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April 21, 1967, General Motors (GM) celebrates the manufacture of its 100 millionth American-made car. At the time, GM was the world’s largest automaker. General Motors was established in 1908 in Flint, Michigan, by horse-drawn carriage mogul William Durant. In 1904, Durant invested in the Buick Motor Company, which was started in 1903 by Scottish-born inventor David Dunbar Buick. Within a few years of forming his company, Buick lost control of it and sold his stock, which would later be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Durant made Buick Motors the cornerstone of his new holding company, General Motors, then acquired Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Reliance Motor Company, among other auto and truck makers.

Your engine is splash lubricated with relatively wide clearances when compared to a modern automotive pressure lubricated engine, I would go with 30 as stated in the engine manual.

I have used Rotella T1 30w for years, summer and winter without any problems. IMHO it is the best oil for these older engines that is made. Bob

Hey everyone! Just wanted to follow up with how things went, both to give closure and to maybe help anyone in the future. I was able to get that governor shaft in place and installed without any further disassembly of the crankcase. Took one strong magnet placed on the outside of the governor shaft hole, one extend-o pocket magnet to move the shaft around in the case, and about 10 minutes of my time. Turned the engine on its head, dropped the shaft down at the bottom, then maneuvered the shaft into position using the extend-o magnet. Once it was "in place"-ish, I moved it close enough to the magnet covering the shaft hole. The shaft attracted to the magnet and grabbed over. Then, I just pulled the magnet outward (with the shaft attached) and the shaft walked through the hole. Checked the alignment was correct, installed the shaft sleeve, torqued down the nut, and voila! - new governor shaft installed and ready to go. Reassembled everything (new oil, new oil pan gasket, new fuel pump installed, but not hooked-up to fuel lines (for closure - still using the electric fuel pump)), started her up, and bingo-bango - throttled up and governor-ed down as expected. Thanks again to everyone for the assistance and help here! It is GREATLY appreciated. Thank you!

Buying cable in bulk is a better idea but for no more often than I do it I just pick up a cheap throttle and cannibalize. I discovered I needed one for my Dino project so I got this at Rural King a couple days ago. I'll fit it to the original control and cut it to length as needed. The Z bend tool I have gets the job done OK.

McMaster-Carr is the adult version of "Acme". The mail order place where the Coyote got all is stuff to do in the Road Runner.!

And their severe duty flat tappet ZDDP Zinc is 5% of what it was - due to the Zinc clogging catalytic converters. That is why modern car engines use roller lifters - no more flat tappets. Rotella still has a reasonable amount of zinc in it. Not recommended - using just modern multiweight motor oil alone. You CAN use it with a rather expensive zinc supplement added to it. Better off just to buy the conventional (not full synthetic) Rotella. TSC - $16 a gallon.....

Thirded...

Seconded!!!

Hello Tom You've come to the right place. We have quite a few characters from Wisconsin and other nearby areas.

I believe that the Rotella T1 was originally developed for use in diesel engines. It has a better extreme pressure additive package suitable for the higher bearing loads in compression ignition engines. When used in our antique Kohlers, and Onans, that same extreme pressure package helps protect our journal type crank and rod bearings and the non roller lifters and cam shaft. These surfaces have largely sliding type of friction. The current automotive engine oils are designed for tighter crank and rod bearings clearances - often with special coatings - and roller lifters running on the cam. All of these features are efforts to reduce friction and increase fuel efficiency, which, was not a concern when our antiques were designed and built.

https://www.uscargocontrol.com/products/1-8-7x19-type-304-stainless-steel-wire-by-linear-foot?cq_src=google_ads&cq_cmp=191860260&cq_con=14410206540&cq_term=&cq_med=pla&cq_plac=&cq_net=g&cq_pos=&cq_plt=gp&utm_term=&utmcUQAvD_BwE regularly refer to stainless cabling , for corrosion free set ups , have it in various sizes , we regularly made up lift slings with it , in a winch set up its a no brainer , like chain / cable spray , ridiculous movement ease , snow plow chute , pete

T-6 is not going to do anything better for you engine than T-1 (30w) or T-2 (40w). Full Syn and Blends in these old loose tolerance dirty port engines just burn off some of it after a couple of hours of use. Rotella T-6 is expensive overkill for these old flatheads.

I bought one of those years ago. Very handy to have.

Sounds a lot like me getting older!

Looking forward to hanging out again! Although 11:00 am is my limit due to the wife's birthday party. Can't wait to see the look on her face when I roll up with that truck project! LOL. I didn't tell her anything about it and don't plan to either! I'm just gonna blame @Sparky and how he needed me to take it so HIS wife doesn't know HE bought it! She likes Mike so that should soften the blow a little.

Nice photos, sometimes I'm envious of the flatland people

Hello all. I am a proud owner of a early 312-8 and also 520 H. I wanted to introduce myself as a Wheel Horse enthusiast, and I also joined in order to keep up with all the maintenance procedures and tips that this forum provides.. Currently. I am focused on getting my 312-8 up & running. I have ordered a throttle to replace the old one and it will come in tomorrow, after that I should be ready to cut grass with it. I am located in SE Wisconsin. Respectfully. Tom

Welcome aboard sir! When you get tired of learning about Wheel Horses, I have a feeling you'll enjoy some of what's in here... What Are You Listening To? - non tractor related discussion - RedSquare Wheel Horse Forum -------- Mods, can somebody merge his other Introduction threads into this one (especially the one with the photos), and maybe move it to the Introductions forum? Thanks!

My first two tractors as well. Still own them. Standing the test of time very well.

I use 5w-40 diesel oil in just about everything, one real advantage is the synthetic oils ability to transfer heat. And of course we are talking about air cooled engines. That oil is top of the line and will out preform just about anything out there. Most thoughts are built on old school thinking and not science. Part of my old job was closely tied to lubrication and we had a lot of sensors gathering data around the clock. Synthetic oils lowered internal temps up to 20%, at the first oil change. You have to remember those old service manuals were written over 30 years ago. Oil has come a long way since then, and if you want to use it, It will be fine.

As a sailboat owner for the past 40+ years those SS cables are the bomb, but when they start to get old, with years of sun and salt water spray they can develop tiny meat hooks.

I was just talking about Warner Brothers cartoons a few days ago You're right: They all got their stuff from the Acme. Foghorn Leghorn for President

I have an old Hobart Beta Mig 200. It's a nice heavy duty industrial quality welder.

ooooookay! thanks must have missed that one.

Get one of those big bows they use for the Lexus Christmas commercials. That should spice things up nicely when you pull in with that on it!

If you go that route... pay attention to the direction of the second end bends relative to the opposite end. For the smoothest action in use, you want the two ends to be within 10 degrees or so of the intended placement. If you end up 180 off, it puts a constant bind in the cable.....

Lots of nice work, maybe admin can consolidate into one thread? Nice for reference.

Got my donor wheels together for the rear. I don't have any more wide rears so I'm gonna have to make a set from two different pairs. The pair with the surface rust has a way wrong offset. They came from a Ford LGT. The tires on Ford pair would not break loose at the bead, even though they were clean. I had to use a 3 foot 2x6 and the weight of the Tundra to break them. Hopefully I can gain another skinny pair of wheels using these as well. We will see...

Or, maybe he could just take the blower housing and wear it like a Flavor Flav clock to show off his Teccy allegiance!

Man, this is a rough crowd………I love it 🤣🤣🤣

That makes sense, thank you.

I’m gonna need hush money…or a breakfast sandwich and a coffee

Nice work so far. Seals - some folks opt to pop off the inboard side seals, exposing the ball area so you can externally grease the. Others remove both seals temporarily to flush the supplied grease(?) and repack with a Lucas grease. Then replace the seals. A better non greaseable bearing. Your choice.

I keep bulk cable & sheathing in stock. It tends to get shared between @WHX??, my friend Joel & me. Think I've had the same 2 rolls for 4yrs now and there is still a few tractors worth left.

Good! Sick of looking at that through my windows (just kidding, no windows on that side of the house)

You're either not getting 12v from the switch to the small terminal when you turn the key to start, or your solenoid isn't grounded (or you have a bad solenoid).

The fuel filter not filling up is not a problem, mine are like that. It just means some air is trapped in the filter.

When I bought my B80 it came with a front dozer blade and a 36" mower deck. The deck was in pretty sad shape, all three spindles were worn out and frozen, and the rear of the shell was open and it had a cobbled together side discharge chute. The deck model number is 95-36MS01 which is supposed to be a side discharge. I don't know why the back was missing, but it was pretty obvious that the side chute had been reworked rather poorly. For my use I need a rear discharge so I took on the task of converting it to rear discharge. I put an ad in the Wanted section for anyone that might have a section of deck available and got no responses. So, I ended up using pieces of shell from the rusted out 36" deck from my 1966 656. The decks weren't really the same but I was about to cut various sections out and piece them together to eliminate the side discharge opening. This is what it looked like before I started. This is the deck I robbed piece from. The actual curved section was remarkably close to the 42" deck only the sides were taller. After a bunch of "custom" art work I ended up with the following: Is it pretty? No. Will it work? I think so. It's not going to be a full time mower, I needed something smaller than my 5' ztr to mow between a line of trees and a fence. I have all the parts for rebuilding the three spindles thanks to a couple of forum members, so the next task is to assemble and install the spindles. The bearings that I bought have seals on both sides. This deck will not be used more than a half dozen times a year for maybe 60 minutes each time. Would there be any reason to not just leave the bearing seals in place and forgo greasing through the spindles? I should add, I found a NOS rear chute on ebay and will be installing it as well. Thanks! Brad

We talked about that once…

Getting pulled out of Semi - Retirement again. In 2025 I worked from February to end of July on a massive 3 bathroom and complete removal of the 4'' cast iron soil stack and all related piping from the basement at foundation wall up through 3 floors into the attic and out the roof. This house is late 1800's /early 1900's and was not gutted out for removal of piping. I had to figure how the Old time Plumbers laid it out and then have a carpenter cut out walls and floors only where the new piping would go. This included all Cast Iron , galvanized threaded pipe and water piping. Also removed the original Lavatory basin sinks and Essex Claw foot tub and remove faucet etc. Really too much to keep typing. Turn the page to April 2026 and here I go again, this time a complete replacement of a heating system, basement only. The Material list cost is nothing short of Astonishing. This will be a Wall mounted boiler, indirect H/W Heater and all the included pipe and fittings. Again too much to type. Wish me luck. Cheers

McMaster sells this stuff. One piece will do both treads, it sticks very well.

The gas in the air filter may just be a slightly leaky needle and set or a float that isn't functioning properly.

I gave the steel supplier my building measurements, they gave me a stack of steel. Most of it is all long, I think I have used 3 pieces at length.

I cannot make either. For Zag, two grandchildren in a dance recital. For Belltown, will be on the road returning a granddaughter home who’s been visiting here this week and it’s just too far out of the way to get there in time. Grandaughter had the 854 out for some spins around the yard today and declared it more fun than the 312-H at home and the 518-H++ at camp. Declined (politely) two potential conflicts for the BS week already!

Not getting that. You'd a measured & ordered right the only cuts would have been on the gable ends? I can see I shoulda stuck around a few more days and showed how to do it!

Yes you can. Here are some other alternatives that make the job a little easier. A DIY Z bend pliers. A dedicated Z bend pliers. https://www.amazon.com/HRGDFBP-Spring-Pliers-Bending-Aircraft/dp/B0FRF4GF6V/ref=sr_1_7

Been using these for quite a few years now. About $12.00/4. I can change a lot of bearings and still be ahead but I haven't had to yet.