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Spent the first night this fall in the cabin last evening. Did not think we would be able to light the stove because of the mild temps but it did cool off some so why not. Used the 418-A and the 4 wheeler to haul out the gear. A few pics included. Sunset through the trees and sunrise over the rooftop. Was nice to get away from the TV and news and go off Grid.

So this was dropped of at my house for $50.00. Honestly, I really was trying to pass on this one, however I did want the the 42" deck that was attached to it. And no I didn't get it, my buddy sold it. So all in all it showed up with a dead battery that was slopping around, wires pulled off, the hour meter running. The fuel system was full of junk, steering column was miss the bushing so the steering wheel would move from side to side and the shifter was pulled out of the trans. Someone had a speed crash. The hood and the tins are a bit messed up. My first thought was pull the engine and junk the rest. It was close. Well turns out it was worth the time. After going through and fixing all the BS, she got a much needed valve adjustment, cleaned the head & cylinder and oil change. Then it was time to get rid of those 6" tires. I used 4 series front spindles and wheels and I had some Ag's. And yes, for the time being the seat is held together with some tape.

Here is a picture of that.. I have done it to two of my tractors. My rear frame plate was not broke so I didn't add a full plate. I did grind the edges to they would fit flat against the plate.

@WHX24 @Achto @PeacemakerJack @Shynon @Mikey the Monkey @Coulter Caleb my plan is to have everything fixed before i put it away for the winter that way I can rock n roll next season. My plow tractor. It has seen many upgrades over the last 6 years, this year at Jims Plow Day i found the next weakness after years of use and abuse the gusset plate on my tractor was shot. When i lifted the plow off the ground my hood stand would flex to the left about 1/2inch and the frame/transmission mount would buckle up and down i couldnt hold a furrow to save my life. So i cut out the bad parts, you can see all the cracks I couldnt not find a solid 3/8 plate without ordering one online for big $$. So i welded two 3/16inch plates together dimensions 7in x 6-3/4in to make my new gusset plate. I drilled my pilot holes through one plate and added 9 extra 3/8 holes for spot welds to hold the plates together. Then drilled out the transmission bolt holes through both plates Tacked the new plate into place and added another gusset to stiffen the twist at this plate under load. Then finished burning it in and cleaning up welds Next im going to add a skid plate to the underside to prevent trash buildup.

Thanks all for the well wishes. It certainly is a mile stone. We had a nice day, it was in the 70's outside. Ended up cooking on the grill, because of the virus. Did some Rib Eyes and Filets along with some shrimp K-Bobs with onion and green pepper. I am starting to be able to taste some foods again, so the dinner was not waisted. Also, opened a bottle of Champaign and had a piece of French Silk Pie.

Fungus art Painting and burning.

After the leaf clean up with the 312-8 I decided the duck pond needed to be bigger. Lots more to go but the old girl is holding her own. Got her stuck twice and had to pull her out once with the 312. Once all my scrap burning is done I will really be able to dish the pond base out nice like.

Just a little fun with the little guy today.

Today's job was installing an oil filter plate from an M18 onto my C175. I'm loving the Series II on it. Now if only the oak trees will stop dropping leaves...

There's this one spot in my backyard that I've never been able to mow. A steep ~20' over ~20' incline, conveniently covered with white pine needles for extra no traction. For 20 years here with various inferior tractors, all I could do was coast down the hill, holding on for dear life. Now I can mow the pine needles with impunity. 1st gear, high range, full throttle, 10HP, big enough rear tires, no sweat.

I put my 54” snowplow with the new custom made heavy duty cutting edge made by Achto and front and rear weights on my 520H today. She’s a real snow beast now.

Let the paint cure overnight then straight to work with this one. Working great so far for towing leaves up and down the hill. Plenty of power from this little 100 dollar 212cc engine. I love it. Very happy but no hood yet cause i need hardware and only stock metric bolts, havent tried to see what size the threads are yet.

Oh oh oh oh oh ok I see. Me woods Bear. Not field Plow Dog. That's a new one to me.

EB its not muck or mud, we call it field trash. Basically its the mower grass clippings equivalent of soybean plants after harvest. Sometimes you can roll without issue and other times it balls up right in front of this plate like a pushblade and you have to get off and clean it out or you will high center the transmission on it. Im gonna try to add a skid plate to see if it will minimize the trash collected.

i had a few minutes to spend on the hood. the paint on this tractor is faded some, but is thick enough to work with. i started with a bit of Marvel, but there was some imbedded dirt and stains. I got out some 1000 grit paper and sort of sanded it, Marvel and all, then decided to just water sand it a bit more. The color came back and most of the paint inclusions are gone. After the initial sanding, the paint feels smooth as butter. I have a DA polisher, so i hit it with that, but my polishing compound has very little cut. There is some reflecting gloss present. i don't know jut how much i should polish the paint anyway for the fact that it looks sort of marble- like. i think that they sanded the hood and blotches of paint may have remained and telegraphed through. The overlying paint is in too good of shape to just oil it down for a patina look,because there is really no patina I have no desire to strip it down, because it is a worker. Anyway, I have it to a nice smooth semi-gloss and if i polish it much more, all the flaws will pop out and show. The second picture shows the reflectance properties, as the tree branches can be seen The wiring is a bit cobbled at this point. the PO fed the hot leads off the energized side of the solenoid. The light switch feeds the ignition coil. There is a push button starter. And also I found that the condenser was wired to the wrong side of the coil, so the points would not even produce a signal It all works out , however. this machine would have sold in a hurry in running condition. As it was, the owner said he had only one call from a collector and no one came and looked. He first asked 500 and then lowered it to three fifty.. When you see a nice tractor like this for that price in the ad , it is time to jump right at it. I told him i would be there at whatever time he chose and everything worked out. Anyway, she might be running this afternoon, with a temporary gas tank that is clean and the wiring sorted a bit

Well this project is coming to an end. I got this tractor just 20 days ago, its came a long ways from the day i got it. Is now fully functional and will be used as a cruiser/tow rig for the yard cart. Got some sweet hood decals coming from redoyourhorse along with a big 12x12 horse logo for my tow truck. This has a been a fun little project, and will last a number of years amd eventually be given a full proper restoration. But for now with only my driveway available as a workshop, this will have to do. Im happy with horse #2

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH! YES YES YES! IT RUNS! Mrs. P wants to drive it tomorrow... I better get the hood back on it!

A good friend of mine had brought home a huge pile of fire wood last fall, about 95% of it oak. It all needed to be split & stacked. The size of the pile made it seem to be an extremely daunting task. I offered my help so that the wood could be usable to heat his home. It took us just under four 8hr days but we finally finished today. Split, stacked & all of the trash cleaned up. First stack is placed on four 8ft by 8ft pallets and stacked about 6ft high. The second stack is on three 8ft by 8ft pallets and again stacked about 6ft high. He should have no reason to be cold this winter.

Turning the horses in for the evening. Been working on the back porch. Today it's my tool tote!

So that'll enable mounting a nice long low trash deflector as well. Nice idea. And the deflector could be part of the rigididididity.

Lee, my frame never had those thats part of the reason it broke the way it did. The struts we are talking about will run from the bottom holes on the outer gussets (visible from the side of tractor) to the foot stirrup bars to aid the gusset plate strength

This is a great thread!! Thank you. But I have to say, I love the look of that plow rig.

There you go - close your eyes, choose an engine at random, choose a frame at random, choose a tyranny, etc, etc, etc. Call it the chaos build.

I know some of you are also into other tractors, and there is a Wheelhorse in here. Might be some rare stuff in here. I don't really know. https://bid.aumannauctions.com/auctions/catalog/id/24819/

I was browsing out in my back yard woods and I run across this little stump. I was hoping they were elephant ears but they are not. Rock solid! Beautiful!

How's the pay on that job Dan? Got cajoled into more freaking Christmas lights ... does it never end? WACK Happy wife is .... more tractors? I now have Santa on a tractor .. oh joy. Ain't it a little early dear ... Sorry dear I'm busy putting steel on the parts shed ... It's 70 degrees out dear and no snow who's thinking about Christm... WACK Sorry Randy @rjg854 never did get pics of those seat springs yer needing.... ouch that one hurt....

I got new parts from Steiner Tractor! I replaced just the condenser and points, cleaned up the magneto cap and I have spark! It seems the plug wire has seen better days so I’ll see about finding a better suited wire around here.

A bit of an update on the fins for the screws. Looks like I have a new option. There will be a plasma cutter sitting on my front steps tomorrow. I was wondering why the wife was asking how many cut-off wheels for the grinder I go through on a project. She told me if I was going to keep doing this, it was more cost effective to just have the plasma cutter. Plus it being a time saver. Gottah luvah.

If you build it, they will come...

The oil filter adapter just replaces the flat block off plate that is there. Picture is from magnum service manual. Series 2 17 horse supposedly has the plates although I have read where some don’t. I would also get rid of the shaker plate and install the engine to a regular plate like on a 418 or 417. Give you a little more area below the filter for removal.

That's what's probably going to happen. I'm down to one to one tractor with a mower deck and that's my charger 12. I've got a 42" RD that's in need of a tractor. '

Ok, here you go. 953/1054 frame length = 41-1/8” Gt14 frame = 44-1/2” *** The hydraulic cylinder mount on the gt14 frame is above the frame at the rear. 953/1054 hyd cylinder mount is below the frame to the rear. *** The bolt pattern for 953/1054 transaxle is 3-1/2” apart at the top, 5-1/2” apart at the bottom. *** The bolt pattern for the gt14 and all other transaxles is 4-1/2” apart, top and bottom.

So I'm just wanting to know. After a years worth of work that comes to an end..... or does it?l all the satisfaction of each little piece that you most carefully make it work and look top-notch as well, do you feel empty? Are there withdrawal symptoms? how soon do I start another project? Do l need help?

Good looking tractor for $50

I told Trina about this thread and your field trash this morning. She has more general gardening experience in her past but it's all been done by hand. Found it just as interesting as I did that you can ball stuff up under there like that and eventually be stuck in place. Definitely agree with what your dad taught you about improving on a weak link whenever it's possible to do so. It's been said that to some extent all you're really doing is moving the weakest link to a different point on the machine and that's definitely true. What I've tried to do over the years with any given machine or mechanism I'm working on is ensure that the weakest link is stronger than the most powerful work that needs to be done.

Exactly! It is hard to describe what constant bull work does to garden tractors. They were built heavy enough initially to keep on going through whatever was thrown at them...however if that is done long enough, things are going to break. As my dad taught me so many years ago, “If/when you break something under hard use, time to build it stronger and then put it back into service!” Eric—if you look in the plowing thread, I know we covered field trash in it pretty extensively. It is crazy how the smallest protrusion will grab “stringy” soybean trash and collect it like Mike indicated until it lifts your rear axle up and leaves your tires spinning! All stuff we flatlander plow mules have learned about the hard way😂😂😂

I am Probably the only person that keeps a piece of fungus in the china cabinet

Oh sorry and @pullstart, for the life of me i had a brain fart while writing this last night, i knew i was missing someone!

I would suggest maybe both? Put front hitch on so you have that for other front tow uses, and put two bars straight back to bolt to frame from the two point connections. Unpin hitch, couple of bolts from the bars and it’s off for other uses... hitch stays on car, bars stay on plow...

It is a fungus. Its called a bracket fungus most likely that one an oak bracket fungus. There are many different types some of them actually edible. They are a parasite that usually grow on dead trees. If on a live tree they can actually kill it eventually.

Thats exactly what my plan is to stiffen the chassis more. Have a few ideas in my head we'll see what happens then attach a skid plate to those struts to see if i can reduce trash buildup.

Mike—thanks for tagging me on this one! That is going to be a great upgrade. When you have this finished, if you are willing, I’d like you to do a write up in the plowing thread. Once again, I want to pool the plow dog resources there in one spot for those who would follow us and join in this craziness to see the strong and the weak from our beloved horses. We push them to the MAX when furrow plowing (I.E. guys, think of a tractor pull that lasts for hours instead of seconds🤔😉) and we discover things that were done well from the factory and things that were fine for normal use but not for active furrow plowing that we expect of these dedicated plow mules! I’ll sit back and enjoy this thread. It is something that I’ll likely have to consider for GhostRider soon...

I have several motors to choose from anywhere from 8 horse up to 16. I have plenty of parts to build another tractor so it might be my destiny . Mystery build

Just keep moving on to the next! Somewhere out there another W-H is waiting for you. Stay busy my friend.

Why is it every time you're on that you're smiling ear to ear.

where you going to go to the bathroom at now.

315 is looking good. Time to put the other wheel weight on.

All the Kohlers I have use two bolts and nuts on the left side and two bolts inside the right frame rail into two tapped holes in the oil pan plate. The only plates I am aware of are the rocker plate engine mounts.

And y'all forgot to mention one thing lots of patients! do not lose the balls!