Mounting 70s deck to a 60s tractor with limited parts access

[Armstrod 7]

Hi Wheelhorse Gurus, I'm hoping I to ask some expert advice and avoid wasting too much time & money attaching a deck to what I think is a 702 with a magnum 8 motor.

 

I'm located in Western Australia, and have what I think is a 702. No one knows how it got here, best guess is a private collector, but I've been lucky enough to be its current custodian. Fair warning, everything I've written up below is my best guess based on internet sleuthing. Freely admit I've no idea what I'm talking about here.

 

Quick Details on the tractor:
Serial No: 62-24420, 3 Speed gearbox with reverse, Will attach some pictures.

At some point it had its motor swapped for a Kohler Magnum 8, M8S model, spec No 301502.

 

The deck it came with is a later 75-36XR model. My motor has the 60's one piece main pulley. It would have used a mid mount idler pulley/belt slip style clutch (4239?) to drive a gear driven early 60's deck with a vertical input pulley. My deck has a horizontal pulley. I'd love to get an early 60's gear driven deck but cant find them for sale online and the shipping cost would be heart stopping. No luck sourcing other options locally for mower decks with a vertical input pulley. My plan now is to source parts from the US, but unless I get incredibly lucky on ebay and find a seller that can supply everything I need in a single shipment, this tends to double to triple the cost of parts due to shipping.

 

To try and make this problem manageable I've broken it into two. How to a) mount the 36" deck to the 702, and b) send power to it.

 

A) Mounting a 75-36XR deck to a 702
I think I just need to replace some missing linkages from the deck/grind off some modifications that were made to it, and source a mid mount hitch.
Parts I think will sort this are below:
    Deck leveller bar, 102958
    Deck Front Shaft Bar, 102570
    Rod Level Adjust, 101828
    Trunnion Lift, 6739
    Mid Tach-O-Matic Hitch, 8-5211
    The bar that connects the wheelhorse's lift lever to the deck, will just drill some holes in steel bar.
All up about $500 in parts. Pricey but manageable.

 

Drive a 75-36XR deck with a Kohler Magnum 8 mounted to a 702. This is where I come unstuck. However I work it the prices blow out, or it requires extensive fabrication. I feel like there has to be a better way than the ones I've been able to find.

 

Options I've identified
Front Mount mule drive, the standard approach. 

• Problems: path of belts is likely to conflict with the headlight arms. Sheer cost. I believe something like a c series PTO can be swapped in and out but the cost of parts add up at an outrageous rate; PTO clutch assembly (8/3112) $207, Main Pulley (101857) $175, Front Hitch Adapter (8-5541) $350, Front Mule Drive (6-6212) $210 etc etc. and that's with me having to fabricate a control arm, source a belt, deal with used part issues, missing bolts etc. I easily pushing past a grand to run a belt to the deck. Am I just missing something obvious?    

Mid mount mule drive from a charger/raider type setup. Need to swap out main pulley for PTO clutch again, and find a way of mounting the second pulley from the mule drive that would normally be attached to the arm of the deck on a raider.

• Given fabrication will be needed anyway, this may warrant going for a idler pulley/belt slip type clutch arrangement, and eliminate both cost of a clutched PTO conversion and front mule drive. Problem is a lot of variables for belt paths, pulley angles, tensions etc. I'm happy to fabricate, but reverse engineering a full solution with no schematics/measurements etc. is a long tedious path of worn belts and slipping off the pulleys etc. and that's not much fun.

Or I Completely customise and detach the power supply. Electric motor mounted directly to the deck and running off a power bank, or trying to convert the deck to a slasher, and mounting it out the back.

• Quite obviously not original or period correct.

 

And that's where I'm at with it. Three options identified, all not great. Super grateful for any suggestions on how to hook this deck up in a better way. 

[nylyon-(Admin) 8,321]

Welcome to RedSquare.  This particular tractor has hit the forum before, here’s the previous post:

 

[nylyon-(Admin) 8,321]

Previous discussion on the deck, it doesn’t look like there was ever a resolution. Wonder if you could send the other owner a PM to share ideas, maybe he is who you got it from?

 

[953 nut 62,207]

That is a fine looking 702.

As you have said, mounting that mower deck to your Wheel Horse would involve a couple of alterations, you would need a "Mule Drive" to transition your drive belt from vertical to horizontal (see drawing below). The other change would be having a PTO (Power Take Off) clutch on the engine and the engine pulley the clutch plate bolts to as well as the fabrication to add these.  All of the parts and pieces to do this are readily available here in the states but may be hard to come by down under.

I guess you could improvise with a right angle drive gear box and an electric clutch. 

Good luck with your project and let us know how you are doing with it.

 

[gwest_ca-(File Mod) 11,746]

Your 62-24420 serial is from 1963.

 

[ri702bill 10,074]

2 minutes ago, gwest_ca said:

Your 62-24420 serial is from 1963.

 

I agree - looks to be a 753 with the earlier fuel tank & dash. Dial-a-height lift quadrant, cambered front axle with two tierods all say 1963... or later.

There was a mid 1960's PTO with the idler canted to use later decks - correct??

[oliver2-44 10,978]

@Armstrod You might contact one of our Vendors  A-Z Tractor. He could fix you up with good used parts for a lot less that the new part prices you referenced. 
 

Also, I no expert on this, but have you set the  newer style deck under the tractor to make sure you have room for the front wheels to turn. The 753 is a considered a short frame tractor. Maybe someone else can comment if it will fit properly

Edited September 25 by oliver2-44

[nylyon-(Admin) 8,321]

Expense will be shipping to Australia.

[kpinnc 15,718]

Whole bunch of "ifs" here... IF the deck will fit and allow the front tires to turn, it might be simpler to use the early canted pulley setup from late 60s/ early 70s machines. It would prevent having to fab up a front mule drive. 

 

Since you'd need a belly hitch anyway... still some fabrication required but the parts should be plentiful. 

 

 

[Armstrod 7]

18 hours ago, nylyon said:

Welcome to RedSquare.  This particular tractor has hit the forum before, here’s the previous post:

Wow great find! Cant believe I hadn't unearthed those with all my searching in the forums. I think that was two owners prior. I picked it up from a real nice guy a little ways out of town who restored chamberlain tractors. He didn't know too much of its history as I think he was more involved with much bigger machinery, but did mention getting it relatively recently from someone who'd done a bit of a restoration on it.

 

17 hours ago, 953 nut said:

That is a fine looking 702.

As you have said, mounting that mower deck to your Wheel Horse would involve a couple of alterations, you would need a "Mule Drive" to transition your drive belt from vertical to horizontal (see drawing below). The other change would be having a PTO (Power Take Off) clutch on the engine and the engine pulley the clutch plate bolts to as well as the fabrication to add these.  All of the parts and pieces to do this are readily available here in the states but may be hard to come by down under.

I guess you could improvise with a right angle drive gear box and an electric clutch. 

 

Good luck with your project and let us know how you are doing with it.

Thankyou kindly, yep I think mule drive will be my best shot probably, although that could be an idea with a right angle gearbox... perhaps if I mounted a right angle box on the deck itself, with the horizontal pulley inline with the deck pulley, and vertical pulley facing outwards, I could use something like the factory idler pulley clutch assembly. Apologies in advance for stealing someone elses picture and my bodged up drawing... but that actually looks quite doable, nice straight runs for the belts, very similar path to the factory idler clutch setup too, and I'd only need to bring in the missing parts for the deck, a mid mount hitch and the idler pulley clutch setup for rear pto/early mower decks. My thanks again for the suggestion!

 

 

 

 

17 hours ago, gwest_ca said:

Your 62-24420 serial is from 1963.

 

17 hours ago, ri702bill said:

I agree - looks to be a 753 with the earlier fuel tank & dash. Dial-a-height lift quadrant, cambered front axle with two tierods all say 1963... or later.

There was a mid 1960's PTO with the idler canted to use later decks - correct??

Many thanks for the link, I can see in my notes I've been thinking it was either a 62 or early 63, but this makes it much more definitive. I'd not considered that the tank and dash might have been swapped out though, but that makes a whole lot of sense. I'm going to look up the lift and axle designs for those models now.

 

14 hours ago, oliver2-44 said:

@Armstrod You might contact one of our Vendors  A-Z Tractor. He could fix you up with good used parts for a lot less that the new part prices you referenced. 
 

Also, I no expert on this, but have you set the  newer style deck under the tractor to make sure you have room for the front wheels to turn. The 753 is a considered a short frame tractor. Maybe someone else can comment if it will fit properly

Thankyou, If I can find a good vendor it will make all the difference. Unfortunately all those prices are for used bits, the shipping on parts to this part of the world is unreal. It is very tight with this deck. I've had it under the tractor and it can fit, but there's a pretty high chance I'm going to need to rework the linkages holding the deck to get it located right.

 

14 hours ago, nylyon said:

Expense will be shipping to Australia.

Truer words never spoken. Particularly if the need to ship separately I can very quickly end up spending more than it'd cost to buy a cherry example and ship the entire tractor over.

 

9 hours ago, kpinnc said:

Whole bunch of "ifs" here... IF the deck will fit and allow the front tires to turn, it might be simpler to use the early canted pulley setup from late 60s/ early 70s machines. It would prevent having to fab up a front mule drive. 

 

Since you'd need a belly hitch anyway... still some fabrication required but the parts should be plentiful. 

Far too many ifs and maybes for mounting this deck I'm afraid. I try to learn what I can beforehand, respect the effort people put into helping me by putting my own into the problem first, but unfortuntately with this tractor being so modular it's mainly resulted in me unearthing more and more possibilities which all solve one issue but run into another. The canted style pulley design was my prior favourite. I'm confident I can make a bracket for it, but its finding the right alignment for those pulleys could pose a challenge. 

Many thanks everyone for your time with my questions. I really appreciate the help. I'm going to take some more measurements and mockups over the upcoming weekend, and then hopefully order in some bits. Perhaps in 3-4 months when they arrive I'll have something worthwhile to show as well  

 

[Armstrod 7]

Just realised I forgot to account for the deck moving up and down and loss of tension on the vertical belt. Hence the mule drives being right at the front, or inline with the top pivot point for the swingarm going down to the deck... dangit. Was really hoping to avoid whatever maths is needed to make a spinning belt bend backwards on itself without wearing out/jumping off a pulley every 5 minutes. Not sure if the travel on the idler pulley is enough to deal with it, but I'm guessing its a no given the way muledrives tend to be designed.

[wallfish 18,628]

Just spit balling an idea here so you don't need to source parts from overseas. Some pulleys and a gearbox. Everything can go back to factory if need be. The light brackets may need to move. They aren't factory anyway so maybe make some new brackets to accommodate the belt passing by. 

How are your fabrication skills? Obviously this would need some adjustments made so it works but maybe there's something in there that will give you some ideas

 

[CRF857 290]

29 minutes ago, wallfish said:

Just spit balling an idea here so you don't need to source parts from overseas. Some pulleys and a gearbox. Everything can go back to factory if need be. The light brackets may need to move. They aren't factory anyway so maybe make some new brackets to accommodate the belt passing by. 

How are your fabrication skills? Obviously this would need some adjustments made so it works but maybe there's something in there that will give you some ideas

 

Interesting.

I have the gear box from an MTD and two extra decks. One is a 48” left side discharge Simplicity/AC deck. 
Might end up confusing a few people.😁

I will print out that image and post in the shop where I have to look at it occasionally. One day it might just click in my brain and get done.

[kpinnc 15,718]

24 minutes ago, CRF857 said:

1 hour ago, wallfish said:

 

Interesting.

I have the gear box from an MTD and two extra decks.

 

Definitely post pics of what you come up with. 

 

We like fabrication and build threads. 

[gwest_ca-(File Mod) 11,746]

Check out the left exit Simplicity deck because those blades are next to impossible to find. Even the right exit blades are getting hard to find.

Go to this much work you want to ensure it will be serviceable for a long time.

Left exit Wheel Horse blades have not been available for years. Many are not aware WH had such a deck.

[Armstrod 7]

On 9/25/2025 at 9:00 PM, wallfish said:

Just spit balling an idea here so you don't need to source parts from overseas. Some pulleys and a gearbox. Everything can go back to factory if need be. The light brackets may need to move. They aren't factory anyway so maybe make some new brackets to accommodate the belt passing by. 

How are your fabrication skills? Obviously this would need some adjustments made so it works but maybe there's something in there that will give you some ideas

 

I like this design. Pushing the pulley forward should minimise how much the deck going up and down changes the belt angle at the pulley. And perhaps if I run a jack shaft I can have the vertical pulley mounted a bit higher to clear the headlight mounts on my tractor. 

My fabrication skills are middling, Can stick bits of metal together, making it pretty tends to be a lot harder for me 😅. But I have the basics of a workshop and enjoy tinkering, its just progress is slow between work commitments and having a toddler in the house atm so I tend to plan carefully to make the most of time I do get in the shed.

Tbh the engineering has me worried the most. Have had enough experience with drivetrains to appreciate how frustrating they are when they're not running dead true, so I'm going to try and put on my amateur engineer hat on and try modelling a few different pathways for routing the belts. I've been jotting some ideas down in a notebook and feel like I'm slowly narrowing it down. 

 

On 9/25/2025 at 10:33 PM, gwest_ca said:

Check out the left exit Simplicity deck because those blades are next to impossible to find. Even the right exit blades are getting hard to find.

Go to this much work you want to ensure it will be serviceable for a long time.

Left exit Wheel Horse blades have not been available for years. Many are not aware WH had such a deck.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the simplicity design, you're right I hadn't even thought about serviceability for the blades, had assumed they'd be pretty interchangeable. Apologies I may have confused the post some by using pictures of other peoples tractors, but my deck is a rear discharge with the chute essentially running the whole width. This is my first multi blade setup but I'm thinking I shouldn't have to many issues with clearing the clippings on a deck like this but I am keeping an eye out in the classified ads for any more suitable candidates of a deck. Unfortunately simplicity mowers are not a common brand around these parts, but I'm already putting a deck on that isn't period correct so I'm open to sourcing alternatives and painting them wheelhorse red 😁. It's primarily John Deere and Toro decks that show up around here, with the occasional other brands popping up once a month. In my desperation there's been some schemes of mounting a gang of reel mowers and even a hedge trimmer pretending to be a sickle bar, but after sketching out out some details they all run into their own issues. Closest I've found to workable was a hydraulically powered reel head unit off a john deer multi head turf tractor, or gutting a trio of battery powered mowers and fitting them into the deck, but most battery mowers I can find as cheap donors simply cant handle the loads at the rate a ride on mower cuts at, and hydraulics are a bit investment just for the sake of running a deck. But yep, safe to say I'm very open to out of the box solutions/alternative decks etc. 

Oh the penny just dropped... Having a gearbox will reverse the direction of the belt and my blades would be running backwards... I hadn't factored that in either. Great catch thankyou!

[oliver2-44 10,978]

44 minutes ago, Armstrod said:

Oh the penny just dropped... Having a gearbox will reverse the direction of the belt and my blades would be running backwards... I hadn't factored that in either. Great catch thankyou!

It depends on how the gears are arranged. You can get boxes with output shafts going either direction

["Manic-Mechanic" 1,327]

Not sure if you ever got your mods done but this set up can be done and very easily
 

I had a 70’s deck in an 800 Special until recently.

The front mule of an 800 Special would bolt right onto the frame.

A lift lever must be hung by a rod suspended from the rear frame just forward the transmission.

Set of quick attach under front frame.

Lastly a PTO with throw lever or the straight lever going down the bracket support on the engine.

I have all of these parts removed from my 800 Special as I’m dedicating the tractor to a 50” side sickle

I used a C series PTO & Lever with the later cone pulley

The mule which attaches to the front frame and it does not interfere with the headlight bracket

I ran with foot rest at one point.

The deck stayed level and I was happy with the performance of the modified rear discharge deck.

I can gather up the parts and get pictures if you’d like. No, I would not try to charge anything but shipping.

 

Better picture of the style mule was used and the headlight bracket is installed

 

Edited 9 hours ago by "Manic-Mechanic"
Additional info

[pfrederi 18,973]

That front mule was a very limited production maybe 1 or two years. 

["Manic-Mechanic" 1,327]

24 minutes ago, pfrederi said:

That front mule was a very limited production maybe 1 or two years. 

Yes, extremely rare