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We live in "haspengouw", the region is know for it's fruit trees. Apple, pear and cherries. We have had some frost here as well. farmers stayed up all night, keeping their fires lit to rescue the blossoms.

Howdy guys! So... this past weekend... it was raining, so I made an exhaust stack for my L-157. I got my Tillotson 212r put in... (runs great), but I do plan to swap back to my Tillotson stage 1 (governor removed) once I get the parts I need to fix it... I ran the exhaust piping through what was the gas filler hole. I did also put a steel flap (10 dollars at a farm store) on the top of the exhaust pipe (not shown in these photos). I fabricated a cupholder and a piston shifter, (the piston came out of my original Tecumseh engine!). I think the black engine with the black tractor looks exceptional! Here are some pics:

I remember as a kid the 'smudge pots' that the orchards around here used. On nights when there could be frost, they would put them all out and light them. Dad used to herd us all into the car to drive out and look at it because it was quite a sight to see on a clear cold night... all those smudge pots burning in the orchard. And the smell of the Kerosene burning... when I smell that it always takes me back. Some used the smaller 'bomb' type that were typically used at highway construction sites back in the day. I've got one of these somewhere out in my 'hoard'.

Got the 1257Heavys fuel tank installed now just need to finish welding the platform and cut a hole into the hood for the fuel cap, then she will be able to drink 2.5 gallons at a time!

This year we have an invasion of beautiful Yellow Finches. There are dozens constantly all over specially at Wife’s feeders.

Hey folks, I thought it would be fun to chronicle my 1985 312-8 here on the forum. Nothing too exciting but figured it would be a good way for me to log my progress and share with others. I like seeing others projects and work so figure I'd share mine. so to start, here is what it looked like the day I bought it. Paid $500 for it with 42" deck as the only implement. Everything was in working condition: Engine, Trans, Deck, Steering, etc. Mowed a few strips at the guys house before taking it home. A little dirty but all in all pretty solid condition that would clean up well. After a quick wash and rub down Next post I'll start listing the maintenance stuff I have done so far...

Once it burns the paint off it will be fine. Then some stove black on it and it will look great.

Red hot day here today so I decided I needed to make a fire pit. Honestly, the honourable Mrs.W is having her girlfriends round this evening and it will drop very cold. So I cut down an oil drum and did some modifying so it should work as a wood burner. Kind of a nice shape to it and a raised steel grate so she can burn logs.

Making a bit of headway.

Only trouble is its a girls only club so im stuck indoors all night while they drink gin.

Heck I might actually get some stuff done today on ole Hiram.

Able to bring home a nice pair of horses, C-111 and C-161 gear drive. The 161 has a neat Honda powered TracVac that hooks onto to a custom steel bracket attached to the rear axle. Both came from the original owner, garage kept and in great shape! Selling the 111 (currently posted in Classified section if anyone is interested) and going to try mowing our 3 acres of grass up at camp with the 161. I mowed it last year with my 141 hydro 42" but eager to try the gear drive setup on the 161 with the 48" deck. If anyone is interested in the 111 feel free to reach out, I'm open to offers! Take care

I made some improvements that I wanted to show......but decided to wait until I did a little more work on them. Oh what the heck, here's the photo take a look

Drew up a quick schematic for the engine electric system as it was when I got it. Snipped the wires off and removed some more parts from the engine.

My boss gave me a shifting knob. It not only looks cool but the cool factor doesnt stop there. Apparently it was the knob he had in his big rig when he was a roadie. It has been all over. Concerts like Ted Nugent, Blue Oyster Cult, Aerosmith. I kinda want to put it on Hiram, but I'm unsure if I should.

I don't think the smudge pots, helicopters, or fans would have worked here last night. We had 20-30MPH NW winds all night. May be the water spray would have worked, but I wasn't staying up all night to spray trees. Snow flurries now. May have to fire up the wood burner.

They keep telling us to eat less meat because of, “Climate Change”. If the bureaucrats see these pictures, we’ll be told to eat less fruit as well! 🍏🍎🍒🍐 Doug.

Woke up this morning to a broken refrigerator. The freezer was still below freezing, about 25° (normally 0-10) and the fridge was around 45° (normally 35-40), The compressor was trying to start every minute or so but it could not / did not. I thought, probably the starting cap. I have several in my junque boxe (sometimes it pays to hoard!). Swapped it out... nope. OK, must be the start relay. YUP! popped the cover off the side of the compressor and out fell the burnt charred remains of the relay. It's an OLD fridge! The relay is no longer available. What to do... I was able to salvage enough of the old relay to make a 'plug' onto which I soldered a couple wires, one for the RUN and one for the START. With a couple well placed clip leads I was able to start and run the compressor. I put on my McGyver cap and set to designing my own start relay with parts from my junque boxe. I had a P&B KRPA DPDT relay and socket with 120V coil. Of course I've got gobs of resistors and capacitors and diodes and transistors and yes, even VACUUM TUBES! So I rigged up a circuit that would 'pulse' the relay for about a half second and release it. IT WORKED LIKE A CHARM! Here it is before I cleaned it all up, got rid of the clip leads, applied heat shrink tubing and electrical tape and put it inside a small metal enclosure to tuck inside the control area: The whole ordeal took most of the day designing, prototyping, finalizing. Basically I rectified the 120V RUN signal, filtered with the caps on the right, fed the resulting DC in SERIES with the silver starting cap (12 MFD) to the relay coil. When the RUN signal goes high, the rectified DC sends a pulse through the silver capacitor and the coil pulls in. Once the cap is charged, no more current flow, the relay drops out. The resistors you see serve to discharge the capacitor after the relay drops out so it's ready for the next cycle. It was a fun exercise and took my mind off feeling 'punky' after my 2nd Moderna yesterday. Wife still wants a new fridge and that's fine. I said you can get your fridge if I can get the driveway paved. She said FINE! GO AHEAD! No more worry about rocks in the snow thrower! Easy to plow! At least now she can shop at her leisure for exactly what she wants. Started as a bad day, ended as a very good one!

I got some parts back from the media blaster today. They sure clean up nice. Wipe them with a little mineral spirits, and they are ready to paint. I have no plans for these wheels right now, so they will just get primer.

I’ve recently gotten into flux core welding and I’ve been making all sorts of attachments for my 310-8. I was wondering what other crazy things people have made for their tractors.

Spring . It’s time to start planting the flowers.

Wife was off getting her teeth floated tonight. While she was gone I decided to take advantage of the quiet time and get my hood lettered. I know that Terry now makes some awesome decals to letter your hoods, but I kinda enjoy the artsy time and I can do an OK job with a brush. As long as I had the brush & paint out I also lettered an engine shroud that I had sprayed for Jim. @WHX24

Just wanted to share a situation that's happened to me twice in 3 weeks now. Trina and I are very frugal and I spend (too much) time looking for the best deal on things quite often. Most times I win. Occasionally I don't pay enough attention or do enough poking around and I could do better. A few weeks ago I ordered a piece of metal. Days go by and a Home Depot box shows up. I DO buy from them but not that time. Turns out it's a seller on the fleabay that somehow does dropships. For a few seconds of data entry they gained about 30% or more. Maybe 12 or $15.? Similarly... A few days ago I ordered a large pair of vise grips for the best price I could find at the time. From fleabay. Today arrives a flippin' amazon package! Ok well fine. That seller gains $9.98 of my funds because I got complacent.....? The first occasion I don't regret because that person had more knowledge than me on where to find what I wanted. Honestly I'm fine with that. The second time.... Well that's on me. Obviously I just didn't do enough research. Coming from me that means a LOT!!! So pay attention folks!!! Double check the triple checks.

I'm assuming that your boss drove a semi when he was a roadie? If so, then the shift knob came off of a tractor - a really big, over the road kind.

Set the bead on flat tubeless tire on the new to me trailer... used rubber cement and boy did it work great...! Super easy...

The best you can do. Your Tractor have it‘s history, this knob have it‘s history, imho that sounds to a perfect match. 👍

True enough. I'll do it.

5 bucks includes the new valve stem !!!! Great people , 3 Generations of men running the show here...Owned since 1930"s

Do not use longer bolts then what you pulled out. I know Paul likes to change out his bolts, but it is really not necessary. New nuts are a must. It seems like Wheel Horse never used the length of bolts that you can readily buy. If you have to use them, put a regular nut on them and then saw to the same length as the ones you pulled out. Back that nut off to fix the thread.

Had the same thing happen to me last year. Just a couple days after knee surgery. Big ol GE. You can't find anything like this in a retail store anymore. Big pancake compressor. The condenser fan motor took a dump. I'm thinking no big deal. Unit brg. Motor. I go to the local supplier thru work. Nothing in stock but a $200 ECM motor. 2 local appliance stores closed. I have motors in my work van but I'm off on workman's compensation so I can't get them. I need a 2 watt motor. A store 25 miles away has a 9 watt.I take it. Refrigerator sounds like a B-17 bomber starting up but it cools like a mohambie. Real fun trying to replace it without bending my leg. Wife has to help me get up off of the floor a bunch of times. I got a 2 watter on the shelf now.

Hey all, looks like everyone has been busy for sure. For winter I tweeked my single stage snowblower, it now can even throw slush and wet snow. I have yet to try it on good dry snow but theres always next year. Ive also gotten a good start on a box scraper. As soon as I can Ill post some pics of both. Oh yes where the blower at full throttle would only throw snow 10 to at most 15 feet when its dry snow and may be 5 to 8 feet when wet and always plugging up, now it throwes it right back to mother natures yard, and oh hell does it ever send it. Ill post how far wet snow goes in the pictures I post ok. Gotta keep em wondering right heheheheh. Mike Hendrick.

You're better off mister man. Add all those words up and they spell "man trubble".

I'm working on a hitch-mounted winch crane...

I got charged 26 for both my tires and valve stems... 5 dollars each is awesome...

Ok I'll be nice. Instead of a belt guard I made a fence around the complete engine. I need to control the turning radius from the wheels getting locked up. Maybe two stops on the drag link?

Got to give them a little time to grow.

New decal set came in. Got the left side C-160 badge and WH bar on. All the decals on the right side came off during pressure washing. Should make a big improvement.

And what good a story would it have been if I didn’t land myself on WI soil up close and personal?

My first trip to Portage, WI with Mrs. P and a a handful of tractors. We needed something from uptown fairgrounds, not where us riff raff camp. Dan suggested I hop in the dump cart, it’ll be faster. Well what I didn’t realize, is you always ride backwards in a dump cart, otherwise it’ll dump. Me on my back, Dan and I about crying laughing... maybe I should’a walked to the show!

What better life could you possibly dream of than to be set on something that is hand-built with care by a craftsman such as yourself and destined to be used for chores and enjoyed?

Right about that! We're keeping the old fridge. I've always wanted a Kegerator! And a freezer above to keep my ice cream in. I must be pregnant... Beer and ice cream sounds really good right now!

Package just arrived from @drjarvisphd121 New knobs are on and looking good Also got some bling going on for the rear wheels Just need to finish up painting the front wheels, and get all the new tires on. Still need to find a pair of caps for the front.

Before you go out and buy any tires make sure you measure your rims. My 310-8 with the 22 7.5 had 5 inch rims....8.50 or 950 are going to look really bulgy on such narrow rims.... Check the distance from the center hub flange to the start of the drop center. if it is about 3" you have the 7" rims if it is about 1" you have 5" rims. (Both assuming 1-3/8" backset.) As far as chains if you have 1-3/8" backset you should be OK Last picture shows clearances with 10.50 12 Ags (Deestone on 7" Carlilse on 8.5")

I found a driveway find 1981 Ford F250 Diesel with many of the "go to Town" options. in real nice shape, but it was a no start no crank truck that is very nice for a northern truck. not knowing a thing about these trucks, i put two new- ish batteries in Still no crank no start. Put two new batteries in that will crank over a 5.9 Cummins with authority. No crank no start. I finally shorted the firewall solenoid. Got crank and no fuel.at the high pressure fuel pump, but the fuel flooded the fuel filter. Nice So I reasoned that the start circuit and possibly whatever thingamabopper whirlymagoo that shut off/turned on the fuel was not working.After researching for hours, I kept coming up with broken pot metal linkage inside the steering column that operated the ignigtion/start switch under the dash board and mounted to the steering column. It wasn't that, but the switch itself needs replaced. The batteries are a little low and am charging them up, but after installing the switch, there is fuel going to the injectors. Woo Hoo!! This may be an old truck without a turbo, but without a computer [I think] has me pretty excited. My next trip should be a success with four batteries to get it started. You just can't figure this kind of stuff out on new equipment.

Got my fuel tank in started mocking that up, raining outside so no real work can be done, but got some rubber metal trim in so put some of that on, and along the hood where it latches now my shifter doesn't bang off the edges of the console, and my hood clamps down snug!

Not like I need it, but a very reasonable priced GT14 popped on CL last night. I emailed after 32 minutes of it being posted, the only communication method offered. I have yet to hear back, but still have hope!

Helped my brother bring home a Massey Harris 44 with a trip bucket on it. If you've ever loaded a tractor that doesn't run & has a front end loader on it, you can imagine the fun that we had.

Started out my day polishing up the old switches. Then it was on to getting the wiring done. Wiring is one of those jobs that consumes a fair amount of time with little wow factor to show off. I will start pictures with showing the dash all put together. I neglected to look for a 10-0-10 ammeter but I can live with the 30-0-30 meter that was on the tractor when I bought it. I ordered Willy's Jeep throttle & choke cables from I had to install some 3/8" x 5/8" x 1/4" bushings in the dash to reduce the holes enough to install the new cables. I do think that I'm going to be very happy with the locking mechanism on the throttle cable. It's not a pinch locking system, instead it has a ratchet mechanism. 1/4 turn allows the ratchet to catch, 1/4 turn the other way releases the ratchet. I tried to find these again so that I could post a link, but of course I can't seem to find them again. When I tried to install the locking collar on to the steering shaft it would not slide over the paint that was on the shaft. To make the collar fit I had to sand all of the paint off from the shaft, put every thing together and then cover the tractor up and respray the steering shaft. Currently I am 1 sediment bowl away from being able to finish the project. A bit bummed about the sediment bowl thing, but hopefully it will show up in the mail this week. Until the part shows up, I'll leave you all with this last picture.