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Finished. The paint is #81 Chevy Red that is very close to the original. The white is late 60's Ford with half the normal pigments and all the white pigment.

Just picked this jewel up. even came with extra rear tires and rims. Could not pass it up 225.00

Hello, I wanted to share some pics of a restoration I just completed. This project was really rough when I started. What was there of the original engine was actually in pretty good shape, no cylinder wear etc, but due to missing the blower housing, points cover and a dead coil, I decided not to use it. The blower housing is really hard to find. I gave up on the original engine and put a early 60's B&S engine on it. It has all new bearings and seals in the transmission. It was completely torn down, cleaned and a lot of it sand blasted. It now runs good, trans works good. It is not perfect, but perfect was way gone on this one. I actually restored this for someone and they are supposed to pick it up today. I believe it is a 1960 model. Thought you might enjoy seeing it and I wanted to say thanks to some folks here that helped with locating some parts. More of the Restoration More.

Today we held our annual Antique Engine and Tractor show, not a big show but thought I would share. These two Suburbans were at the "Big Show", the owner isn't a member here, said he isn't internet friendly! This one is for @AMC RULES Watermelon for all. Hope you enjoyed the show.

Racinbob, good catch on the clutch and brake rod! Yes, it is mounted above. I did that for a safety reason, it works backwards to the original configuration. Now, you push down to go, let off and the brake is on. Before, when you left off the clutch, it would go and there was no safety feature if you fell off etc. To stop, you had to push down.

Found this older garden tractor but have no idea what it is. Has a wisconsin engine model aen.

Check out out this old clip from Indy500, watch closely for some quick moments of Wheel horse involvement in the pits helping out .

Ok I just got home and as promised here are the pics of the MW tractor I bought

If the tractor has original paint that looks GOOD, and there is till a good amount of original paint and doesn't make it look like a basket case, then I'd leave it original. But if there's more rust or surface rust than paint, I'd restore it

Got all the horses out to clean the barn, Well all but one that was dead [520H] no fire. But here are the rest.

So tell me....what model tractor you talking about?

I didn't vote because a lot of it depends on the circumstances .

I have a Big-Block sittin on a shelf. If I run across a short frame 6 spd roller nearby for short money, look out!

Ready set go......... ok...i would do the clear,,,,but use a satin finish.....no gloss...Yuk.............. Like the man said,,,just do it myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy next !!!!

Please try it. Then I might too !

we actually should start a poll to vote on. who prefers to restore with new paint vs. who prefers the original patina look. I think that would be interesting to see the results. It seems members are divided on that. I did the "refresh" on my 854, others would argue that the tractor is only original once. Ok, so who knows how to start a voting poll on here? Glenn

Very good idea! I'm thinking a lot of the parents who set these up for little ones may be interested in your design...

You can buy a "bypass kit" for the smart steer from Toro. All it does is replace a link in the steering with a plate that keeps the bleed off link in the straight ahead position. $45 or so

Found a little more info.... I have been researching Montgomery Wards garden tractors to find out what Manufacturer built what tractor for M/W and when they were built. There are a lot of ideas on who, what and when certain tractor were built and sold by Montgomery Wards. I hope you enjoy what I have learned through all this. This story actually starts in 1872 with a new small cast iron foundry called "The Western Malleable and Gray Iron Manufacturing Company" in Milwaukee, WI., making gray iron castings. Around 1900, Western was producing Gasoline engines under the name "Simplicity". In 1911 the plant was moved to Port Washington, WI., and continued to build engines. They also started producing 2 models of farm tractors. Thing were good for the company until the end of WW1 when Henry Ford introduced his famous "Fordson" tractor. Ford, with massive production capabilities, was able to sell his new farm tractor at a price where few could compete. Many tractor firms were forced out of business, and in 1920 Turner Manufacturing was one of them. Mr. William J. Niederkorn who worked for Turner Manufacturing, bought some of the assets and the Simplicity name. In 1922 he formed the Simplicity Manufacturing Company. The first product of the new company was a cylinder-boring machine for re-boring automobile engine blocks to be rebuilt. By 1936 the company was looking for something else to do as the "Factory Rebuilt Auto Engines" were now available. Montgomery Ward contacted Simplicity In 1937, to see if they would and could produce garden tractors for Ward to sell through their Catalog and Retail stores. Simplicity developed two garden tractor models for Montgomery Ward to sell, and soon they were very successful. Simplicity soon began to manufacture and sell these tractors through Lawn and Garden Equipment dealers all over the US under the Simplicity name. When WW-II started,, Simplicity had to stop making Lawn and Garden Products to help with the war effort. The War Board directed Simplicity to produce a variety of Industrial Machining equipment. When WWII ended, Simplicity stopped the production of Industrial Equipment and focused on the fast growing Lawn and Garden equipment business. They developed full line of Garden Tractors, Snow Blowers, Rota tillers, Riding Mowers and four-wheel Garden Tractors. They sold under both the Montgomery Ward brand name and the Simplicity name. In 1950 Montgomery Wards offered 3 models of the 2 wheeled Tractor. The 1 1/2-2hp Hoe-Trac, the 2 1/2-3hp Chor-Trac and the big 6hp Power-Trac along with over 20 various attachments. By 1955 Wards offered 5 different 2 wheeled Tractors and 2-4 wheeled Riding Tractors, made from 2 wheeled tractors fitted with a steerable rigid mounts sulky. Wards offered 36 quick change attachments for their tractors. The first fully engineered with the engine and steering axle in the front 4 wheel Garden Tractor was the 7 horsepower “Squire 7", introduced in 1959 and stayed the same for 1960-61. In 1962 a slightly more powerful engine was installed and it became the 7.25 horsepower “Squire 7 ¼”. In 1963 big changes started to take place for Montgomery Wards in their Lawn and Garden tractor lineup. M/W still offered a Simplicity built Garden Tractor, the 7 ¼hp “Squire 725”, this would be the last year for the 700 Series based tractor. Wards also offered a Bolens built “Squire 6”, based on the Bolens 600 with a different Cast Iron Grill, hood and Steering Tower. Bolens also provided M/W with several of the attachments for the “Squire 6” that they built. 1964 still saw even more changes for Montgomery Wards. Gone from the lineup was the Bolens built tractor. Simplicity supplied their new LandLord based “Squire 9” Garden Tractor and also the “Squire 6” Lawn Tractor based on the Simplicity Broadmoor. M/W also offered a Garden Tractor called the “Squire 7 ¼HP”, built by Quick Manufacturing using a Springfield Garden Tractor, but having a Cast Iron grill and different hood. Quick Man. Also provide M/W with a full line of attachments they built for their tractor. The 1965 M/W lineup was basically the same as 1964. 1966 brought more changes to the M/W Garden Tractor lineup. Simplicity built the "Squire 10 Deluxe" Garden Tractor. Quick Manufacturing provided 2 Garden Tractors, the “Garden Mark 10” and the “Garden Mark 8”. Both tractors were based on the Springfield Tractors with grill and sheet metal changes only. Simplicity still offered the Power-Trac 2 wheel tractors thru M/W. In 1967 Montgomery Wards offered 3 new Garden Tractors, the “Squire 12” with manual lift, Squire 12” with Hydraulic lift, “Squire 10” and the “Squire 8”. These tractors were produced by Gilson Tractor Co.. Gilson also provided Wards with all of their attachments to go along with their tractors. Warde still offered the Simplicity built Power-Trac 2 wheel tractor as well as all the attachments were still available. It's not known if these were leftovers from the Wards stock or if A/C continued to build and supply these. 1968 saw the same Lawn and Garden Tractor equipment available from Wards. M/W did start offering a 7 hp Riding Lawn Tractor which appears to be built by MTD although I haven't been able to back that up for sure. This is a work in progress and I will be adding more information as I gather it up. Please be patient with me. [Source: The Story of William J. Niederkorn, prepared for the Ozaukee County Historical Society, August 8, 1967, Marquette University Press, courtesy of Simplicity Manufacturing inc.] [Source: Montgomery Wards Catalogs, Farm Catalogs]

Pull a small panel off and try clearing it. if you like the result, do the whole thing.

7-9-2005 Danny Way jumps the Great Wall of China on a Skateboard o o o Skateboard legend Danny Way is the subject of a new documentary, "Waiting for Lightning" by Jake Rosenberg, which follows his career from childhood to a spectacular 2005 jump over the Great Wall of China. The native Californian based in Encinitas is known for imagining and executing extraordinary jumps, such as his 2008 "bomb drop" from a helicopter onto a ramp. The documentary is structured around your jump over the Great Wall of China. How long had you had that dream and what prompted it? I had a dream of doing something on a grand scale. I had for a few years been looking for something special to jump, because I figured out a new ramp design that would allow me to go bigger than I had ever gone. I went to China a couple of times on business, exploring factories to build some skateboarding parts and flew over the Great Wall of China on one of my trips. Also on Air China, in the airline magazine there were a couple of pictures of the wall, and it just came to me: How obscure would that be to jump the Great Wall? It was an interesting cultural experience as well. I thought, China being so populated with so many kids, skateboarding is a very inexpensive hobby for kids to get into. Since that jump there's been quite a bit of movement on that level in China — the world's biggest concrete skate park is built in China now.

Well I have to say I'm lucky enough to have inherited a C-161 twin automatic,and also have a C-161 automatic all original that I will mow with tomorrow and a fully restored C-161 8 speed. Gotta love those 78-79 's. Yours looks great!

Power King Economy.

I love that Morris Minor. It is beautiful

Wheel Horse was involved for years with the Speedway. There are a lot of post here on RS about it. I can remember back when are family was a dealer, we were asked by the Indianapolis distributer to participate in the month of May, we never really did or did some small stuff but because it was right when we were busy on the farm. This year was the 100th running of the race and they had a lot of special stuff going on. I was real surprised or thought that with the history Wheel Horse had with the speedway, Toro would have jumped on the band wagon and something would have been done down there. Toro does a lot of equipment providing for nascar tracks. Maybe Red Square or WHCC miss a opportunity. There again that was along time ago. The tractor is not even made anymore. It probably would not do Toro any good to dig up old news.

There is some debate of what everyone prefers. Would you rather see an original tractor with original patina? Or a fully restored one? Or a clear coated patina?

My C141 8 speed has been a working tractor all its life and has acquired surface rust on the sheet metal parts, engine tin, and transaxle. I love the restored tractors but wonder has anyone clear coated a tractor to maintain the patina the tractor acquired over 30+ years. Clear coating surface rust on vintage cars and trucks is done to preserve the metal and vintage look. Has anyone done this? What are your thoughts? Should I re-paint my tractor in red or give the clear coat idea a go?

Some of you know this was dealer stock sitting around for years. [LOOK IN ALMOST DONE POST.] It is not perfect some one did a paint touch up??? But I guess it came out ok. She starts up nice rides nice. I hope you enjoy the picks. This will become another trailer queen. It was a fun project. 1 more to go =1057 then I am done doing restoring. Pain in the A>>. EXCUSE SHADING OF RED IT IS SUNNY OUT OR THE CAMERA.

We would rather be overwhelmed with model info by an owner, that left scratching our heads and speculating over vague descriptions. We're a picky bunch about that sort of stuff....... "got #4 today" tells us zero, zip, nada...............

The glass hood was needed to provide enough space for the twin cylinder engine that was supposed to go into the planned 1978 c-171. Unfortunately Kohler kind of blew it with the reliability of the KT-17 engine and wheel horse was fortunate enough to find out in advance. Deere and simplicity and others weren't so lucky and had lots more engine failures than wheelhorse did by waiting two more years. Hence the Briggs twin as a substitute. Somebody needs to ask Ed from toro next time the see him if he recalls whether the c-171 was supposed to have a steel hood of the black hood. style. I bet it was ready but the exhaust on the Briggs required a short deadline redesign. Just postulating. Briggs makes great engines. They just don't have the popularity of the Kohler. All the manufacturers have misses once in a while, kohler gave us the KV's, the KT series ones, and the Triads... Eventually kohler claimed to have the problems resolved, so the c-175 debuted with the KT two years later. By that time I guess they decided a full overhaul was needed so hung the bigger sheetmetal hood across the line. The glass hood was also used in a slightly modified version on the e-141 electric tractor. It crossed my mind just now that Wheel Horse had an history of introducing new styling gradually and on oddball models: the 1045, the C-161 twins, the 1980's Work Horses... I think the twin cylinder c-161 is a real "milestone" model since it was the first twin cylinder tractor built on the classic chassis. They're a nice machine. And yours looks great. I think you need another one. Steve

I would think that if OSHA was around in 1960 they would have loved your idea.

Much better day today. A few more pics.

I have two 953 drivers, one is a hot rod custom and one is rusty, has no paint at all is literally as dirty as the day it was drug out of a neglected barn (had it at the Big Show) and they both get complements. I have a third 953 that I will do a full restoration on, it is one of the early ones with the Ross steering. That being said I am glad that different folks do different things, variety is what makes life interesting.

Here is a few screen capture shots from the video, not the best quality but still historical non the lest .

Nice score

Hi SylvanlakeWH, that is why I did it. They guy I restored it for may let his teenage grandkids ride it. I am going to tell him it is not a 4wheeler, it is a antique lawn tractor and treat it as such. I was going to add another pedal to the opposite side, but decided this was simple. It works well, brakes work great.

Why not give it a go?

MalMac It would be great if you had pictures of your families dealer ship back then. It is always cool to look back. Just saying.

Craig A local guy who does this kind of work. He is very busy all the time. It took me over 6 months to get back. Had to stop buy once a month to bug him to get it done. But as you can see it was worth the weight. Richard. No I do photography on the side as a hobby. It was very sunny out and I was trying to keep the glare down. Trying give you true color. As this was not painted just the engine. Thanks for asking.

Not sure if this is what your looking for but there were issues with Kohler. I seem to recall that for some Q/A reason the engines had to be sourced from B&S. The metal hood did not fit properly so they did up fiberglass hood. Not sure why they did not use the same lens cover as the other black hoods...When issues at Kohler were resolved the resumed using them and metal hood. I happen to really like the twin Briggs c-161 I have. But sourcing parts for aging wheel horses is hard enough and these are harder yet. I may still tackle a restoration of sorts. Yours is in extremely nice condition.

and you may get a Red Ryder B-B gun for Christmas Ralphy.

Thank you for sharing the extra pics. It looks to be very well cared for. Just the way I like it!

Pretty cool. Where did you find this clip?

Okay, an update. I have been busy on this project for the past few weeks. My hat is off to you guys that do these regularly. Progress has gone pretty well. I swapped the 12 horse that was in this one into a C-121 that I bought with a broken rod. I'm using that one to mow on some land I own. Will resto it (maybe) in a couple years when I get moved up there. The plan was to rebuild that engine but the piston skirt had a pretty nice hunk out of it, so I opted against that for now. I sourced a M10 from a guy that had it on a compressor. It was smoking a bit. So I rebuilt it with new piston and valves. It was right on the edge of needing to be bored, so I am gonna give it a shot. If it needs boring, I will do that this winter. First step was to take it to the carwash to remove 50 years of crud. I started dismantling. Probably could have done a better job of marking parts, but I will just have to figure it out. Sandblasting and knotted wire wheel until I was blue in the face, but finally got everything cleaned and primed. ( or red, it's hot in Texas!) Tried for 2 weeks to get the steering wheel off. PB Blaster and a gear puller and a lot of cussing. Finally through in the towel. Will do the best I can with repainting. When I got to the transaxle, I gave it a shot of PB and a few whacks and went straight to the sawzall. Will replace with the TS pin everyone has talked about. Found a couple of stress cracks on the frame and welded those up, as well as cracks in the hood. Couldn't figure out how to get the pictures to come along with the story, so I guess they will all just be at the end.... Been using filler primer and wetsanding the seat pan, hood and belt cover. Ordered paint and now I am almost a standstill. Will start blasting the wheels in the meantime. The seat was beyond hope. the rust made the bottom see-through so will have to order a aftermarket seat. Considering ags for the rear and maybe ribs on the front and a stack exhaust. Will probably reincorporate the headlights, though not positive. Decided on Rustoleum Regal Red for paint. Will shoot it from my HVLP gun. Man I must have read 30 pages of painting tips. A wealth of information! More to come! I have been relying so much on the wisdom and experience found here, that I pulled the supporter trigger. That's probably been the best bargain of this whole resto project! Like I told several friends, I have proven I can tear one down....soon the bigger task of putting it back together will present itself. Curious to see how all the pics I added show up...... June 22nd at Carwash...

Not my B/R but my buddies . I envy that . Just love finding turn of the century stuff out on the wheelers .

Not really old iron for me, I'm afraid I'm one of those who like to chop motorcycles.

I says you just missed out on a nice suburb (that was parked next to Aldon's by the mash pole) and the guy was only asking 600...she was cherry! Tell you what I got a suburban at camp ...come over and look at it and we'll talk. So he comes to camp later and we could't work a deal so I told him where another one was. Comes back to camp an hour later riding the one you see him on. Smiles ear to ear! My wife and I both clapped him on & talked to his dad a bit. Turns out he's got a good sized mixed herd at home of his own and was drivin big tractors at six. Nice kid and really made my show wheelin & dealin with him! Lookit the heads on them two!!!...nothin like action shots!!

Couple of Buckrancher's You really would have to see it to appreciate Aldon's tractor! I tryed to get the gauge in the one pic but failed .... awesome looked like it belonged in an aircraft cockpit!

Spend a little more and get the Carlisle's. You won't regret it.