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During a party this past fall my wifes cousin Linda took a liking to my late 1970s C160-8 speed plow rig. Linda is the woman I've mentioned before with stage 4 ovarian cancer. She said she wanted one... well I told her Id build her a unit. I put together a 1985ish 310-8 and got it delivered to her country home in time for this 2 ft snow storm. She knocked back all the snow and im glad she had fun doing it. I believe the quote was "it kicks ass" Yah it broke a tierod... no biggie I'll get one to her before the next storm which is suppose to be bigger this coming weekend. I love spreading the Wheel Horse joy... there is no better unit out there! PERIOD!! Cecil had better have set up shop in heaven... or I aint going!! Tony

I figured I should get in a ride while the getting is good because of the uncertain weather conditions nowadays. I used the Side x Side to pack roughly 6 '' of snow on the ground. The 418-A is my mowing tractor and it's nice to get behind the wheel with no mower deck and wind it up some. This was on Thursday after lunch.

I just talked with Richard's wife, and she says he's fine and should be home later today. I'm not going to elaborate any more than that. That will be up to Richard. He's doing well and we'll hear from him soon I'm sure of that!

I built a hub puller a couple of weeks ago, which worked great (see below), but I thought I could improve upon it, so I fabbed up a new version, which has two advantages over the first one: It has a cavity for the hub spigot, so it can be bolted flat against the hub flange, which can add some rigidity to the flange, and it can be used with hubs that have been retrofitted with studs, as well as those that are still using lug bolts. Mine still has lug bolts, but I used a separate set of bolts and washers with the puller, rather than the lug bolts, in order to prevent any damage to the puller plate or to the tapered part of the lug bolts. The center bolt is longer than it needs to be, but that's what I had on hand. I put a dab of anti-seize on the center bolt threads. Previous version of hub puller: New version: Back of puller (I dressed the weld a bit, just for the heck of it): Front of puller:

Did something crazy today! Drove 735 miles from Andover Ct to Shippensburg Pa (round trip) took me 13 hours and 10 minutes, spending $130.24 on fuel…to come home with a C-145 Hydro. My wife packed me a lunch, snacks and a couple waters so I only had to purchase a coffee. Left my house at 5:30am and pulled back into my driveway at 6:40pm. Was supposed to be a clear day…hardly! Hit snow on I84 west headed to Scranton Pa, and hit it again on the way home . But no hiccups or truck issues so I’ll say it was a win!

As a Senior Citizen it is my obligation to keep the medical employed. After four days in the hospital I am now home and well, God is good. Details to follow.

Wanted to clean the new to me C-145auto but the garage was 28 degrees and it was even colder outside. So just a scraping, shop-vac and rag cleaning today. Also installed a belt engage/disengage lever (completely missing!)

Now I didn't start this ... credit goes to Brian @76c12091520h ... This is Busty with the bus seat that Pullstart give me. Replaced it with a home made seat that was a little more comfy and easier on the eyes. A go to tub puller and a ride around at every show. The boys said I shoulda renamed it Horny since I put this on ...

Todays adventure - rebuild the steering system. To start off I turned a portion of 5/8" stock down to 9/16" and threaded it to 12 pitch. Next drill a hole in it and tap the inside of it to 3/8-24. Then use a parting tool to cut it to length. OK, what am I building here ?? Remember the fan gear that the PO messed up by welding the drag link to it? The hole in it was too large for a heal-a-coil. So I tapped the hole in it to 9/16-12. What I made was an insert to repair the require 3/8-24 hole in the fan gear. Inserted with Loctite plus I peened the edges to ensure that it does not move. Next - take a peace of 5/8" x 4.5" stock, turn a 15/16" length of each end down to 7/16" and thread it to a 20 pitch. One new drag link. Now for the tie rod that was butchered up. First off, position the front axle and spindles so that everything is held strait. Then cut a 1" x 5/16" flat bar to length. Use a transfer punch to mark the outer holes. Drill the 1/2" holes in each end and the 3/8" hole for the drag link and test bolt things together. Looking good, now it was time to turn the two 1/2' bolts into part #3949 clevis pins. Cut to length and then drill an 1/8" hole 1" deep into the end of the bolt. Drill & tap the end to 1/4-28 to a depth of 3/8" for a grease zerk. Drill an 1/8" cross hole to meet up with the 1/8" length wise hole so that grease can get to the pivot point. Front end repaired & almost ready for some paint.

Got a pane of glass, 180 & 220 sandpaper @ HD, 24 bucks. I laid a sheet on the glass and used painters' tape to hold it. Sprayed water and sanded. Took 3 sheets of 180 & 3 sheets of 220. Too cold to do anything else.

First of all a big hello to members I haven't seen in some time. After selling all my WH tractors near 9 years ago and moving to a smaller lot on a home we built by the beach. I hope everyone is well. I stopped by many times over the years to reminisce about the Wheel Horse days. Now it's time to sell this home. Get another home with a bit more property and get back into this great hobby. I had some great tractors and look forward to it again. Anyway I will be posting a bit more and am glad to be back. Will be good to share words and see who is still about. So to all new members and old members from my days here. Thanks for having me back. Glenn

The only thing I am waiting for now on this 1057 is the E/fuel pump. This was supposed to be my winter build. But this went faster than I thought it would. But it is not running yet. I am sure there will be some tweaking to be done. I had this almost three years now just sitting doing nothing but taking up space. The seat was worth putting these patches on the seat from years of use good enough till I can have it reupholstered by Matt. I hope you enjoy the picks. OHH Also Wallfish made this pice that controls carb linkage. It works very well. No slop from worn out holes from years of use. It has full throttle movement. Or click click from idle screw to full throttle stop. Best I can do.

Don't want to jinx anyone here in Maine but have not seen piles of snow here this high in a few years. This was cleaned up with multiple machines. Good ole time Maine Wintah.

Changed out the powered worm gear snowblower chute with a powered chain drive.

Early birthday present for myself. Not perfect, but for the price I couldn’t resist.

So as may of you know in September I bought a 1257. We fully rebuilt the transmission. I got a new ignition switch a few weeks ago and put that in. Then we got snow so it got pushed to the back. Today we finally brought it back in. Cleaned the points and it fired right up. More to come later today. IMG_1453.mov

I love your AI paint job, and it inspired me. I've been having some fun playing with Photoshop and AI, and I thought I'd see what my GT18 would look like if it had a small V8 with a four-barrel, headers, mags, and racing slicks. Current (real) condition: After some AI-assisted modifications and a bunch more tweaking in Photoshop: And of course, it would be irresistible to the local bears:

Happy New Year everyone !!! With the day off I figured I'd take advantage of getting paid to work on my own stuff. A little progress report for y'all. First off I degreased the parts so that they would be ready for the blast cabinet. With the dishes done it was time to move on to repairs. First off get the drag link that a PO welded to the fan gear removed. Hood stand had some fatigue cracks that needed to be addressed. Tool box also had some fatigue cracks. Drilled some holes at the end of the cracks, beveled them out & welded them up. @AlexR was recently asking about spindle repairs. The spindles on this tractor had some pretty severe wear. I welded these then trimmed them back down to size with a grinder & a file. Bearing now fits snug on the spindle. That's all for today.

I've been getting back into scale model building a bit. I started when I was 8 and did quite a lot for 5 or 6 years. After that I've been poking at them every few years since. For several decades I've been collecting and storing the future projects. I'll be keeping this thread as a record of what I'm up to. Please do feel free to post your own. One of the things I've wanted to build for many years is a model of what my Ole Man drove from back in the mid 1980s. Oil tankers that delivered #6 factory oil. 3 years ago this April I bought an IHC 4300 tractor by AMT and Testor's reissue of a 1960s tanker trailer. I got to measuring the trailer. It's designed to be built as either a single axle short tank or add the extension and use 2 axles to make a longer trailer. Still..... really not that long even for 1960s rigs. Then I got to wondering.... what if I had two trailer kits.... If the tank rear is meant to glue on either the front section separately or the rear section in combination - why can't I use a second kit for a rear extension?? So here's something neat. Look at the tank tops here. The left side is 8.25" long. The 2 right pieces are the back half of TWO trailer model kits. If I add the second back half to the first back half added to the front half ... It comes out to a scale model size of 21.5 inches total length. I remember pretty well that Bruce's oil trailers were 45 feet long. An odd length even back then. This model scale adds up to 44 feet and 10 inches!! This is the model kit of the tractor that I have. My Ole Man drove International S2500s. This is a 4300. Same basic shape but this model is a little longer nose. That was IHC's fancier road tractor back then. The 2500 series was the worker of the fleet. I'll take the chrome off the grill and only use one exhaust stack. The sleeper will be removed in favor of a large hydraulic pump. That basically turns it into an S model. I'd like to go weathered & worn. Never done one.... Tank will likely be a faded aluminum with stains. Internet find picture: This was one of several late 70s IHC S models that the company had. At least 2 were green on a red frame. That's what @Qball drove. Odds are almost 100% he drove THIS TRUCK. Stay tuned.....

My wife surprised me with this for my birthday.

-19F here this morning. Thinking about putting on a wet Speedo, & pair of flip flops and going for a nice 2 mile run.

Hey folks , I haven't been as active here as I once was ( apologies ) . I have been busy . This happened to me this week and I remembered there are "birders" on this forum . Last Wednesday while at work , myself and two coworkers were just shooting the breeze out in our drop lot when something caught our eyes . It was a seemingly injured bird hopping along the fence line. Birds of prey are very common in the city . They hunt the pigeons that nest nearby. We decided to call the SPCA and they forwarded us to the DEC. About 1/2 hour later a woman from the DEC shows up and she can't catch him. My 2 coworkers had left and I decided to help her as she was about to give up . She threw a blanket to me over the fence and told me what to do . I managed to toss the blanket over him and get ahold of both his feet .I carried the bundled injured little guy over to her Jeep and slid it into a pet carrier. He looked in pretty rough shape to my untrained eye . I gave the woman my info and asked if she would keep me updated. This afternoon I get a call . The bird was taken to our SPCA and is doing "quite well". She sent me a pic . He's about a 1 year old Coopers Hawk. He's gorgeous.

I ran into DJ this morning, and he even bought me lunch and a coffee! Thanks @hcminis, it was great to run into a familiar face after a 4 hour drive for some car parts!

Decided ol' Johnny needed spruced up a bit, so I slapped a quick paint job on him. AI paint job, that is.

Ventilation for a belt guard ala @cleat with a Greenlee punch. Bit different pattern Cleat but should work. Coulda had the spacing a little closer. Deburred with a step bit. Speaking of step bits... @Pullstart was here...

Last night I replaced the transmission drive belt with what I believe is the proper one P/N 7473 on my 417-A. Today I took it out to blow the driveway and it worked fine for about 15 minutes. Then I heard a noise and knew something wasn’t right, so I headed back to the garage. I found the belt had jumped off the pulley and was wedged between the transmission and the pulley. I’ve never had this happen before? There’s two different part numbers given for that belt, I want to confirm this is the correct one? As I was investigating this problem my pager went off for a mutual aid fire call. This was in the height of the storm, to a neighboring department. A department that rarely calls for our help, stating a garage and multiple structures on fire. I am one of the senior members and truck drivers so I was the operator for this alarm. We actually had to follow the town snowplow to get there. The young man in the passenger seat got on the siren, so I yelled at him and said you idiot do you want me to pass him so we can get stuck and not get there? He apologized and I told him in this case slow and steady wins the race. We didn’t get done until dark so my driveway will have to wait until tomorrow, I wasn’t going to have trouble with the tractor in the dark with it still snowing and sleeting. That’s me in the blue coat, I don’t wear turnout gear when I’m driving as I find those big clunky boots unsafe to drive with. IMG_4058.mov

Got this AWESOME shirt 👕 yesterday. HUGE thank you to @Mows4three !!!

Should be a fluffy/light 12-20” snowfall here in Central Connecticut (that’s what we’ve been told) so clearing it will be easy enough. No rush to clear it, do some on Sunday and again on Monday. Company already said we could work from home so I won’t have to venture out in it. Might even be fun dealing with it

Having a whale of a time at plow day. AQM0Xq7jyqk7ZyEgjfH14PBJor9YDb5YGdiGT7W6acIrQ_FHmAfE0HbsQ9U8xKHPKbzaPv-r3-H6hmP-hlv4WYN2d8QUQn1dMu7Kwl5WubnBEw.mp4

Got some snow between yesterday and today. Decided to do one pass last night on our driveway. Then did final pass and did my plow account about 20 minutes ago. 415BB428-68EE-4462-B3FC-C93255AE4408.mov

Does buying one count?

A buddy who is a scrapper called about this hood he picked up with some other scrap metal. Thankfully he called to see if we wanted it. I don't have a use for it but couldn't see letting it get crushed. Pretty straight, no latch or wiring.

Picked up an early Raider 12 just before Christmas. Seller said he had rebuilt the trans but it stopped moving while he was plowing snow and he thought he snapped the input shaft. That didn't sound quite right to me and I suspected the key for the drive pulley was a more likely suspect. We agreed on a price delivered. The tractor came with a 42" snow blade mounted, a 42" mower deck with only one small rust hole, and extra pair of rear wheels and tires and tire chains. He also threw in a Harbor Freight 20 Ton press. He dropped it off and while I was pushing it to the shed the left rear wheel and hub came off. I immediately thought that might be its mobility issue. I got the wheel back on and pushed it in the shed. I finally got to work on it today after work. I picked up a couple Woodruff keys and stuck one in, it also needed a battery. It starts easy, runs pretty good with no smoke or obnoxious noises AND it moves in all gears. It's seeping a little where the case halves meet and it has a catch going into reverse so I'll open it back up and take care of those items. The drive belt is in pretty rough shape too and when I put a load on it, it stopped moving until I let it sit for a minute for the belt to cool so I have a new one on the way. Plan is for this one to be my new mower and the blade will go on my old Raider 9 after an engine transplant. This is the seller's pic from the ad, not much to look at but it's all there and functional....

Here ya go EB ... I ain't gonna tell ya some bozo threw this one on the scrap pile at my old shop...

Finished transaxle drain and refill on the 12hp-8 No Name today. New shifter boot, magnetic drain plug and swapped the 8.50’s for some 10.50’s on back. Oh yeah installed bolts/studs on back wheels. Made mounting the loaded Carlisle alot easier.

Put some bushing in a hydro belt take up. The old ones were shot. Got some bunting flange bearings at Amazon. reamed out the hole with a 5/8 drill, but started in straight with a step drill first. Worked okay was trying to keep it simple. I did add a keeper bolt threaded in the end to keep it all together due to eliminating the e clips on the shaft to accept the thicker flange bearings. Bearing were $3 and change each.

It's been a few months since I put a new starter on the K-181 for the reborn B-80. I purchased the rebuild kit for the old one but have yet to find one with the correct bushing on the gear end. The brush end was correct. This morning I just decided to clean it up, lube the bushings and put it back together. It's just going to be sitting on the shelf as a spare. I cleaned up the important stuff, put new brushed in and reassembled it. Leave it to an old electrician to use a 4" sq cover to whip up a hold the brushes down while you put the end cap back on tool. It worked great. Tested and It's good to go.

Today I took a portable train layout for an assisted living facility for show and tell. I had some pictures projected upon a screen of how I made some of the items and a video of my layout at home. Talked about how I got into trains (wife's uncle passed and left them to us). Answered questions how I made mountains, buildings and other items. I anticipated spending 30 minutes or so and ended up over an hour. The residents (some 20 of them) seemed to enjoy and appreciate The activities director asked who and where they rode trains. Interesting stories. Lots of laughter and memories for these folks. One funny part. I normally run my trains pretty slow--just looks more natural. Someone asked "will it go faster?" Another "Yeah, lets see it go fast." So I opened up the throttle and nearly all of them cheered! Not too bad for a 79 year old engine.

Small improvement: I made a very simple 'thrust bearing' for the end of the puller's center bolt. I bored a 5/16"+ hole in the end of the 3/4-16 grade 8 center bolt, squared off the end of the bolt, cut the threads off of a partially-threaded grade 8 5/16 bolt, and added two 5/16 SAE washers. If I wanted to get fancier, I could have cut a groove in the shank of the 5/16 bolt for a small O-ring to retain it in the center bolt, but I figure enough is enough. A dab of grease will hold the 5/16" bolt in the end of the center bolt while the puller is being set up, and a bit of grease or anti-seize or other EP lube (ZX1?) on and between the washers would be a good idea when using the puller.

I’m absolutely loving the 520hc with the 2 stage!

This is a good spot for this. You may remember me struggling to get a lug bolt out of a wheel a while back. It was a regular 7/16" bolt apparently driven in with an impact wrench WAAAAAY too tight. It was from a 68 Raider 9 that I have parted out. I tried everything up to welding a nut on it that was my last attempt at failing before I just set it aside to regain some form of sanity. Even though I doubt that I will be needing them I try real hard to save wheels that have the correct setback for Wheel Horses. They are a bit of an oddball. The same goes for saving hubs. These especially as they are the heavy hubs with factory double setscrews. Over the weeks of it just sitting in the garage I decided that the hubs were more important if I couldn't save both. I already had the bolt drilled out to something under 3/8". This morning I went ahead and drilled it to 3/8" which was as far as I wanted with hoped of not damaging the threads. It looked like this. I set it on 4x4's and smacked the hub opposite of the stuck bolt. It actually didn't take much. It snapped off clean and the culprit came right out. The hub threads didn't look bad at all. I chased them all with a 7/16" tap and a 3/8" for the setscrews and these hubs are in dandy shape! An added bonus is that the wheel is fine as well. You can see where the jammed bolt was but it's not harmed. Bottom hole. My only New Years resolution is to never make resolutions. But I'd say this is a good start. Happy New Years!

Anyone heard from @953 nut ? I'm missing his daily post.

After the walloping we got Sunday into Monday I used Mongo to clean up. Mostly it did great but it started running rich. I think the snow was so fluffy it was getting in the air cleaner. Wanted to use it the next day to clean up the plow berms at the end of the driveway and the bendix wouldn't engage. Took the cover off and there was a nice chunk of ice in the tin. Cleaned that out and still no engagement. I ended up using a propane torch on the end of the starter for maybe 10 to 15 seconds. That was all it took.

I woke up this morning to the sound of my neighbor firing up his Kubota. All the driveways were packed tight with 3-4 feet of snow from PENNDOTS plowing. He used the Kubota with the FEL to remove the packed snow so I could get in with the 520H to plow the driveways. We just finished all seven driveways. We had about 10 inches of snow then several hours of sleet creating one of the heaviest snows I had to plow.

Probably not up to code but works great for us.

One day long ago somebody, somewhere was doing something stupid and hoping they would get away with it. What was that word / practice invented you ask? Sketch / Sketchy... Today im delivering the 310 I built for my wifes cousin so she has it for this weekends "big" storm. Its a little over an hour to her house. Pics are from this morning after I did my driveway. Somebody wish me luck!!

I put a winch on the dedicated snow machine. I hurt for 2 days anymore using the manual lift. I do about 3/8 mile of drives.

When I got the 312-8, I searched for Wheel Horse forums. I picked this one & I'm glad I did! Lots of great folks here and there must be a couple hundred years of combined knowledge, I greatly appreciate all the help & guidance I am receiving. Thank you!