Leaderboard

New addition to the herd, intact and functional, needs to be gone thru, checked over. The deck seemed to be a little difficult to get back on, and I noticed the center grease fitting on the deck has been digging into the lift arm. I'm going to put taller wheels on the deck to get the cutting height up to where I've been cutting with the Toro. Have not seen a gray seat before. Powerflo really sucks up the leaves and grass. It was a choice of a pull behind lawn vac, or a tractor/bagger, I got this for less than the used pull behinds were listed for locally

Always a day late…..

1941 Speedex Model B so it says. Note the lever steer.

To be technically correct...these are ENGINES. A motor is electrical. Engines are combustion.

Some pictures are worth more than any words can describe. During the time that our Flag was at half-mast on 9/11/21, the wind whipped, popped and slightly tattered the US and Marine Corps Flags being flown. Sunday morning, my youngest son and 3 year old grandson, Nolan, wanted to help me replace both and raise back. A perfect time for a Dad/PawPaw to share some of the best time with Son and Grandson. New Flags were attached and raised appropriately, while providing a short narrative on the meaning and why we do it. Nolan was very attentive and seemed to understand, even at a young age. (Maybe just the pride from his PawPaw). Once this was accomplished, we followed it up with a ride on the "Red One", as Nolan calls it. 857, the beginning of my relationship with WH. This was my Dad's first of 6. I call it the 4GEN WH. Each of his Kids/Grandkids/Great Grands have been on this Tractor. Just thought I would share. The little things seem to make the best memories. Gunny, aka Dennis. (The pole is an extendable one, and is in the lowered position.)

Well... back at it again this morning. I did a little painting on the engine. Just trying to break up all the red. Then I went through my pile of old seats and came up with this one. I prefer the lower back because I am old and it's easier to swing your leg over a low back seat. Had to remove some studs and drill some new holes but it's on there now. Much more comfortable then just a plain metal pan. It still needs some work. Leaks gas around the sediment bowl. I have to address that, otherwise it's done.

Here’s a K301 waiting for a 1054, The AEN Wisconsin under Mrs.P’s Senior hood, and Rylee wrenching on her 1076 on her birthday.

Hey, guys! I have gotten some messages from some guys about front wheel bearings. On my build, I had to do some different stuff to reduce wear, and support the weight of my engine, and dozer blade. So, for starters, I began by using the stock wheel bushings and grease. Wheel Horse front wheels came with bushings as well all know. That did not work out for long. I began to see a lot of wear. SO... I began thinking... I read that some people go to ball bearings instead of the bushing setup with all the grease crap. Great idea... so you would think. Truth is, in my case, Marathon ball bearings are great for smooth terrain. I have very bumpy land, where my wheels go in holes, over my rocky driveway... etc. I blew out Marathon bearings after a couple of months. So... what I have come up with is Stens 215-267... which are better than ball bearings, as the Stens 215-267 bearings are needle-bearings, rather than standard ball bearings. These are identical to what are in the transmission of our tractors. What you can do also is use a combination of Marathon bearings on the inside of the rim, and Stens needle bearings on the outside of the rim. Thus, you get a good combination of ball bearings and needle bearings. I am running Marathon rims now, thus I have to manually repack both ball and needle bearings. At the moment, I am running all needle bearings in the front end... both inside and outside of the rim, without issues. These bearings support a heck of a lot of weight and can do so over the longterm... as long as they are greased properly. These bearings also fit in my stock Wheel Horse rims, in the place of the bushings. These can be used with Marathon tires and rims. BUT to get the bearings to fit into the Marathon rims, you need to grind some of the insides of the rim out where the bearings go in. You can use a C-clamp to press the bearings into the rims, instead of pounding them in with a hammer (as the blows by hammering could damage the needle bearings... I proved this the hard way). Stens 215-267 looks like: The inside looks like: Again, some people are interested to know what I did... and so I thought I would share site-wide. I would like to add... stock Wheel Horse front wheel bushings are part number 256-170. The stock wheel bushings are harder and harder to find... mostly in stock on ebay. If you want to go aftermarket, you can substitute for Stens 225-818... but I highly suggest sticking with stock bushings. The reason I say that is because the Stens 225-818 bushing is wider than stock, leaving less room for grease storage. Otherwise, just search the part number 256-170 on Ebay... and you will find bushings such as the following: Or you can search and buy something like this on Ebay: 114-1640 And if anyone has anything that they would like to add to this, or anything that they use that has worked-out well, feel free to share. Also, shout-out to Lowell over at Wheel Horse Parts and More... he sells some bearings for the front wheels https://wheelhorsepartsandmore.com/product/110513-front-wheel-bearing-4-for-wheel-horse/ Don

@GoldnboyI’m sorry but I totally disagree with you in reference to the Briggs. Maybe it won’t handle abuse but I’ve never abused mine.l changed the oil maybe more often than I should have, but I’m here to tell you that tractor has thousands of hours in it and still runs like a top.I purchased my Work Horse GT-1800 brand new in 1984 and used it commercially for 8 years. I mowed, tilled countless gardens and plowed tons of snow with it and it’s never let me down. I gave it a well deserved restoration a few years ago and still use it occasionally. Like I’ve said here before many times, a Work Horse is a Wheel Horse through and through.

I'm back at it again today trying to get it back together. I did finish the electrical and I got the right axle seal replaced. This was the biggest oil seal I've ever seen. The replacement seal is less then half the size. There was so much trans fluid on the hub that it was easy to remove and hub and shift were in great shape. I striped the paint off the finder,foot rests and belt cover. The paint was so thick on the belt cover I had to use paint stripper to get it off. How can anyone bend up the back of the finder that bad. I have some welding on the finder because the holes are braking apart from the bolts.

They always make me look bigger, trees or no trees!

I’ll join you @WheelhorseBob… Engines Tuesday Big block stuffed under a round hood…

Why when I read that, no matter how many times, do I hear it in my mind being spoken by Beavis? ...He said wet butt.

Tractor data is wrong as much as it is right.

I would not assume anything until you are eyeballing a wiring diagram. An AC motor does not reverse quite as easy as a DC motor. A special drum style switch is required. As with all of crapsman stuff this was made by others and a sticker put on it. See if you can find a model number on it to google for parts or wiring.

Guess that I need to buy more tractors so that I have enough to make comparisons.

I dunno about all y'all, but I'd be a little embarrassed to be seen ridin' 'round on that.

I’ve been kind of busy building a little insulated work shop for winter tinkering. I should be able to heat this little insulated lean-to room with a small electric heater unit fairly easy. It’s R19 insulated, has some plastic as a vapor barrier and enough lighting to see what I’m doing. Unfortunately, my 36” door I installed isn’t quite wide enough for rear ends to get through! For now, I need to pop a few machines apart that are unused or have been set aside for parts. In here now are Chief, Leroy and A C-101 from a local member. I was doubted by Mrs. P when I showed her today that I’m going to pop a few apart. I’m promptly here to get to work! I even have a mini fridge in here!

Thank you for posting that and thank you for your service to this great country of ours!

Actually Dan and I know a local that has one similar to that but a few years later. Has the initals HP, for Harold Pond, welded into one of the chain cases. That right there is the granddad of the Senior.

Funny Craig… a guy cannot pull over on the remote trail ride and relieve himself behind a tree without the cameras snapping away

When I got my first WH (mid 80's?) - a like new 1978 D180 - it had the deck spindles that had needles in the bottom (with NO means to grease them!) Every mowing season for about 3 yrs I would have to replace them ... I finally decided that was not getting it!! So I buy 3 more new ones and took a die grinder with a cut off wheel and made a very small 'slit' in the wall of the bearing, next I drilled/tapped the side of the spindle housing for a grease nipple to align with the 'slit' ----- I had that tractor some 20+ yrs and never had to change them again! Of course I gave them a shot of grease pretty regularly.

You guys probably get sick of seeing this old girl... LOL 457 big block... I got some more performance parts on the way... (hint: I have a turbo in my shop that I have been talking to ARC Racing about how to install *jet properly). Will be updating here once I get it put on... (if I ever do...). Between time and engineering, it is something that not many people have attempted successfully... (thus why... not calling names... but 1 guy in particular on Redsquare who claimed to turbocharge one of these engines never came out with video of it running)... Engine is so wide, when you stand in front of the tractor... the motor sticks out on both sides... Regards, Don

ALL RIGHT!!! Now thats using the old gray cells!! Great idea!! (I knew I had all ready liked needle bearings for some reason....)

754's didn't have Teckys. It looks to me like they had some 7hp electric start Kohlers left over from 1963 and installed them on what would have been 854's. Their "cleanup sale" was more like 'We need to get these 7hp electrics off the shelf'".

I hear someone is "having a sale" at a plowing event!

Not entirely Dan. I have an original 702 engine here that I pulled off a old barn find that has a shorter body. so it uses a shorter bracket.

I changed out the seat on the 310. A poor old Murray gave it up so a Horse could live on. No more wet butt.😃😃

I don't even remember where I found it. That was yesterday!

Short version of the story: Wheel Horses were sold by dealers, and Work Horses were a way to get into big box stores. They used Briggs engines, and had fewer options, but otherwise identical to Wheel Horse.

Yeah, works good for me. I am not deck cleaning fanatic, plus the couple of machines I use might get cleaned mid year or so. The pics are from my Kubota with high lift blades run time 30 hours. POR-15 hung in there! I get the 6 pack pints. then I don't have and issue with saving leftover paint. They say to use a piece of saran wrap in the can when you close to keep the air in the can from acting on the paint. I just use the pints and get two coats.

Well nothing as exciting as fabricating a new hitch, but I did change the drive belt on the 875 that recently had an engine swap. Ran into a little issue with the ground wire but @squonkwas able to talk me through it. Tractor runs and drives great. Also swapped one of the steering gears while the engine was out. Steers nice and smooth now. I bought it as a parts machine, decided to invest the money to get it going again. Now I am on the fence about spending more money for a new seat for it. There no padding left and the cover has big hole in it.

Finished painting these boys….. clear coat tomorrow. Might try working on an actual tractor this weekend.

I had to make an adapter to fit this seat to the Wheel Horse springs. Nothing fancy, but it's one more thing completed. I like this seat, so it was getting on there one way or the other. Fixed the foot hydro link thingy. Hopefully my steekers will be here this week (absolutely NO rush Terry!), so I'm hopeful I'll get this one off the lift in the next two weeks!

I did the impossible today on a 520H. The valve for the lift sprung a leak and needed new o-rings, but that valve has a phillips head screw on the front end that needs removed. You can't even see that screw. The two console plates need to come off to see the valve body. Normally the valve requires removal by taking off the four hydraulic lines but that is like brain surgery. What I did was remove the battery and tray and then the two valve body mounting bolts, the battery support has access holes for the bolts if you have a skinny 7/16" socket. I pulled the pin from the arm that operates it and removed a small bracket that was in the way that had only one bolt. I now was able to move the valve body to a position where I could get at the phillips head screw with a long #2 screwdriver at a slight angle working thru the battery space. Then the spool could be pulled and the o-rings replaced. If you have four hoses and no steel lines, this might work for you. I thought that I was in for an all day job, but was pleasantly surprised that I could pull this off in less than two hours.

Interesting to read everyone's approach to a warm winter workshop. I've had a warm workshop...........never. Hoping to put something together in the "new to us" (but 230+ YO house). Contractors are finishing up the new garage, so the old 1-1/2 car garage will be a workshop. Not this year, but maybe next to get insulation and heat.

Well dang it. Now I hear it

5$... Exactly what the front wheels need. I don't even have to wait 'till payday... Don

Cleaned, oiled, and drying in the sun. Then hibernate till spring '22

Now that you mention it I seem to recall having to take the spring off at the bottom until the bolt was installed on the idler.

Yes there were two or three different starter/generator brackets used on Wheel Horses. I use to buy the brackets at swap meets to resell due to the differences.

Only 422 Built Eric! Very sought after!

Actually it was. I had set up some blocking (Not shown) and put a significant bit of down force to get it flat and true. The top was up about an inch and the front was drove into the blade and broke the spindle. I straighten the top first and it of course made the front worse. holding the deck flat and then pulling the front was part two. The line in the pic indicates the damage area.

I changed my mind. The 68" belt is a much better fit than the 70", and the 69" would probably be a tad too long also. So the 66 and the 70 are going back. But now I've discovered an issue with the PTO stub shaft. The snap ring had popped it's groove. So I need to address that issue now. No big deal, easy fix.

That sucker is just coooool

I wouldn’t worry about a gas tank… by the time this baby gets running we’ll all be using a proton physical particle emulsifying separator for propulsion and the UN will have banned internal combustion engines…