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This is truly teem work!!!

guys, just a few pictures of my baby, nearly completed. i built a engine mount for my Predator 6.5hp engine, home made snowplow frame, electric winch mount, grill guard..etc... 1 1/2 year project, runs great and works...not show piece, but i like it.now to paint the snowplow, wire up the lights and voltmeter and i'll be ready to show and use

Hello from steamy Virginia.Like a lot of you, my wife and I are roasting in this heat.We both grew up in Va.She and I got to remembering about summers in our past.We both grew up in houses without AC.Our first house with central air came in 1987.The first family car with AC came the year before.I drove non AC trucks to work every day until 2008.My 36 year old daughter has a hard time believing the stories but they are true.We lived through the heat then but at our age now, give me AC.

Our local Antique Tractor and engine show took place today and we had a good variety of tractors, hit and miss engines and interesting stuff. I didn't get too many pictures due to a lightning storm that sent everyone packing early, but here is what I did get during my lunch brake.

Got my sickle bar belted up, needs a little tweaking, but I think I got er'....

this one melts snow just with the color.

Here's Trina's contribution to the thread... note the tractor hood under the shop rag/cover? I'm about 75" to the top of my hat... How's this for a tall hood?

A bit of the white stuff. I think this was the 30” storm

And now a song from Elvis:

Remember the days of no A/C all the windows open and screen doors were not locked. A big old fan in a window to draw the cool air thru the house at night or sleeping on the screened porch.

My first house in Florida had a window shaker in the master bedroom and paddle fans with high ceilings everywhere else. That was all I could afford at the time and didn't bother me too much. Now I know I wouldn't leave the bedroom if that was the only room with AC. When the auto manufacturers quit putting vent windows in cars and truck it change AC from a luxury to a necessity in the south.

Back in 2009 I started this thread when I was a newbie here on RedSquare. I was looking for a way to freshen up some of the unpainted items on my first restoration. I ended up painting them due to a lack of time. Ten years has passed since then, and I am just now revisiting zinc plating. I have a few items that need some work, so I thought I'd give plating another try. I'm not going to buy any kits or expensive processes. Just going to use locally available and easily sourced items and see how it works. If I have success, I will post a complete tutorial. If I fail, I will let you know that as well. I've raided the wife's pantry for 3 items already. They are already paid for and she'll never miss them. DC power supply will be a battery charger of which I have several, and the only thing I am waiting on is a piece of bright zinc for my anode. More to follow...

So I picked this up today. From what I can tell it’s a 1980 C-145 01-14KS01. Tractor and deck for buck and a half. Needs fuel pump. Deck is solid which is what I really wanted. What ya guys think?

Recently added to my collection!!!! Pretty happy about it. XMUX4518.MOV

We don't get much snow down here in NC, but when we do, its nothing the ol' 314 can't handle.

It's a much nicer day today. I got the breather assembly put back together, the carb reinstalled and am ready to check her out. Hopefully the leaks are gone and I can get the carb adjusted properly now.

Not to steal your thread, but this reminds me of a story. I’ve been doing finish grading work for 25+ years. When I was in my early twenties I was operating a road grader grading a dirt road when an elderly gentleman pulled up in a country squire station wagon. He just sat in his car watching me for probably a half hour. Finally he got out and came over to me and said “son I’ve been watching you speed back and forth making several unnecessary passes!” At first I was a little angry, who was this guy to come over and criticize my work? He proceeded to tell me that he was retired from the operating engineers union as a grader operator and had just one tip that he would like to share with me. He said (and I will never forget this I swear) “let accuracy be your goal and speed will be your reward” He told me that he could have done what I did in ten passes in four. He said if I just slow down and make every pass as accurate as possible that I would actually speed up my production. And damned if he wasn’t right! To this day I follow that advice. We kind of took a liking to each other and became friends, I even ended up doing some grading work at his home! Well don’t you know about a year ago I see a kid (early twenties!) running a skid steer trying to grade out an area for a pole building. He’s flying back and forth not really being productive and all of a sudden it hits me. Now I’m the old guy ( just not in a station wagon) I then feel compelled to go pass on this wisdom. Since I know the kid I do exactly that, in hopes that he too will follow this advice and someday pass it along. Thank you for reading my story!

Do I see socks?

You need an old kick -a$$ Fedders!!!! 14,000 BTU complete with the required needle nose pliers to adjust the thermostat and missing grille!

Was in the low 90's yesterday with overcast and a pretty good breeze. My wife and I dug out the canoe and paddled around the lake for fun. Turned out that we were pretty tired when we got back in. So, I dug out the horse and put it on canoe duty to get the cane up the hill to storage.

This is dragging my second buck ever home (also second buck of the day!) last November. I used Rylee’s Screamin’ Jimmy because it had the most weight and chains for traction in the field. I had to pull the big 8 across a couple fields

I know that my old 78 Ford trucks,and I still have all of them,the vent windows were a source of wind noise in the winter.Buddy of mine would smack if you opened one because it was so hard to seal it up again.

@953 nut Today the young folk don't even know what vent windows are

Quite true. Heard of it many times. I "run warm" all year. I use my AC more than some. Mostly right when I get in the car after it's been sun baking all day but also, we both commute in/out of Portland daily. Asphalt is just hot. Just a few weeks ago Trina bought us an air conditioner for the house. The front room is nearly 12 x 40 plus an ell. Cools all very nicely. 14000 BTU. I've never had one that powerful before.

More pictures from the Portage, Wisconsin Garden Daze Show and Swap meet held last week ! This time from my Kodak 740 Z camera!

I worked as an operator at a couple Nuclear Power Plants in Florida and on occasion had to make at power entries in the 145 degree reactor containment building wearing triple layers of protective clothing and a respirator. You know what; the memory of that doesn't make it seem a bit cooler on these hot humid days!

Well, where were we. Aaa yes, Bosses Brew and an Electric Water Heater. But before we get to that and the 9N, we need to backup a bit. I had been working at the shop for a few weeks, and I asked Painter" what's with that contraption and the buckets of hoses and fittings on the oily slab behind the paint shop. Of course his standard reply was becoming "young-en you will learn in due time, in due time" I was learning a lot of things around the shop, some good, and some ..... It was a wet fall and the farmers weren't able to get in their fields to plow and break things. So it was getting a little slow around the shop. There weren't any tractors waiting for me to steam clean when I got there that day. No one needed any help, and no new equipment to help assemble. I hadn't learned the "ropes" of how slow times worked around the shop yet. It was a Thursday afternoon, and I was goofing off on a lawn tractor with the bosses young son. The Shop Foreman caught us and sent the Bosses son inside. Then he told me, since I didn't have anything better to do and since it's slow, you don't need to come in tomorrow or Saturday morning. What! I'm only working 2 or 3 hours after school and 4 hours on Saturday. I had got 14 hrs the 1st couple of weeks. They didn't have to pay me the $1.74 minimum wage I had got at my previous summer job helping install carpet and vinyl flooring. Something about since I was part time and working through the School Ag Program blah blah blah. So I only worked 8 hours that week. At a $1.25 an hour I made a whooping $10 that week, wait, Uncle Sam got part of that, maybe I took home $9. This wasn't going to keep gas in my old truck and pay for a ticket to the Saturday night dance at the KC Hall (knight of Columbus) or the VFW hall in the neighboring town. Just then Painter hollered he needed me to help him. When we got to his shop he said it looked like I needed "saving" from the Shop Foreman. I said ya, he told me not to come in the next few days since it was slow. Over the course of time that I worked there, Painter kind of "took me in" in a crude way and taught me some of the ropes of the working world. So my 1st lessons began. He said you see I've only got one tractor in line to paint. Boss has it sold to a neighbor down his road and told me to make it look really good! I've been sanding and putting Bondo on this here hood for about 2 days now. When Ol Mr Shop Foreman tries to hurry me along, I just tell him "I'm following Bosses orders,...make it look really good". Then he said, of course if I had 4 tractors sitting out there waiting to be painted it would still take me about 2 days to sand a hood... nice and slow. Painter then told me: "They would love to get rid of me (him), but no one else around here likes to paint! You see young-en you need to find you some jobs no one else likes to do. You worked at the Floor Company right? Yes Sir, I replied. I bet you swept a lot of floors didn't you. Yes Sir, I had to learn to sweep them very clean before they spread the glue down. Then he pointed around his paint shop and over to the big shop and said...there's always somewhere that needs sweeping around here!. Now remember, your not in a hurry to sweep the place, you know. After all, you can tell Mr Shop Foreman your trying to not make a lot of dust that would get in the engines, transmissions, or what ever the other mechanics were working on. You understand young-en, pace yourself. Then he asked me? You got a girl friend? No Sir, I replied. He reached in his pocket and handed me a $5 bill and said, you better go to the dance this weekend and meet one. OK, @Tractor boy @dells68 @ebinmaine @tunahead72 @pullstart @LengerichKA88 At least @Stormin understands.... I still have to Pace Myself!

I got this sickle bar originally to put on my dad's tractor, buuuut it wouldn't fit right. So I gave it a try on my 854. Seems to bolt up correctly, anybody have an idea what the drive belt should be? I'm thinking 1/2 x 34? The 38 it came with was too long. Model 7-1312 , 50 inch bar. Anywho, this is what I messed with today...and it was HAWT!!!!

Our family just had our family reunion yesterday on my fathers family farm of which there was no electric, so no fans and upstairs where he and his siblings slept there were no windows to open, no insulation in the walls or ceiling. My father has said many times he does not know how he could have survived it and now be 92, and in the winter it was just as cold as it had been hot. during the summer. They were farmers and my grand father worked in the coal mines of which he walked two and a half miles threw the woods to the mines each day. So they worked their butts off everyday hot or cold. So we have life pretty easy as compared to them. God bless air conditioning.

Mowed our farm lanes today old school style. Farmall A with a Woods belly mower. Open operator platform. No canopy or sun umbrella. No AC, either. Worst thing was no power steering. I'll be using the brush hog on the IH 460 next time. I may be sentimental when it comes to old tractors, but I'm not mental. Give me power steering anyday with my bad shoulders! Cheers! Dave

My plunge cut worked! I let the saw tell me how fast to lower it and I braced my arms against my knee for more control and accuaracy.

My bend points are all scored, now time to trim the edges to size. Scoring the blank first gives me good reference points for where the edges will come together. Due to the shape of the base, I’ll be forced to do a couple plunge cuts. My plan is to clamp the saw base to the work piece, so I can just focus on the cut and not the alignment of the saw.

While I learned that 10 years ago, it really didn’t sink in until a year or so ago. (To consciously take my time in all tasks anyway) Some things just have to come through trial and error, the rest with age.

So, how was the dance?

Due to not being able to focus on the front and rear iron sights, about 20 years ago I mothballed the flintlock rifle I built. Today it is clear again.

thanks everyone. I'll try again to upload this movie, It shows both sides as it rotates at about 4 RPM's. Most of you already know this is a desk top item.

It's mostly a buyer beware situation when buying ANYTHING.We all get caught up in the excitement when looking to buy things.We tend to overlook or fail to see any problems til we get home and really start to look.Then,it's gee,I didn't notice that...…...gee,I didn't see that.I agree.These tractors weren't built to live outside.Especially in a damp climate.I try to store all my keepers indoors,but I mostly have no idea how they were taken care of before I got them.Most Horses that I've bought were outside when I looked at them.I also agree about the poor paint jobs on the 300,400 and 500 series.I've stripped a few down to bare metal.Never saw a bit of primer underneath the paint on any of them.Maybe when they were built,someone put in a cost cutting suggestion about omitting primer?Anyway.I still love all these Wheel Horse tractors.Even the rusty,worn out ones.

Hi Stormin' The last President has been passed on to a fifth generation to be honest, still local to me, but the very young lad and his Dad that have it now, well, it's almost full circle and I believe in it's rightful place. I've got seven, at the moment, of these Wheelhorses to tidy up now, and they are easier to 'store' and it's like me having a reborn youth with them.. And massive thanks for the warm welcome here guys! Titch

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Funny how it’s hard to convince people who are in a big hurry of this!

Whats plowing snow all bundled up, while wearing tennis shoes and no socks?

Here's one from a few years ago, Steve.

Personally, I don't like being out when it's really cold either. At least I don't have to shovel humidity....