7 years & I finally got one!!

[Southern_Secret 425]

Wooohooo!! Well after 7 long & hope drifting years iv finally done it I found me a WHEELHORSE! I'm in the south, those of you that don't know (all of you above the mason-dixon line) looking for a garden tractor, well it's like trying to find a grain of salt on the beach. I first had my interest peeked 8ish years ago when we went on vacation in northern TN. While up there, there was a guy who had 2 cub cadets parked in his yard, one with a sickle bar mower and one with a hammer knife mower on the front and I thought that was so cool. Fast forward several month's of digging and reading and I had made my mind up, my tractor had to & was going to be a WHEELHORSE no matter how long it took to find it! The days turned to weeks the weeks to month's and the month's to years......welp.... that's that it's not in my card's, I guess i'll just have to go green. My hunt slowed down to a crawl, still look but pushed to the back burner, better yet put in the far corner of the attic but still hoping that one day I will own a garden tractor (didn't matter what color at this point) although not very hopeful. Then one day I'm on market place and I see an ad for a 314H hmmm bet facebook has tricked me again, then I look at the location and its in my town.....wait just a min..... that's just a half mile up the road from me, so I click the ad. I start reading it "vintage toro mower for sale don't know much about it I think it will run just needs a carb and some wiring" but I cant tell much from the pics but what I can tell is that it has been sitting under a pine tree for a pretty long amount of time. I send the guy a message and set of a time to look at it, the next day when I got off work I make a B line to his house (on the same road I live on, I know right) and to the back yard we go. He tells me that the older guy he bought the hose from traded him so work for the mower and he didnt know much about it, but the PO had put a briggs carb on it and it was bogging down when engaging the pto is what the PO told him. (i will be posting more pics and when I do you will understand this next part better). I'm standing there looking at it as he's telling me this and I lift the hood and he points and tells me "that is the briggs carb he put on there I think if you replace that it will run" what he was pointing at was a huff-n-puff that had been put on to do away with the OEM pump. So by now I'm glowing inside, and I ask him his price he tells me $200 but if i was really interested he would do it for $125, I ask him if I can think about it over the weekend (this was on a friday) he say's thats good with him. I come home and immediately find this place and after digging on here I new right away I was going back and buying that thing monday!

I head to his house monday after work money in hand, but before I hand him the money he ask me "yall own the NAPA store in the next town over with the tire shop right?" yes sir we do "can yall mount some tires for me?" yes sir we can "if you will mount & balance 4 tires for me ill just trade you out even". I shook his hand and the deal was made, that was at the begging of september and after some looking over the tractor reading on here and waiting on parts, I got it home last week (i had it at my shop at our napa store).

Sorry for the long post everyone!!

[Southern_Secret 425]

[stevasaurus 22,229]

Excellent find, and Welcome to Red Square.

I think the 1st thing I would do...take an air hose and blow off all that pine straw.  That mower deck looks brand new.  

[Southern_Secret 425]

[Snoopy11 5,713]

20 minutes ago, Southern_Secret said:

my tractor had to & was going to be a WHEELHORSE no matter how long it took to find it!

That... brought tears to my eyes. 

20 minutes ago, Southern_Secret said:

if you will mount & balance 4 tires for me ill just trade you out even

That is totally awesome! Wow. 

 

Are we looking at a full blown restoration here... what are you thinking to get this thing running? 

 

Don

Edited November 27, 2021 by Snoopy11
Missed something...

[Southern_Secret 425]

[Maxwell-8 4,270]

Great find! seems like WH are not only rare here. 

 

This list may help you out:

 

[JCM 8,645]

To     Good luck in your adventure and most importantly take your time in cleaning it up and going over everything going forward and not have to back track because you skipped over something later on.    @peter lena  would be all over that, I am sure he will chime in.   

[Handy Don 10,590]

Nice to hear that you did your research, set a goal, and had patience to see it come to fruition! Congratulations.

I'm sure you'll discover some more surprises as you bring that colt back to life but underneath all that dirt and grime is a real worker that'll give you a lot of satisfaction to bring out.

Please be sure to keep us posted with pics of your progress.

And WELCOME!

[Skwerl58 633]

Great deal on a nice tractor. I have a 414-8 and love the thing. It has all the power you need and then some! Thanks for the pictures and you are starting out right, cleaning it and prepping it!

[Snoopy11 5,713]

1 minute ago, JCM said:

@peter lena  would be all over that, I am sure he will chime in

 ... 

 

Don

[Southern_Secret 425]

[Snoopy11 5,713]

OKAY... @Southern_Secret really has been sifting around here for a while... you are on the MONEY with 

 

 

Don

[Southern_Secret 425]

[Snoopy11 5,713]

You got a crate engine under the hood?

 

 

That crate looks familiar... 

 

Don

Edited November 27, 2021 by Snoopy11

[Southern_Secret 425]

[Ed Kennell 35,738]

Great story....Great find.        The tractor and the deck really look excellent.   The ll00 Eaton Hydro also.  You can find all the manuals in our manuals section.

 

              to the 

[tunahead72 2,337]

@Southern_Secret Congratulations on a great find!  And all for the price of some labor, nice! 

 

One of our guys here @squonk has a good bit of NAPA know-how, he's probably a good source for part numbers for common parts -- filters, pulleys, bearings, that sort of thing.

 

Have fun! 

[ebinmaine 63,086]

Excellent find!!

 

As it says in the thread linked by @Maxwell-8 above I have a horse here that I wanted to create a permanent usable checklist to follow for repairs, diagnosis, maintenance.

 

Take a look see at that thread and even print it out so you have a paper copy if you like.

 

Follow that from the top down and check off all the things you've already done and remind yourself of the stuff that you need to do.

 

You'll have yourself an absolutely fantastic worker there.

 

[Southern_Secret 425]

[pfrederi 17,146]

Great Story and great Progress ..Congratulations!!!

[roadapples 6,981]

Worked for NAPA my self nearly 50 years ago. Nice to be able to get your parts at work. Hubcaps may clean up with aluminum foil, and.  

[sparkie333 265]

Great job there--That is some great looking Horse---And I'm unanimous in this---

[Southern_Secret 425]

23 minutes ago, Snoopy11 said:

Are we looking at a full blown restoration here... what are you thinking to get this thing running? 

All it took was a new maechanical fuel pump and a spark plug

[Snoopy11 5,713]

1 minute ago, Southern_Secret said:

All it took was a new maechanical fuel pump and a spark plug

Gotta love that!!! 

 

Don