. I do get some weird looks from time to time. She even goes with me to pick some up. There are a lot more expensive hobbies than this. She just requires a parking spot in the garage once cold weather sets in.

Everything is taken care for your week in Cancun. By the way I am going to make a 300 mile trip tomorrow to pickup another tractor, if you want ride along I will buy your lunch. trip to Cancun $2000, C120 $200, and lunch $30, everyone is happy.

Not much to do here in MA, so I made a proof of concept prototype of the left front fender out of scrap materials (5 gallon pail, piece of step flashing and scrap aluminum). Pix are attached. I do not know how well it works (no grass to mow here and the SD deck has been cleaned and put away), but if someone wants to make one and try it, be my guest. As it stands there is one design deficiency, the small anodixed bracket which attaches the fender to the spindle arm can rotate on the arm (it is only held in place by the tie rod end). However, if this was bent over on the end, it would prevent unwanted rotation and would always be in a fixed relationship to the tire. If someone wanted to commercialize this, the fender could be molded from HDPE or Nylon 6. ABS would work but the first time you whack it on something it would crack. The anodized bracket could be 1010 steel, zinc plated and pop riveted to the fender (I only used one pop rivet-you need two). Installation is simple, unbolt the tie rod end, drop this on and rebolt. I thought about making this from one piece of plastic and while it can be molded, there would have to be a metal insert (molded in) where the tie rod end goes through it (you cannot bolt thru plastic because the plastic will creep over time). Tooling for the insert molding will be a more costly and it limits where you can get it molded. BTW, JD gets $155/pair for something similar to this-definitely a high profit margin accessory for them!

For me, no wife, no problem. Although my teenage daughter asked me how many tractors I was gonna buy after bringing home the B115 on Saturday!

My wife has mood swings. I tell her I want another tractor. Then she gets in a mood and swings. Duck, duck, duck. gawd they are hard to figure. The other species I mean. glenn I cant part with that much money for a piece of plastic, thats almost another machine. But thats why I get snow in my face every year. Glenn

I have to qualify this as perhaps not the best advise, but.... I few years back, I took my now X wife out for "a quiet weekend away, to celebrate our anniversary, " I also took the pick up " in case of snow" and we drove across 3 states. Darn was she upset when we picked up the engine I had just bought for my car.

and tires and motors and laundry baskets full of parts you should be sellin to yer RS bro's...... Did you catch this Thread Doug??? http://www.wheelhorseforum.com/topic/19425-she-doesnt-know/

That is a nice trio...thanks for sharing.

My wife is supports my hobby

The edit added the apron bit.............Classic....

That is one great job. You did a lot of nice work. I'll be 68 in December.At our age we are just getting started.

Great story and picture documentation.

If you already have the ramps i would make a race course for it and your wife could time your laps with the new stop watch you buy for her......

There is a cure it's called more tractors. I pick it up Sunday !Craig, where do I get one of those stickers? Since I've have these wheelchair ramps all around my house maybe I should put it in my living room instead of the basement.

Just showed the wife , she said get it. I'm calling before she changes her mind!

I still have a soft-side Wheel Horse cab, but I wasn't completely happy with it. The soft windows cloud up over time, and the vinyl sheeting seems to be wearing out at any point that it wraps around the frame. Vibrating steel is not kind to vinyl I looked at a couple of hard cabs, and finally bought a used Cozy Cab. It took a whole summer to modify and mount, but I am thrilled with it so far. THe 520 is a hard beast to fit. You have to keep the gas cap clear to fill, and the seat hangs so far over the back that you end up with limited options to mount to the rear. I have a 2" rear hitch receiver, and I think using that as the basis of the rear mount works best. You might get a little help by resting on the seat pan, but it gets really tight, and you run the risk of blocking access to the fuel cap. Front mounting can be attached under the sheet metal to the frame, but you have to think about where the lift bar for the snowthrower will fit. The frame is so narrow that I had problems with the cab twisting side to side, so I ultimately reinforced the footrests, and moved my front mounts as wide onto the footrests as I could.

Jacob the artist.....no picture, no pattern, just an image in his head. Reed the engineer....He transfers from the pattern and cuts to the line. Both turn out well.

Here is what has worked for me over the course of being married for 22 yrs. I don't take from house money to pay for any of my toys or support my hobbies.. I think the only reason is because I hate asking permission and I really don't feel like trying to explain my reasons. My slush money comes from side jobs that I do or tractors, boats and or outboards that I restore. My wife could care a less what I have and she NEVER asks where did I get the money to buy something..One day this past summer my wife gets home from work and she sees I have a new toy in the driveway, a very nice 1970 Chevy pickup.. She had no idea I was getting it. All she said was that I finally got something in a color that she likes... Neither of us asks and I'll never tell....

Here is another cute idea.

Just sayin... A space for her to park in the garage all winter - free The windshield goop in her car filled - $2.00 The gas tank in her car filled on cold snow days - $30.00 Her quiet agreement (amusement) at yet another "hobby" - priceless... I'm a lucky man...

I don't spend any funds we don't have or that I can recover with pending work, But at the same time I tell her...Babe, this will save me time and we can do more togather...its all BS cause she knows I will be in the garage more tinkering with my new toy...Then I let her drive it and all is good !! LOL

My wife is a Quilter and has more money tied up in computerized embroidery sewing machines and sergers than I do in , welders, wood working tools and a tool for every task combined. She accepts the concept of having dedicated tractors for every task and a few for back-ups so i'm safe. When I brought home my third 953 she was dubious about it ever looking good, then I reminded her what my street rod looked like when I bought it. I haven't been getting much done in the barn lately because I am building cabinets for our utility room, which makes the Mrs. Very Happy.

Thanks for all the best wishes guy's, they are much appreciated Well, what a few weeks that has been.. Very busy and the most scary life has ever been! I will try and keep this short as it's quite a long story. My Wife noticed she was getting out of breath on the Monday morning at work, he office is 3 floors up and not lift, so plenty of stairs.. She saw a doctor first thing Tuesday morning, which wasn't helpful! and then off to work.. This time she barely made it up the stairs! Wednesday and Thursday she decided to work from home as was alright all the time she was sitting at her desk.. Friday morning dawned and things were not good, my Wife was really struggling to get her breath so back off to the docs again only to be told your having a panic attack and to clam down (with a "if it gets any worse call an ambulance" thrown in to cover his *rse)! The ambulance was called late Friday afternoon! These days if you call an ambulance and it's not going to reach you for a while they have "first response" people that deal with the area close to you... As luck would have it the closest 1st response person was very close.. She lives just across the road sort of close! My Wife's breathing improved a great deal with an oxygen mask, but as soon as the mask was removed her sats dropped very fast at an alarming rate! So one very fast trip to hospital in an ambulance later she was rushed into resus to try and work out what was going on. My Wife's daughter Lisa had joined the party by this point, the feeling we both had when we were kicked out of resus because my wife had suddenly become "unresponsive" was unbelievably terrifying to say the least.. Lot's of docs and nurses running around sort of thing.. My Wife had died for a very short while! However my Wife is a fighter which kept her going.. I'm so glad.. A scan showed up she had a pulmonary embolus otherwise known as 6 large blood clots in her lungs! One blood clot buster injection later Lisa and I were told that she has a 50/50 chance of surviving the next 3 hours!! Oh, and were kicking you out of the hospital now as she is being moved to intensive care! By now it was 5.30 Saturday morning! 3 weeks and 5 days later I'm happy to say my wife is doing well.. Home from hospital, she has been given the ok to drive again, and she did some work from home yesterday for the first time since all this started.. It will be a while until she is back to work full time, but the main thing now is to work out why the blood clots happened in the first place! A scan this morning showed up that the left side of her thyroid is missing which may of had something to do with it! Oh.. Not much has been happening with Why Not other than a couple of parcels turned up...

The edit added the apron bit.............Classic.... But what if your man pants are dirty and in the laundry and you can't get to the washer because it's surrounded by RJ's and Suburbans? Or theyre in the clothes basket covered with greasy Kohler and Onan parts ......

I'm sure someone will tell you a better way to repair....but If it was me , I'd find a new piece of steel for the wear bar and maybe redrill some new holes. (??)

That's a dandy looking trio you have there. All suited up and ready for work!

I only have one, but if I had more room, and fewer other hobbies, such as orchids, blacksmithing, and a honey do list a mile long, I would have more. In general (for most things), if I have room, she is supportive. There are only so many hours in a day to get things done. I just have too much stuff I don't use on a regular basis, but you know, a job for every tool, a tool for ever job, or something like that. You never know when you might need it, or it was too good of a deal to pass up.

Northwestern, Wisconsin, PSU, MSU, OSU, and NOTRE DAME! bye week I know........

The machine sure saves the wife and I a lot of time and hard azz work.The trac vac I used to have was a nice machine but just too small for my yard and we still had to pick up sticks before we could trac vac.One season the wife picked up 125 loads with it. I can now pick up about 35/40 loads but that includes sticks,limbs,acorns and squirrels if they get in the way. Bad part is the wife won't run it.LOL I miss burning leaves. Growing up, we burned them every year. Now we're not permitted....bleepin' government. Miss the smoke, smell, sound. One caution though...never try to light a pile of wet leaves with a coffee can of gasoline. It just doesn't work too well and afterwards, you have to rake the area again! WOOF! Your eyebrows do grow back though. Sounds like how I light a bonfire, LOL! I pour about a quart of gas on, pour a trail of gas 10 feet or so away from the pile, pour some on a stick, light the stick and toss it at the trail and RUN for my life! Once the neighbors yelled over to ask if we were OK.

I will be coming for the day on Saturday, looks like great weather! Know we will have fun.

I use the BatteryTender manufacturer's leads as they include a fuse. You just never know!

Well, I traded tractors a while back, and as I was leaving, I noticed a twin to my pressure washer sitting by the trash cans. I mentioned I had a twin to it until my friend blew the engine. He told me I could have it if I wanted, the pump was dead. Today i I put my pump on it, and it works great, and didn't cost a penny to fix.

Switched my wheel color from creme to black. I like this look better and am told that black is the right color. Now just to find a set of correct size front wheels.

Remember every project has to have a tool purchased. It does not matter if the tool is for the project or not. The tractor looks like a perfect tool for the barn project. With a cart attached it could haul the other tools that are needed.

They both do very nice work...but, I like Jacob... am a big fan of the freehand pumpkin carving.

Hi Craig, Here's a couple of pics of the front weight carrier