What have you done to your Wheel Horse today?

[rjg854 12,417]

11 hours ago, MainelyWheelhorse said:

Hopefully it’s plenty of time for the implement paint to set up fully or close to it.

Let it bake in the sun

[MainelyWheelhorse 1,885]

1 hour ago, rjg854 said:

Let it bake in the sun

@rjg854 I pushed it outside in the sun yesterday after I painted it. I would have put it back out if I wasn’t working today. 

[JoeM 8,634]

This pic kind of makes you feel like your sky diving into a wheel horse plant. (or falling off a ladder)

 

Shop looks good Don, mine always looks way better in pics then in person......I think

[Blue Chips 115]

1 hour ago, JoeM said:

Shop looks good Don, mine always looks way better in pics then in person......I think

Ditto here on shop pics. Instead of cleaning up my shop for photo ops, I usually just take close-ups or crop out most of the junk in my shop that I haven't had the time (or energy) to 'organize.'

Edited Wednesday at 01:16 PM by Blue Chips

[Blue Chips 115]

Piece by piece, I'm gradually getting the paint sorted on my GT18. Here are the steps in fixing up one of the foot rests:

 

A fair amount of rust had developed under the rubber mat:

 

I slathered on a thick coat of CitriStrip, wrapped it in a polyethylene sheet, and let it sit for a few hours. About 98% of the paint came right off without any scrubbing or scraping:

 

Here's how it looked after washing off the CitriStrip and removing a few bits of remaining paint:

 

Next, I let the foot rest sit in a phosphoric acid bath for a while, which took care of most of the rust, and then hit any stubborn remaining pockets with my spot blaster.

(Note: I don't use phosphoric acid on high-strength or hardened steel, since I want to avoid hydrogen embrittlement.)

 

I applied the initial coat of self-etching primer, which contains zinc phosphate:

 

Then I filled the pits with 3M High-Bond filler and sanded it flat:

 

Here it is after more primer coats:

 

And after a few coats of paint:

 

Now on to the next one.

[cleat 7,562]

47 minutes ago, Blue Chips said:

Piece by piece, I'm gradually getting the paint sorted on my GT18. Here are the steps in fixing up one of the foot rests:

 

A fair amount of rust had developed under the rubber mat:

 

I slathered on a thick coat of CitriStrip, wrapped it in a polyethylene sheet, and let it sit for a few hours. About 98% of the paint came right off without any scrubbing or scraping:

 

Here's how it looked after washing off the CitriStrip and removing a few bits of remaining paint:

 

Next, I let the foot rest sit in a phosphoric acid bath for a while, which took care of most of the rust, and then hit any stubborn remaining pockets with my spot blaster.

(Note: I don't use phosphoric acid on high-strength or hardened steel, since I want to avoid hydrogen embrittlement.)

 

I applied the initial coat of self-etching primer, which contains zinc phosphate:

 

Then I filled the pits with 3M High-Bond filler and sanded it flat:

 

Here it is after more primer coats:

 

And after a few coats of paint:

 

Now on to the next one.

 

Great job !

 

[Blue Chips 115]

Almost finished overhauling the 48-inch side-discharge mower deck for the GT18. Here's what I've done so far, more or less:

• Degreased and pressure washed the deck, inside and out...three times.
• Sanded areas of rust and flaking paint.
• Welded three small cracks that were just getting started.
• Straightened one of the anti-scalp wheel mounting brackets.
• Primed the underside with three coats of rusty metal primer and primer-sealer.
• Primed and painted the top.
• One of the spindle body castings was broken and another was corroded, so I replaced all three castings with new aftermarket ones.
• Tossed out the other parts that came with the new aftermarket spindles, due to quality and correctness issues.
• Installed new OEM Toro bearings in the spindles.
• Re-installed the original OEM bearing spacer sleeves.
• Installed one new Toro OEM spindle shaft, one good used Toro shaft, and re-installed one of the original spindle shafts.
• Installed new bolts/nuts of the correct sizes and types for the pulleys, blades, spindle mounts, and various brackets.
• Upgraded the plastic washer and bushing set for the sliding idler pulley bracket to a bronze bushing and UHMW polyethylene washers, which should be low-friction and impact resistant.
• Welded new axles (shoulder bolts) onto the anti-scalp wheel adjusting plates (as previously posted).
• Miscellaneous other repairs.

I still need to install the new blades, a few more fasteners, and the chute, and it should be ready to mow. I haven't decided if I'm going to fab up some sheet metal to make a couple of belt/pulley guards.

 

Before:

 

Mostly done:

 

Edited 21 hours ago by Blue Chips

[ineedanother 1,698]

I've been reluctant to put a deck on any of my tractors but I need to chop leaves so am going to put bearings in a mule drive and just do it. Looks expensive for two bearings but isn't everything expensive these days?

[JoeM 8,634]

11 hours ago, Blue Chips said:

Almost finished overhauling the 48-inch side-discharge mower deck for the GT18. Here's what I've done so far, more or less:

• Degreased and pressure washed the deck, inside and out...three times.
• Sanded areas of rust and flaking paint.
• Welded three small cracks that were just getting started.
• Straightened one of the anti-scalp wheel mounting brackets.
• Primed the underside with three coats of rusty metal primer and primer-sealer.
• Primed and painted the top.
• One of the spindle body castings was broken and another was corroded, so I replaced all three castings with new aftermarket ones.
• Tossed out the other parts that came with the new aftermarket spindles, due to quality and correctness issues.
• Installed new OEM Toro bearings in the spindles.
• Re-installed the original OEM bearing spacer sleeves.
• Installed one new Toro OEM spindle shaft, one good used Toro shaft, and re-installed one of the original spindle shafts.
• Installed new bolts/nuts of the correct sizes and types for the pulleys, blades, spindle mounts, and various brackets.
• Upgraded the plastic washer and bushing set for the sliding idler pulley bracket to a bronze bushing and UHMW polyethylene washers, which should be low-friction and impact resistant.
• Welded new axles (shoulder bolts) onto the anti-scalp wheel adjusting plates (as previously posted).
• Miscellaneous other repairs.

I still need to install the new blades, a few more fasteners, and the chute, and it should be ready to mow. I haven't decided if I'm going to fab up some sheet metal to make a couple of belt/pulley guards.

 

Nice work, so good that this info should have been in it's own thread under restorations. I think a lot of valuable info gets lost in here. 

I kind of look at this thread as a day to day tinker thing rather then rebuild/major repair thread.

Hats off to Red Square It is one of the most organized places on the web to find info.

Just my two cents.

[ebinmaine 73,949]

2 minutes ago, JoeM said:

Nice work, so good that this info should have been in it's own thread under restorations. I think a lot of valuable info gets lost in here. 

I kind of look at this thread as a day to day tinker thing rather then rebuild/major repair thread.

Hats off to Red Square It is one of the most organized places on the web to find info.

Just my two cents.

 

@Blue Chips

@JoeM

 

Agreed 

[Blue Chips 115]

1 hour ago, JoeM said:

Nice work, so good that this info should have been in it's own thread under restorations. I think a lot of valuable info gets lost in here. 

@ebinmaine

 

Good suggestion from JoeM. I will keep that in mind for future work.

 

Initially, I was just planning on fixing a few little things on this tractor...just enough to get it running well...but like many projects it sort of 'expanded' into a bigger project, which makes me think I should have started restoration threads for the tractor and deck.

 

I have several past/present/future projects and tasks that could be candidates for their own threads in Restorations, Modifications & Customizations.

Edited 8 hours ago by Blue Chips

[rjg854 12,417]

2 minutes ago, Blue Chips said:

  1 hour ago, JoeM said:

Nice work, so good that this info should have been in it's own thread under restorations. I think a lot of valuable info gets lost in here. 

I wonder if one of the mods could gather up the posts and then post it in restoration

 

@nylyon

[MainelyWheelhorse 1,885]

Yesterday, I organized and consolidated the parts for my tractors. I took a few of the ones that sit more like the 308 for a little ride to clean them out, pumped up tires etc…

I also added some cushioning to the C-141 as I took it on a quarter mile ride to a neighbors to do some yard work. Granted, while it is a tractor and almost 50 the vibrating parts buzzing got old after a while.

[ebinmaine 73,949]

The BBT aka Lead Logging Supervisor  and I went off to the right side forest to get a few pieces of standing dead trees. 

3? Small ash. A couple small maples. 

 

We sectioned them to 84" because we use 14" cuts of firewood. 

6 pieces there. 

 

We hand hauled those 40 to 60 feet out to the pole trailer. Then brought that to the upper yard.