Leaderboard

I know some of you think that I have vanished into thin air but my new ministry (job/work/calling) has me doing LOTS of traveling. I do lurk and follow what is going on here but I haven’t done much related in the several months. That changed today... Kelli’s raspberry patch is about 12 years old and just kinda unruly. So, my buddy Zach and I, decided to open up a new bed. We grabbed Kelli’s Big Red and @Coulter Caleb‘s Comanche (854) to do the work. I hooked up the 8” Sod Bottom (love the new stickers from @Vinylguy) This is the area that Kelli wanted them and so I got to work. The ground is a sandy loam mix but we haven’t had much for rain here lately and it plowed in big slabs of sod. Not the prettiest job of plowing I’ve ever done but it did exactly what I needed it to do. Love this action shot that Zach captured😎 After breaking everything, we used the old walk behind Troy-bilt tiller to grind it down and lots of rake work to separate out the weeds and grass. Finally, I had Zach drive back and forth across it to pack it down some before the transplant would take place. Zach was very hands on throughout this project. I was not only glad to have his help but also have him doing something that is productive, for the mind and body! there’s a happy young man—played in the dirt and got the opportunity to drive several of his favorite brand of tractors around. All in days work!

Howdy guys! So, after a long build on my Duromax engine, I have it on the tractor. I used a 65 inch belt made my own top-plate and belt stops on the motor housing. I ground down the cam, bored out the wrist pin section of the billet rod. I installed stainless pushrods. I had to use my die grinder to grind down part of the block inside the motor so the rod would rotate. I fabricated my own air intake. I custom made an adapter for my header pipe on the exhaust. Obviously, I attached my throttle cable. The Billet rod I went with is +.045 which took some 'doing' to make work. Here is the deal with the Billet rods on Duromax engines. If you do not have a die grinder, you cannot get a predator 420 rod to work in a Duromax 457. The wrist pin of the Duromax is slightly larger than that of a predator engine... so you have to grind out the inside of the rod to get the Duromax wrist pin to fit. The crankshaft journal fits just fine. The other thing is the cam. Not only do you have to grind down the cam between the lobes... you also have to grind part of the outside of the rod... very slightly because you have to have .080 clearance between the rod and cam. Again, my rotary die grinder got to do some work on this build. After speaking with ARC racing about this build, ARC told me that they dyno tested an engine that is comparable to mine, and it made 51 horsepower. Whether my engine is making that kind of power is up for debate... but it is making well over 40 hp. I will say, this motor growls like a hellion. It sounds WAY different than my Tillotson 25 horse engines. The Duromax engine literally sounds like a coyote 5.0. It really isn't as jerky as you would think with this much power. As long as you release the clutch slowly and give it a little throttle, it is actually really smooth... although when you even slightly mash the throttle... it rips. I did go with Mobil 1 oil for this motor, as I do with all my high power builds. Absolutely no oil is going by the breather, so that tells you what a good build this is. Aside from working on the engine, I also got some lights for the '67. These are lithium battery powered lights (since my engine does not have a charge coil, I went with some called Victagen). These lights are very bright and can last many hours without needing a charge. I am very happy with them. Don

Evidently there are a couple of things that sound more appealing to an amorous cicada than another cicada. Since I’m working on her Wheel Horse, my wife was mowing the yard with our Lawn Boy and was getting swooped on by the cicadas. Listening to the hunting governor was driving me crazy, but absolutely driving the bugs wild. She said she kept hearing what she thought was the granddaddy of all cicadas. Well it was me, grinding some welds down on her mower deck. Evidently they’re attracted to this frequency, and the resonating deck acts like a huge speaker. After about a minute of grinding, I’m getting absolutely mobbed by them. I put on a hat, buttoned my shirt collar up like I was going to church and tucked it in like I was still skinny because it was getting full of them.

Got the “new” plow blade lubed up and working well… was very bad rust. Wear bar was almost to the bolts, which broke off with a slight turn to the right… Decided I’m just giving this one an oil bath Flipped bar, put it back on with stainless hardware to add some bling to the patina, and she’s ready for winter!!!

Still prepping Dug..got the wheel weight hubcaps done, but made a mis calculation in the depth or diameter Either way it came out even better with teeth that adjust for tightness and depth.and the cap sits INSIDE the weight. The plastic provides the spring. Went ahead and painted the front bearing caps red too. Ill put those on once they dry.

This is true. Punkin farmer has got farm plates and got busted for putting his pontoon in. Cop just happened to be sitting at the landing. Cop just pretty much told him not to get caught again. Farmer joked that he was going to fish for carp for pumpkin fertilizer!

As long as we are talking hub caps, I ordered a set for the trailer. They didn't fit on the trailer wheels. I might have got them to go on with some cutting and grinding but I chose to just put them on the fronts of the 857. Have I mentioned how much I like that little tractor?

So been a LONG time since I've been active on this forum but that doesn't mean I quit playing with wheelhorse tractors. I still have a handful and my favorite has always been my 1054. Its a worker and gets used the most out of all my early wheelhorse tractors. I recently got a kubota to do most of the hardwork around the house but as stated I still use the 1054 quite a bit. The Kubota really sparked the diesel bug in me and I had always wanted to get a single cylinder diesel engine to play around with. Well I recently got two. One is a smaller yanmar that I got from a wheelhorse facebook group. Sadly that one isn't running well and I'm still trying to figure out whats going on there. Hope to get it fixed and dropped in a 654 I have in the shed, but thats another thread. The next engine I picked up is a 7HP Lombardini diesel engine. Super cool engine that was made in Italy and most commonly used in construction equipment. According to the hour meter it only has 40 hrs on it so its barely broke in. I rebuilt the air cleaner and fixed up a few other things and put it on a test stand. It fired right up and runs awesome. I think it would be a cool swap for my 1054. I haven't ran the numbers but even though its less HP, I'm fairly certain it will still be a great match for the 1054 being thats its a diesel. A few issues I'll need to resolve. Currently the engine has a very large oil pan on it that was not standard. This was so it could hold a larger amount of oil and likely keep the engine cooler in hot construction zones where it would have run all day. Luckily it looks like I can still get a standard oil pan through Kohler as they now own Lombardini. Next is to resolve throttle control. This particular engine was meant to run at full throttle and stay there till you shut it off. It does have a "throttle" on the side but its intent was really just on or off so the lever to control the governor is pretty short and touchy. I'll have to work out a longer lever to get get better control. Finally, this engine doesn't appear to have a charging system built in to the engine. It was used to power a road sign which used a large automotive 12V alternator to power the sign, This also was used to charge the battery that ran the fuel pump and starter motor. I'm going to pull the flywheel and see if there happens to be a stator hiding back there or see if there is room to adapt a generic stator of sorts. Worse case I'll use a small dynamo type alternator to get enough power to keep the battery topped off. There is really nothing wrong with the Kohler 10hp engine on my 1054 but its clear that it wasn't the original engine and had been swapped at one point. As with most of my modifications to tractors, I plan to not modify anything original so as to always be able to return it to its stock, original form. initial height measurements appear that the engine will just fit with the smaller oil pan in place but if I run in to a major road block, I may have to get creative or bail on the project all together. Also, this may take a while, I'm in no hurry and as stated above, I use the 1054 often so I don't want it to be out of commission for too long. Anyway, here is the engine. I like that it looks "old" or period correct for the 1054. One of my big pet peeves is when a modern engine is dropped in to a vintage tractor. My plan is to make it look like this engine belonged.

Decided I better get the battery positive cable on the 1075 fixed before the show.

This describes just about everyone on this site!

If I see the word cicada you're going to get the video of my wife

I was thinkin of doing the same thing seuadr. Not so much for noise but that too but so as not to take up floor space. Build a bump out big enough for the compressor with outside access and like Don said shelving on the compressor side for horse parts and for a blast cabinet that was open to the inside. Never did get around to it and now with the price of lumber . Tucked the Quincy in a corner where the corner cabinet & RJ was and called it a day. It doesn't run that much is fairly quiet and I actually enjoy hearing the beast run! 100 bucks just for the lumber in that 2nd pic and that wasn't including the plywood so I just repurposed the old shelfing 3/4 boards.

seems like overkill for cutting a cardboard tube

Ramp rail is on!

thanks Man! I’m burning some midnight oil tonight... but you’re up in the MIDDLE of the night! I have this U channel to weld on the bed for ramp cleats. That project is next

A couple pieces of 1/2" drywall propped up in front of the compressor goes a long way to muffle the sound. Don't need Nuthin' Fancy. For some reason I'm now hungry for home canned pickles! Or maybe those are beans or asparagus? even better!

Stickers... LOL Don

A nickel's worth of never seize would cover half of Florida!

Whatever you do, don't buy an oil less compressor. Those things will wake the dead! The more money you spend on a compressor the quieter it is most of the time. Big motor low RPM pump keeps the noise down. At work we had a medical gas air compressor. It went bang when the starter engaged. It would scare the crap out of you. One day after lunch, I go down to the boiler room to do my cooling tower water tests. One of the older guys in the shop is there doing some boiler room paperwork and he had fallen asleep at the desk. (It was over 100 deg in there) I didn't want to scare him so I tip toed by him to get to where I needed to be. Well that compressor fired up and it scared him so bad he jumped about 3 feet up out of that chair. I felt so bad for him. He had a pacemaker and was worried he'd need another one!

It takes about 10hrs to burn through 1.5gal of fuel with my Hatz 1B40.

Good idea to isolate sound (it could also have shelves for storing infrequently used stuff). If you decide to have the compressor on/off switch outside the room, consider using a switch with a pilot light so if the compressor doesn't happen to be running when you leave the shop you'll be reminded to shut it off! These are the styles I use for "out of sight" lighting.

Perhaps that's one of those newfangled high-strength cardboard tubes?

Wow. Michigan isn’t such a bad place after all!

I love seeing parts hangin on the old clothes line setup. ...Maybe my wife will let me decorate the Christmas tree with red parts next year!

I think the spares will be strapped down somewhere for this trip, but I’d like to build a couple of these out of round tube:

The serial number tag, and the key chain are on the C-125A. That means it's officially done. I believe the tractor is VERY sound mechanically. As with all my tractors there are places where the paint could be better, but then there are a lot of places where it could be worse. I did some re-paint after the gas can fiasco, I think it turned out OK. I got the "creep" adjusted out of the trans, so it's fine now. The motor starts immediately, and sounds great. To me anyway. Now that it's done, it's time to move on to the 175.

Guys, I know nothing of Cubs. I responded to a FBMP ad for a cub basket case. I ended up with what I believe is a 1961 Cub. The guy I got it from completely disassembled it, sand blasted and primed everything. He told me the 7hp Kohler ran perfect before disassembly. Seemed like a solid gent and I believe him. I got this for the price of the sandblasting and I’m excited to delve into the world of cubs. Infidelity.....

This is what a 1961 Cub Cadet looks like disassembled..,,

So the process of pulling a vacuum causes the contents of the system to pass through a vabe rotary pump and exhausts into the oil. The oil has to have a very low vapor pressure so that the system contents boil out of it readily. It also needs to lube the system, and be relatively resistant to corrosion (at least for HVAC purposes) a lot of these oils are special silicone and polyether blends. So they are pricey. Of course there is probably a big brand markup too.

So decided the 1257Heavy needs a snorkel, no reason just needs 1... so made a adapter and have sum 90° silicone intake elbows coming in so somthing should come together. Also have 2 K&N air filters coming. 1 is the wrong size but the jungle site don't mess around and had that shipped within 2hrs of me ordering it so couldn't cancel it. I'll find a use sumwhere. Kinda nice having a engine sitting around for a template.

Great Pictures of a proud young man after great Work, he can be proud of. 👍

This is the 1054 I plan to put it in, next to the Kubota that does the heavy heavy work.

Here's my Compressor. Single stage Campbell Hausfeld. Almost 30 yrs. old. I got it for $475 when I was working at the Napa store. Still is on the pallet it was shipped on! We sold a crap load of these. Still has the original belt although I have a spare hanging. Replaced the head gasket about 4 years ago. The big thing I hate about cheapie air compressors, is the crappy air filter. I have this compressor in my back shop. I have run the air intake outside and use the only part of a Tecky engine that won't break,...... The air filter assembly! The air intake makes more noise than the compressor!

I‘m still in decision process how it will be driven later continousely. for the first testdrive the power steering pump is ok, but the hydraulicfluid reservoir is to small at all to work sensefully with it. An option could be to spent a second reservoir ( the one i had before on my 212FEL) on the same height level to increase the Fluid and deactivate the electronic steering on the Hydraulicpump to run permanent in full Speed. Actually my best bet is cut the Original hydraulic lines and make a piping to the Quickmounts. If no Backhoe is on, it just be bridged with a bypass hose, but . Another possible solution can also be 2 pipes from the Original hydraulic lines they be routed to the rear 3 Point and a Hydraulic Highpressure bypass valve, but i running out of space to install that solution. Maybe i have to rethinkering about that Solution abd about how to solve. At least i can use 2 Highpressure hoses From the FEL steering valveblock to the Quickmounts and set a bypass Valve. That will be the easiest Way to do, but it holds the possible dangerous while Hoserouting will run under my Body. Sure they can be protected with cover hoses( blast protectors) but they must be in dangerous areal where stomp on is possible. Because of the last few Day‘s Action, no final decision is forced or taken for now but it‘s just delayed. Actual i have more important things to clear.

I have such mounts here, but i be unsure, they arrived in Time

A relay that comes off with power of the motor. But think a (half) open window would do the job. Just to prevent a huge vacuum in that room

Yeah that was my thought. In general, it seems like these older diesels, and diesels in general are "under rated" compared to gasoline engines. I was amazed at how clean the oil was when I checked the dip stick, I assumed it had been changed till I found the hour meter in the control box and saw it only said 40 hrs. The engine hasn't even been broke in yet if thats accurate. The other nice thing about this engine is it has an external larger oil filter which is a nice touch. Pretty sure this is a legit Italian one. It came from a construction sign and here in the US, those got swapped out to all electric 10-15 years ago I'd guess. This one may have been at the tail end of the diesel powered ones?

Better not have to stop at weigh stations

Come on now what is taking you so long!! Don’t you have to leave soon in order to get to the big show on time?

It’s been said before but this is the nicest bunch I’ve guys you’ll ever meet. Some guys have a niche for certain things or era tractors and that’s what makes this place special. Nobody is judgmental and if they are they are not here long. I’m very happy to see our Red Square family has helped yet again another person who will save one of our beloved tractors.

Diamond tread tires. Decent shape for their age and both have tubes in them. Asking $100 SOLD!

Had a recent order for a black wild/spoked led ornament, for the front fender of a Harley Heritage Classic! Have the custom curved base printing now.

Wheel weight Hubcaps done! Made an error somewhere in diameter that resulted in a better overall design. The plastic still provides the spring but added screws make the tension and depth adjustable and the disk fits just inside the rim of the weight!

5 o clock traffic in Pullstart Stables... shuffling things around gets other things jammed up quick!

No Memorial Day Parade this year due to the Covid so, we made our own parade!!! IMG_0481.MOV

Bedding down the herd for the night, Two are going to Big Show

Trina and I do all of our cutting and splitting out in the forest because we find it's easier to bring the splitter close to the tree after it's been felled. I had the same issue with the splitter being too tall for a Wheelhorse. I can't get any bigger equipment into my Forest unless I build a much wider bridge over an Old logging twitch trail that is filled with rotting corduroy logs and mud and muck. About 25 or 30 ft long. I went and got a drop hitch and flipped it upside down so I could pull our beast of a splitter out into the forest.