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Did a little heart transplant in the ranger

BEAUTIFUL ! When he is my age (old) he is going to tell this story to his grand children while his heart swells with pride that his dad did this for him. Marv

Well, I've worked most of the day. I managed to get the drive belt on, the rest of the panels on, paint buffed, decals from Terry on, aircleaner mount made, both filters on, throttle and choke hooked up, knobs from Glen on, and ... I just need to put a battery in, gas in, and exhaust on to fire her up. My last thing to do is wire the lights and add a few special touches. Fourth pic is showing how glossy the hood is (ignore the ugly reflection). Whew, I'm pooped! Heading to Dad's so we can get up around 5 and put our Christmas ham on to cook in the morning.

That’s totally looking!!! Emory is going to freak out on Christmas !

If you're not cheatin, you're not tryin

OK...it is a charm bracelet for Big Red Fred...it needs some charms.

This is my Raider 14. I purchased in October of this year from West Wales. It had been standing unused for at least twelve years. Over the last twenty years or so I've restored a number of motorcycles from the 1970's, however, this is my first garden tractor project. I purposely chose a Wheel Horse, as they seemed to be one of the better vintage garden tractors from the 1970's era. Once the restoration has been completed, hopefully by March 2018, its then my intension to use the tractor and mower in connection with my little business. If I can achieve a decent restoration I would also like to consider showing. Starting off from a non-running restoration project, its certainly so far been quite a challenge and a learning curve for myself. The main issues I've had, have been finding out that just about everything wasn't working, being worn out and broken, has been trying to find a reasonable supplier of spares here in the UK. Although I've recently posted the progress in another area on this site, It has been suggested to me to start a new thread here. From the original post, I would like to thank you everyone for your offers of help and support I've had to date, its been much appreciated.

I had scrumpy years ago in a Somerset pub with some of my mates. Landlord wouldn't serve us a second pint. "If you go outside for five minutes and come back in, I will", he said. We didn't.

If BRF used a BFH, it would turn out a WTF is that Tractor Y'all are throwing around acronyms like you were the federal government.

Painted the weight box and wheel weights. Added a hydraulic filter. I think I'm done for now. Gotta figure out some decals for this beast.

I'll post some pics of it on Christmas morning when he gets it. I've got him some other wheel horse goodies for then too. I'll try to get a video too. Thanks for all of the compliments. I hope Emory is excited as I am!

WOW! THAT WAS TOTALLY WORTH THE WAIT! Excellent work @dells68 and so worth the effort for your favorite little guy in the whole world. I can’t wait to see the video of his reaction when he realizes it is for him!

That would be the south end of a north bound animal, right?

yeah cheating didn't work for me either

Welded box to the tubes that slide inside the frame. Filled with some random weights i had. All total about 300+ pounds next paint up a set of wheel horse front and rear wheel weights.

Scrumpy sounds like our version of Hard Cider. Every fall, my Grandfather filled a wooden barrel with his mixture of apple cider, raisins, brown sugar, and left it to age until Spring. The swollen raisins , apple seeds and peels, and the Mother were also then strained off before drinking. It was a very potent Spring Tonic that cleared the mind and body.

Excellent advice on determining your needs. If you'd be looking for the attachments with the 73 12hp you'd be hard pressed to do much better than that deal. Personally I'd always lean towards a Kohler K-series as well. It looks like it was well maintained and if it runs as well as it looks I'd say it's a good deal. The tiller tines are pretty worn but still have plenty of serviceable life in them. Dang....if that was in my neck of the woods I'd say get the 520.....then I'd go after the 73.....

Take Dons advice and determine what your needs are. Keep in mind, all the implements appear to be in good condition and are easy to resell if not needed. For mowing and plowing snow I prefer the 12 HP Kohler. They are fuel efficient and operate well in summer and winter and repair parts are available and reasonable. For snow blowing snow I prefer the 20HP Onan. I dedicate mine to winter use only. Repair parts are available, but really expensive. They have unlimited power to turn a blower, but IMO, the throw too much heat to use as a mower in the summer and they are gas hogs. They are also subject to damage from overheating due to poor maintenance, grass clogged screens and cooling fins. If I could only have one tractor, it would prefer the 12HP Kohler.

Hey like I tell my girl, I'd rather you be mad at me than tell you a lie. Wow we've really gotten off base here!

Ok here's some more photos for you non believers. Also touched her off for the first time. WOW! Runs perfect idle to wide open! SMOOTH, and that sound OH YEA. 1st onan, always a Koehler guy. Hour meter works reads 0235 and counting and boy does it run like it. Not a hint of smoke or valve issues. I do have to say, it's slow and the linkage under the seat does not follow the channel all the way out. Any fixes?Thanks

Well done sir! There’s gonna be one happy little boy on Christmas Day.

I’m sure he’ll be excited now but as he gets older, I think that he’ll really begin to understand the labor of love that you put into that machine for him. What’s also cool about this specific gift is that fact that he has taken the journey with you. There are so many lessons that a young mind can learn: tenacity, constancy of purpose, determination, thoroughness, the list could go on. It does something for a youngster to see their parent start a project and not only finish it, but finish it with excellence! Again I say “Well done!” A quote from Proverbs that I love to insert after any complete tractor resto is, “the desire accomplished is sweet to the soul!”

Looks somewhat like a tow chain that you would use on a car. You'd put that one end in a hole in the frame. To lock it in place

That isn't cheating, it is research!

Hmmmm....the price of a vertical shaft lawnmower from Big Box.....hmmmm what to do what to do....

The farm workers in ancient Somerset would travel from farm to farm at harvest time & would be partly paid in cider produced on the farm itself, so the better the cider the more workers a farm could attract. There is also a fine tradition of 'rough' ciders, better known as scrumpy, which leads to your legs becoming disconnected from your brain after only a couple of pints (providing you could drink 2 pints! It sometimes had to be strained into the mug!! 😨) Cider is perhaps our best known gift to the world! http://www.madapplecidercompany.com/cider_facts.html

@ACman, @elcamino/wheelhorse, Ok here's a few pics of some of my past rides, the '69 C10 350 with car 4 spd, a '66 Impala 400 SBC with 4 spd, my very first vehicle '76 LUV with factory California stepside edition, and my first S10 '82 long bed with 90s paint, and my first brand vehicle '95 S10 along with the 'BU and the LUV after I stuffed a 305 SBC in it, (relatives and ex for models lol) Jeff.

OK Ian, what makes "REAL CIDER" different than cider. We make some pretty good drinks in Somerset Pa. from apples, berries, watermellons, peaches,etc., and my favorite from corn.

The unit with the snow blower looks like it is in good condition and not too bad at $ 1500 Wheel horse Tractor 20 horse Onan hydro trans and hydraulic lift has snow blower mower deck extra tires with chains and counter weight Wheel Horse tractor with a Kohler 12 HP motor and 8 speed. Comes with 48" mower deck, 42" plow, 36" snow blower, 36" rototiller, wheel weights, chains, owners manual and other extras. Everything works great! Beside being a great multipurpose tool this would also make a great restoration project. Asking $1450 for everything. The other one is quite a package and may be slightly high on the price in my opinion, If you will be needing a tiller and mower this is a hard deal to match. Condition would be the determining factor. The 12 HP is a 1973 model, but they are bullet proof and everything in the package looks well maintained. The 520 has a hydro transmission and lift which are a real plus. You could always buy both!

Okay Thanks hahahahaha Richard slays me, how many times this week did you answer Dick hahaha How many Licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop I'm going to Bed, no more Bed Head Fred, KOJACK now

I'm sure Emory is gonna be overwhelmed with his new "toy"! He'll never forget helping you transform "Roadrunner" into the beautiful machine it is. One part of that memory will be the day you two picked out at the auction. Great job!!!!

Beautiful job.

What a miraculous transformation, your $ 50.00 auction find has definitely gone from rags to riches. Job well done and a project you will both remember fondly.

@dells68 You are going to have a very excited son Christmas morning . You have done a great job in a short amount of time. Waiting for the photos on Christmas day.

A dog collar for one of those mean junkyard dogs.

Used for binding animals. Not sure how.

I think you'll be satisfied. I used a single stage to clear 900+ feet of drive in this lake effect area. It won't do what the 20 horse with a two stage will do but I was happy with mine. Now that we are back up here I didn't hesitate to get another single stage.

Well i know Jim will get a Kick out of this ! When i was Stationed in Korea, we would go to the Ville on Weekends & drink this clear Liquid called So-Ju, they claim it was embalming Fluid hahaha, i found myself crawling to the Gate on hands & Knees, MP's said hitn that So-Ju Sgt Siegfried again Huh, i spoke a Different Language after a evening of that Concoction ! Man it would Cleanse the system LOL

I finally found what few pics I had of my poor old 106 CC...and appropiately during snow plowing duties, Jeff.

My grandfathers , father and uncles went straight to the bootlegger for corn liquor . No explanation needed.

New seat from Northern as suggested by @WVHillbilly520H . I think you’re going to be surprised what these horses can handle. Heck I don’t even count my Kubota BX2230 a true tractor. To me a real tractor is cast iron front to back.

There’s something about that just draws in good people with common interests and yes we do get sidetracked easily by other cool stuff. Besides the green tractors (my grandpa and dad owned a Chalmers dealership) I grew up on a dairy farm in the mitten state. I’m with you with the cold weather. Southbound soon I hope as it really affects my body (I was paralyzed 7yrs ago) . My 520 sat outside for years too. Here’s a before and after. After working on your WH you’ll wonder what the heck JD engineers were thinking . It just seems WH made things simpler in design. @Vinylguy made me a set of costume graphics. Mines a 95 so I wanted to pay homage to the 1965 Wheel-a-Mattics as Wheel Horse was the first to build a hydro tractor in 1965 .

The Gold one is just an extra. I thought they were suppose to be gold like the hood decals back when I first replicated the Anniversary graphics.

A week exactly. Whenever I get involved in something I like to do research and be educated. This forum has taught me a ton!

And for future reference - Always watch what is in the background of your pictures...These guys don't miss a thing!!!

The GT14 project has continued, albeit at a slower pace due to some pauses waiting for parts, seals and gaskets during the reassembly process. You would think that would leave more time for posting updates, but instead I seem to have been finding other projects to fill the gaps instead. I'm happy to report things are finally all back together and functional. Given the wear on the GT14 pump slippers and plate, I proceeded with the plan to swap in the Charger pump/motor unit. This did require swapping the motor drive gear over from the GT14 unit to the Charger one. Thanks to some of the info on here, it wasn't too difficult to do. While inside the motor to swap the gears, I noticed the difference in the amount of wear was not as obvious between the two units as it was on the pumps. It all went back together fine, just took some care to keep everything clean and put back together the way it came apart. Before putting the pump back together, I went ahead and did a gentle polish of the slippers and port plate. It really didn't take much to get the scratches down to where only a few of the deeper ones were left. Since I used some heat to get the pump fan off the shaft, I went ahead and replaced that shaft seal before putting the fan back on. The transmission case also need some work before it got reassembled. I swapped in a B/C series cast parking brake pawl since both the Charger and GT14 ones were severely worn. The intermediate shaft bearings needed to be replaced on both sides, and since the gasket between the two halves is NLA, I had to make one of those. I cleaned out the good inlet screen from the Charger and installed it. For mounting the pump/motor back on the transmission, I probably could have made that gasket as well, but opted to get one from my Toro dealer. I have started a habit of tracing any gasket I get before I put it on, just in case I need another one someday and they aren't available anymore. After getting the trans back together and bolted back to the chassis, I still had some work to do. I had swapped the acceleration valves to try them in the GT14 before, so I needed to swap all those pieces back. By now I had plenty of practice with those parts. Since the Charger was manual lift, I also had to swap over the hydraulic lift spring and valve, and remove the plugs from the ports before I could hook up the lines. Finally, it was time to refill with ATF. I took a long time filling a little bit and then spinning the pump by hand to try to work the air out of the system. Eventually I got nearly all 5 quarts into it. After a few days passed, I was happy not to see any little puddles of oil underneath, so I must have done OK getting everything back together. The final step before being able to put the rest back together and test it out was fixing the tensioner pulley/parking break lever. Recall that this tractor had no pulley when I first took it apart. Fortunately, the rest of the lever/linkage was there, because it is unique to the GT14. I swapped the pulley from the Charger, and then welded up the arm on the transmission to take out the wear that had accumulated over the years. I also had to replace the peg that contacted that arm, because it was worn a good part of the way through. Of course, with the tensioner in there properly, the belt that came with the tractor would no longer work so I got a NOS 8334 belt off Ebay. Delivery took a little longer than expected, but when it did finally come, it fit perfectly. At last, I got it all back together. It was time for the moment of truth. I started it up, slowly engaged the drive belt. No leaks or bad noises so far... pushed the lever forward... it moves! I started driving it around to the back yard for a more thorough test. Just as I got to the back yard, the tractor abruptly stopped. I disengaged the drive belt, took it to low idle and slowly re-engaged the belt listening for any bad noises. None were present, so I tried driving again. It moved a few feet and then stopped again, although less abruptly, and then just as quickly started again. After that instance, it didn't happen again. I suspect maybe there was just some air in the system that had to work it's way out. I drove it around some more in forward and reverse and everything seemed good. If I "floor it" from a stop, there is a slight hesitation before it fully starts to accelerate, but I can live with that. I tried backing up the hill that it stalled out on that started this transmission project. My heart sunk when it stopped at nearly the same place as before. Fortunately, my spirits quickly rose again when I realized my progress halted not due to the transmission, but because the tires were slipping on the damp grass. Further testing convinced me that things seemed to be working as they should, so I consider the repair a success.

Started my Christmas vacation got the box built for the weight box , should finish that tommorrow

What about a '78 'BU with a little 400 SB?

Yes, sorry, Somerset UK, where REAL cider comes from!!