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Good news, guys. The name Wheel Horse and the logo will live on, with new Wheel Horses tractors and implements being built. MTD has purchased the Wheel Horse name and logo from Toro, and will start building new equipment with the famed Wheel Horse name and logo. Ridney Dongerfield, a spokesman for MTD, said, "Wheel Horse never got the respect. MTD is proud to announce that Wheel Horse will be joining our line of garden equipment, joining names like Troy Bilt, Cub Cadet, and Bolens." The new Wheel Horses will be built using MTD's reputation for quality products and is expected to look similar to a Yardman, but with the famed Wheel Horse logo, name and color scheme. Prices to be similar to a new Cub Cadet, with several models being planned. Models will include tractors with various deck sizes, engine sizes and features. Expect new tractors to start appearing February 30 of next year.

Put the new shoes on the horse today since the wheels were good and dry. Wheel weights back on tomorrow. And a nice straight hood is in the works. Some minor body work and then prime and paint. Old one has major damage.

April 1, 1965, The Sound of Music first came out in the USA with its world premiere in New York City on March 2, 1965, as a limited "roadshow" release, with a wider nationwide release on April 1, 1965, marking its debut in theaters across the country.

It needs to be put back together.

I see it came with a boat anchor for your next lake trip.

HORSEFIXER ON YOU TUBE

I found a chunk of 1/2" thick x 2" wide steel bar and made two more spacers. I now have the rear hitch spaced down 7/8" I now have 4-1/2" of lift on the blade and still have some down float when fully lowered as well. Not a lot when compared to my big tractor and it's cat 1 three point hitch but better than it was. Hopefully now I can move it around the yard in the summer without ripping up too much sod.

I have 3/8" thick spacers. Maybe I need to make thicker ones.

Wishful thinking but MTD??? Should be JD that will reaally get blood boiling!

A bit of a shocker for sure. I can remember when Duke was VERY active on the forum. I pray his family is comforted during this time. Regardless of what his health was, this was way too soon!

Today I put the 417-A with blower away for the year, so I had to move some tractors around. Figured I’d snap a few pics, couldn’t wait for side shot Saturday to post 😂 Sorry for the grease on the front wheel of the 418-C I removed it immediately after I took the picture 😂 I figured I’d say that before one of you wise guys said something about it!!

Here we go, got them both done. Going to pull the front axle to check on the axle pin and spindles see if I can tighten things up.

Go to Tractor Supply and get a 5L820 and a 5L810. Use the one that fits best and return the other and you'll be fine. It's a Hydro so you don't have to worry about clutching.

The external characteristics for “6-speeds” are: - 1-2-3-R shifter - Hi-lo shifter - No top-side hole for a dipstick - A 1” pipe extension on the oil fill at the lower left rear of the transaxle (allows filling oil to a higher level) - 5/8” (0.625) input drive shaft but it’s shorter than later 8-speeds’ (corrected 6Apr26 -- thanks @kpinnc) - A brake drum that brings the brake band to within an inch of the rear axle housing casting - A brake drum that turns clockwise when the tractor is moving forward There was at least one “8-speed” that also had a LSD--I think it was the 5073. This had a topside dipstick port and the brake drum was farther from the rear axle and turned counter-clockwise and had a ⅝” input shaft making it externally indistinguishable from an open-differential 8-speed. As for the rest, the link to the thread in @953 nut’s post (above) has the relevant information.

Actually, the seat shown looks like the one I put on all of my builds. These have several different armrest mounting points. I get these now at Princess Auto but I used to get them at tractor supply before they closed. Arm rests are very hard to find new now it seems.

Absolutely beautiful machines, and a little grease will just earn you a pass from Pete!

lol I appreciate that. I was contemplating buying another one for my 73 WH because it needs a new seat bad but I don’t wanna drill new hole in the fender, I was also thinking of using the U-shaped seat spring mounts which should bolt up, and making a cross bar and bolting a ford 8N seat to it because I like the red and white seat covers available for them. Just haven’t decided yet.

Put new seat on the newly acquired 312-8. This seat was not a direct fit for this tractor. It had a bunch of holes but they were about a half hole off . Easy enough to fix because the previous seat already had an adapter on bottom and it fit new seat great. This is a very late model tractor and dont really know if all the 300 series has the same seat bolt pattern. I am very pleased with the seat it has the heavy rubber type cover and sets very good.

There fixed that too...

Not a real Lead Sled but a lead plow horse for sure

EXACTLY. HAHA. 😂

It does 😀

Glad you said something Cleat. Thought maybe we have to have another ungly seat contest Black duck tape is all I can tell ya Don. Sometimes hard to find a replacement that takes those arm rests. I've learned to live with ugly seats.

I didn't take it that way, no problem. The "give up" corner is full for now, so keep

Looks like it should be a 1971 Workhorse 800

Even if this was true I don't think I'd want to buy them since they would be made by Made To Die

If anyone has any pictures of Duke please add them to this topic . Pictures of either the 520 - H or the C-120 Snowchucker projects would be nice. He also had a nice 417- A he did a refurb on . I know he had a lot of older WH tractors as well. I will try to add pictures as I come across them if I can. I think he would like that. Thanks Guy's.

April fools

Ha Ha, I'm glad that terrible mess was taken care of. The poor seat needs some love. On a positive note, I like how high your blade lifts on the 418. My 520HC does not go that high before it contacts the tractor (where abouts I can't remember right now).

I made an @Achto, Wisconsin approved bench mill/lathe combo out of a death wheel on a hand grinder and ran it atop a skill saw blade. I trimmed up a yank start ring and installed it on top of the cooling fan screen. The larger diameter makes starting easier and the recoil has given me fits since we put this tractor together. In preparation for the plow day next weekend, I replaced the clevis hitch with a slot hitch, so I can run a longer plow that I have available.

Definitely has more traction than the right wheel I had on it.

They finally caught it. It's all safe & sound. I ever mention that I can't eat kangaroo meat? It makes me jumpy

So sad to hear. I really need to finish the front end loader he started, I’m so close. He was one of the first few semi-local guys I met in this hobby, and we talked for about 2 hours it seemed while I was picking up a tiller from his house. Momma wasn’t quite impressed with our ability to never end the discussion, and neither were my young kids in the Suburban

The only guy I ever knew that had a Hula dancer in the cab of his snow chucker.

Hi all, started working on my 856, ended up rebuilding the engine and while waiting for parts started working on steering, lots of slop. Pulled tie rods, steering wheel and shafts. Front of frame was wollowed and shaft end worn. Steering block got two bushings and steering wheel shaft cleaned up, installed upper dash bushing, reinforced bushing with steel puddy and new lock collar. Ordered hiem joints for tie rods and will machine new rods when I get parts. Don't forget the green high temp grease.

@cleat I don’t have any spacers on the rear axle bracket. In fact I’ve never used spacers on any of my tractors. Usually I just use the factory solid lift link in the furthest out hole in the rockshaft.

Then I guess its a good thing the man I found with it said he would have to take it off the tractor first, so maybe I will buy the whole thing or hopefully at least he will have what I need to get a complete swap.

I have the rear rock shaft. and some of the other stuff you listed. Other wise Lowell has the rest. https://wheelhorsepartsandmore.com/product-category/rock-shaft-kits/

Nice score! I do love my Stihl MS260! One thing I do not like are those flippy caps for bar oil and fuel. They only work one way but have about 3 other ways that they don't seal or even lock. Cheap alternative to those caps and they work great: https://sawzillaparts.com/products/proline-fuel-and-oil-cap-for-stihl-ms290-ms310-ms390-ms460-ms441-ez-twist-0000-350-0504

Nice score of saws! Although I no longer heat w/firewood I still keep my Husqvarna 455 Rancher. Have a carbide chain installed & its best $$ I spent. Ported & polished the head & matched/smoothed exhaust @head. Made a big difference in performance. Its definitely a handful & not for a novice. Cut a lot of wood for about 15yrs with this saw. My last house we would burn 7-10 cords of wood a winter.

I added the two spare tire holders a few days ago. Also prepped and glued the kingpin plate on. Axle set is in place. There'll be more framing added beside & in front of the axles. This is one of two top catwalk pieces I'm using to scratch build a top walk for this tanker. The double diamond plate strip on the box there will be the center of it. I used the back of a #11 Xacto blade to score the groove and snapped the edges off. I also got some more paint laid on.

After babbling back n forth with a few guys here n there I decided it was unlikely to be something I could produce to my own satisfaction. @Wheel Horse 3D is making several pieces for me related to this project and others. The long pieces are two sets of frame rail extensions. Here is the tank end chunk.

Years ago I read a magazine article about weathering certain aspects of a model. I've also seen other build articles mentioning the following trick... Scale model tires are molded just like most other parts. That process leaves lines and dots. Real tires obviously don't have either so to increase realism I remove them. Sanding works. But this rotational tool method is neat too. I'll be switching to a more powerful drill but the pics show the idea. On the rear section, one of the many modifications to this trailer is to move the entire rear suspension back several scale feet. On the full sized trailers the back tires were actually setting past the back of the tank body. To help strengthen the model as a whole I decided to add a plate between the suspension frame and tanker body. I used black sheet styrene cut to fit. The sheet styrene adds to the total glued area by having the cross members involved all the way across. Same basic idea for the landing gear. I widened it and set it on a similar plate. After painting it'll look like a standard full sized trailer modification done by a cheap boss looking for a strong functional piece that didn't have to be sent out to a fabrication company. The landing wheel's axle was actually broken in the kit so I figured, what better place to add the wider section. To create the addition my intention was to add a piece of tube styrene over the axle.... but it hasn't arrived yet. Could I wait? Absolutely. Would a real world company wait? No. So I made a repair addition section by slicing (carefully) a piece of C channel into an angle. Glued the whole assembly together. When dry, I'll paint it and install the assembly.

Sprayed the silver paint over the kast several days. Looks very good. There are a few areas that are a small nicks or dents. I'm leaving them alone on purpose because this model will be weathered. I'll call out the imperfections later in the build. I can also still see the original casting mold lines through the primer and paint. I left them alone asnwell because they actually look like the full scale version of tank divider or reinforcement lines.

Because I'm adding two rear sections of the tank together there was a gap at the very back bottom of the trailer. I used sheet styrene to fill the area. Two small pieces for the sides and a larger section in the middle.

I had a thought several weeks ago that maaayyybe I could use the two kits shown to create the tractor more like an S2500. The 2500 and 2600 were the heavy haulers of the series. The fleet beast. The 4300 was more of an owner operator seller. Nicer options. More chrome. The Paystar had the setback front axle and HD frame of the S2500. After taking some measurements today it appears that I'll be able to use the frame and running gear of the Paystar and the nose and fifth wheel of the 4300 to combine into a 2500. Probably. Biggest obvious challenge will be cutting the 4300's hood to shorten it quite a bit.

Some progress pics of the tanker. The wet sanding went well for stage one. After this pic I used the flat sheet od sandpaper to "adjust" the line-up of the front and middle sections and glued them together. Here I'm doing a simple mockup for the rear suspension position and the frame rails I'll be adding on. Not sure exactly where the whole thing is gonna set just yet.

Was your Dad the unseen driver in the movie Duel??? Made this clip of a very good model version at the Cabin Fever show this month