Brought another Wheel Horse home

[Greg Parnell 6]

My Dad found us a 1991 Toro Wheel Horse 244-5 with a 14hp Onan engine, mower deck and it runs and looks good. It needs some new front tires and a new mower belt. We have the front tires and will get a belt this week.

I'll try to get a picture posted for you guys in a day or two.

[Greg Parnell 6]

Here is a photo of the 244-5.

[Sparky-(Admin) 24,031]

Are ya sure it needs new front skins ?? Seems to me theres still a little bit-o-tread left on them.

Mike........

[whfan74 2,073]

Those are good racing tires.........who ya kidding?

Congrats on the tractor!

[truckin88 104]

I had a 244-H (same thing but hydro with 23" rears), good lawn cutting machine, my only advice, check the motor mount bolts, if they are beat get new ones, I had one that snapped. The onan vert 14hp, ran very well for me.

Nice machine...good luck

[Coadster32 793]

Underinflate the fronts, and you'll be good for a while.

BTW-nice looking tractor.

[Suburban 550 28]

Greg, nice tractor. Wish ya lots of luck with it. :thumbs2:

[bustedglass 1]

NICE - Gotta love them 200 series .

[TJ 184]

Nice tractor. :thumbs2:

[Duff 206]

Seeing the pictures of Greg's machine and the condition of the front tires, I have a question for the group (and an apology for temporarily hijacking the thread! ).....

Last night I was test-fitting new aftermarket adjustable tie rods on my 312-8 rebuild and couldn't get enough length to provide anything even close to "toe in". In fact, I couldn't even get the wheels to run parallel - they splayed outward because the tie rods were too short. Thinking I had bum rods I grabbed a used set of OEM rods and tried those - same problem.

Now this tractor has replacement spindles from a C-series, so I thought maybe the front end geometry had changed between the C's and the 300's. So I found the original spindles and put them back on just to see if this was the case. Same problem - wheels still splayed out.

My question to the group: is this a common problem among these tractors, and if not, what am I missing here? I know we're not running road speeds (well-most of us, anyway....) so the toe-in adjustment isn't anything critical, but in terms of potential tire wear and just plain common sense it would seem the wheels should at least run parallel. Any ideas, guys?

Next step, if necessary, will be to fab up my own tie rods!

Thanks to all,

Duff :ychain:

[bitten 134]

Not a bad looking mower, hope you have fun with it.