Wheelhorse D160 Workhorse

[Chav88 30]

Hello, my Name is Dick and I have been a lurker for a while and now I’m the proud owner of a 78 D160 with a Onan 16hp and hydraulic 3 point hitch. It additionally came with a plow and snow blower plus the 48” deck.

 Now let me explain how we arrived here because the D160 wasn’t what I had my heart set on even though now I have it I’m in love. I am with a lack of a better term…a giant NERD. I am a HVACR tech and more specifically a chiller tech and I’ve also done things in my past such as build custom motorcycles, and sheet metal at a resto shop. I have a full fab shop including a lathe, press, chop saw, tubing bender, notcher, tig, mig etc…. My hobby is tinkering from building an repairing my own cars to building mini bikes from scratch. Now I have recently purchased a larger property with a wooded area that need cleaned up and we keep a large garden. I knew I needed a tractor and there is nothing I love more than a tool that can do many jobs. I had my heart set on a gear drive 4x4 sub compact tractor and I quickly realized that it was going to be very difficult to find an older gear drive tractor that had all the attachments I needed that was also within a reasonable distance. Nominees were the JD650, the Kubota b7100, the ford 1200, yanmar 155d, Mitsubishi Beaver. The issue is I wanted a snow blower, a front end loader, and a mower. Finding all of these and less than a few hundred miles proved impossible and even though the attachments can be found it was a mess when it came to getting the right info. If I had time purely as a project it would work but I need this thing to work. I switched my focus to getting 2 machines. 1 lawn and garden tractor for mowing and moving a garden trailer and 1 for the loader. The wheel horse gear drive mowers were already in my want list for my smaller property but it was a little light for what I needed but the d160 popped up and it seemed like the perfect compromise between what I wanted and what I needed. 
 Now, it’s not perfect and it needs a little work. The lower deck needs to be fixed, I’m sure the spindles need to be gone through. The whole thing just needs freshened up. I also need to find a mule drive and get the deck working, as well as build something custom for the 3 point to haul firewood out of the woods. It’s still to be determined if it will make it out of the woods without 4x4 but tires and maybe a winch may help. Maybe I’ll get spunky and build a loader out of it. 
Only time will tell. 

[ebinmaine 77,895]

21 minutes ago, Chav88 said:

still to be determined if it will make it out of the woods without 4x4 but tires and maybe a winch may help

 

 

 

 

You'll do just fine with the right prep. 

 

My S/O Trina and I have over a dozen tractors here. 

We live on a mountainside. 

She has several smaller mid 1960s machines.  

Mine are all mid to late 1970s. Much heavier both by initial build but also because that's how they're outfitted by me.  

 

Our terrain is pretty challenging here n there. 

Get some good AG tires or chains.

WEIGHT is your friend.  

 

[Chav88 30]

28 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

 

 

 

 

You'll do just fine with the right prep. 

 

My S/O Trina and I have over a dozen tractors here. 

We live on a mountainside. 

She has several smaller mid 1960s machines.  

Mine are all mid to late 1970s. Much heavier both by initial build but also because that's how they're outfitted by me.  

 

Our terrain is pretty challenging here n there. 

Get some good AG tires or chains.

WEIGHT is your friend.  

 

Oh yeah, mountains are a different animal for sure. My wooded area is sort of a ravine. What gets us here in IL is the Clay soil. It just hits different when it’s wet. I’m sure when it’s dry I’ll be totally fine. 

[ebinmaine 77,895]

20 minutes ago, Chav88 said:

Oh yeah, mountains are a different animal for sure. My wooded area is sort of a ravine. What gets us here in IL is the Clay soil. It just hits different when it’s wet. I’m sure when it’s dry I’ll be totally fine. 

 

Likely, your best bet is chains, unless the tractor will be driven across asphalt you care about. 

[Easton Rich 1,084]

1 hour ago, Chav88 said:

giant NERD

Aren't we all 

[Chav88 30]

13 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

 

Likely, your best bet is chains, unless the tractor will be driven across asphalt you care about. 

Yeah it has the chains with it and I won’t have to worry about asphalt. 

[Chav88 30]

A few additional things I’m adding to the list. 
1. Hydro temp gauge is busted.

2. Small hydro leak from the middle cylinder.

3. Deck spindles probably could use a rebuild.

Joe M has sent me a mule drive that I will need to rebuild but as long as I can get her mowing within a month or so I’ll be fine. Hardest part is moving my shop to the new property and also needing to get it functional enough to do some minor repairs. I’ll make do. 

[Chav88 30]

Well we have moved into the new property and put the wheelhorse to work. For doing nothing but checking the fluids it was doing pretty good. It had something goofy going on with the idle speed and the choke. But it was running and I had work to do so I let it be for a day or two and it ended up not starting. Simple fix. They had used way too much RTV under the air cleaner which obstructed choke movement which caused it to slip the cable loose which caused it to be stuck “closed ish”. Once again I have a lot to get cleaned up on the new property to get it halfway functional so my fix was a quick temp fix. I used grease to seal the air cleaner and used electrical tape to add a little grip to the cable. I also adjusted the idle and she runs like a top now.

[Chav88 30]

And then we found ourselves with tire. The previous owners of the property had piles of construction wood and pallets all over the yard for reasons that are unknown. We’ve been cleaning it up and I ran over something pokey. Had to toss a new tube in and realized just how bad the tires are so hopefully these can get me through the summer and I can sandblast the rims and source a pair of back up rims so I can run ag tires on one set and some turf tires on the other. 
My workshop is in total disarray from moving so I’m sort of limited in what I can do right now. One of the things I realizing is cat 0 attachments are sort of far and few between. I’m going to have to fabricate something so I can skid logs and I also would like to incorporate a receiver so I can fabricate a better trailer too. For now I’m getting by. If anyone has some leads on a spare set of wheels I’d appreciate it. Even if they have the same 6 lug pattern but maybe a different size that I can make work. 

[ineedanother 1,984]

9 hours ago, Chav88 said:

Well we have moved into the new property and put the wheelhorse to work. For doing nothing but checking the fluids it was doing pretty good. It had something goofy going on with the idle speed and the choke. But it was running and I had work to do so I let it be for a day or two and it ended up not starting. Simple fix. They had used way too much RTV under the air cleaner which obstructed choke movement which caused it to slip the cable loose which caused it to be stuck “closed ish”. Once again I have a lot to get cleaned up on the new property to get it halfway functional so my fix was a quick temp fix. I used grease to seal the air cleaner and used electrical tape to add a little grip to the cable. I also adjusted the idle and she runs like a top now.

 

 

RTV really isn't a good choice to use there and I guess you agree at this point. A quick replacement with some gasket paper or something would be more than adequate. I've seen (and maybe have used ) 3x5 cards or a tablet back in a pinch when it's not in a critical spot but I always have gasket paper and hole punches in the shop.

[953 nut 64,707]

Great introduction.   Sounds like you have a lot of tasks the D-160 will be able to help you with. 

[Chav88 30]

On 4/2/2026 at 6:37 PM, ineedanother said:

RTV really isn't a good choice to use there and I guess you agree at this point. A quick replacement with some gasket paper or something would be more than adequate. I've seen (and maybe have used ) 3x5 cards or a tablet back in a pinch when it's not in a critical spot but I always have gasket paper and hole punches in the shop.

Yeah I like to keep some around too for special occasions. Soda boxes work pretty well too. I knew the grease would get me by until I have my shop sorted. 

[Chav88 30]

Starting this post I’m realizing I have yet to get any pictures of the D160 doing work and I’ll try to do better because we have been putting it to work. 
 With that being said I picked up some belts for the deck and mule drive. The deck I had to go with a 105” because I could t find the 105.5 but the local Toro dealer had the correct mule drive belt. I pressure washed the deck and inspected it pretty good. I found a few more issues as well as others I forgot about. I have to weld the shrouds under neath where the welds cracked. This is the biggest challenge right now because I don’t have a 240 circuit ran to my shop yet but my TIG/Arc is dual voltage so I can make it work for now. I’m hoping there is a way to find replacement spindles because these are chewed up pretty good. I think as long as I don’t take them off they will be fine but also the center spindle has something goofy with the spacer. Either way I have the spindles greased up and a new belt on the deck. 
 Then I took the number off the mule drive bearings but figured I’d pop the shields off these and clean them up and see what happens i started with brake clean to flush out dirt, then I blew them out and added a little crease and feels pretty smooth so we will see what happens. The goal is to have the mower on and working tomorrow. 

[Chav88 30]