Leaderboard

some of you may remember me, I haven’t been around for a while. Sold off my last wheel horse a while back. And I’m down to my last garden tractor. My first. My bolens 1050. I haven’t had too much time for anything tractor related lately. Between starting my own business, and a sudden change in interest. I realized my tractors were being neglected. Since I’ve been spending so much time on axes and saws. Anyways, I just want to thank y’all for having one of the nicest communities online. I hope to one day settle down and have another wheel horse or two, but that time is still far off. Thanks for everything ~Mike

Had some wrangling going on here tonite... bunch a dammed horse thieves... Well we run em off and they was so skereed they dropped a D tiller and a Pond bhind and ran...

These mufflers I'm using on my Vanguard 14s are made by Nelson, but a larger diameter than what is usually on a Wheel Horse. I wanted to put a guard on this one, but the factory guards are a little too long. Plus I had to weld brackets on the muffler to hold the guard on. Thank goodness for wire welders! Still a challenge even on the lower settings, but it worked. So I found some 16ga perforated stainless online. Expensive, but not as much as the chrome OEM version, and this one will never rust. Not perfect, but some functional bling for a worker. Now I have to finish the new manifold. That'll bring the muffler in another 1.5 inches toward the hood.

Love these little guys, though they get pretty big. My shrubs out front are loaded with thousands of them. Index finger shot just for size comparison. Never notice if you didn't look closely, like everything in spring, babies are everywhere!

You are lucky. They are very cool! Often, but not always, the females eat the males after mating... you'd think there would be less around if word got out?

Yes it can be done. Will it damage it? This is solely dependent on your skills.

Serviced my 42" Recycler deck ; this has been in use since 1996. 27 years of weekly use, just common sense maintenance , no oil soak downs, no fancy coatings ,only cut when its dry (mostly) . I replaced one spindle belt about 8 years ago, the front rollers once, and one set of gauge wheels.....best quality of cut deck Toro / Wheel Horse ever offered.

Buy a new hose.

I did the same thing. Mike, we hope to see you back here one day in the near future

I took a long break myself. Was away for several years. Sometimes life gets in the way. We wish you well, and hope to hear from you again soon!

Mrs @Pullstart had to accompany him to administer first aid as needed!

Last till with the Super C. Going to a new home tomorrow. Just a tad big for my garden. Was supposed to be for deer food plot but since we plow that field every year. I just don't use it enough to justify having it & KT19 is gonna need a repo.

Finished.

Correct TJ... sounds like your getting to know your tire sizes. As for do I like them? Yes and no. When the bucket is empty or lightly loaded it steers great. A full load with something heavy they turn very hard even with gear reduction. Can't help but think the stress it is putting on the steering gear. If I was independently wealthy I would put on Firestone tri ribs in the same size. Like on this rig.

So, I'm sitting here now getting a trailer load of things together to take to an Antiques and Collectables yard sale on Saturday. These are things that my wife and I had in our booth at the antique mall years ago before the bottom fell out of the antique market. We always thought that as the years went on, and things with the grandkid's school and sports settled down, and the market picked back up, we would get back into it again, but alas, that train has left the station. It's been hard to part with a lot of these items, but being that we are both now in our seventies, we know that it's not fair to leave the disposal of these kind of things to the children and grandkids after we are gone. And, while also prepping for the big WHCC show, I am having the same thoughts. Other than one grandson who likes helping me with the Wheel Horse stuff, nobody is interested in my folly. Which means that before too many more shows come and go, I too will be liquidating the horses and watching from afar. So for all of you who are leaving or have left this hobby behind, I feel your pain.

Good luck to you, but I can guarantee, there are guys who will chew the fat with ya about axes and saws!!! There is a tool section as well!! I have been on a lot of forums, but never found a family like this one!!! Randy

Hi Mike. I am on the thread reading. But no wheel horses in over 4 years. Life is funny, gets in the way. Best of luck. Glenn

Lookit the grins!! Since Kev ain't got a love shack he gotta go for love scores... ain't that right Plunge... Good to hear things are going good. You guys need to stop back when you can't stay as long.

Can't believe she dragged you all that way....

Nope. Millions of men meet predators every year. Never stopped a one of us! Only a few of these mantis make it to be grown ups, but they get fairly big. The antenna in the pic below measures nearly two feet. So she's upwards of a foot long... And I leave the grownups alone!

5025 ready for it's other half

First steps. Got rid of the science project of a seat. Nothing salvageable. Insides completely rusted away. Then a good power wash. Drained the milky oil. Removed the spark plugs and sprayed the cylinders with PB Blaster.

Go to Ace Hardware. Pick up 2 7/16" x 1/4" x 1/16" bushing/washer from their pull out drawers. Stack them on top of each other in the counter bore. Then you will need 2 3-48 screws if you have a Carter carb or 2 4-40 screws if it's a Walbro. Some loctite thread locker and peen the threaded ends after installing the plate.

All he's missing is a pair of spurs!

This weekend was the Scott Air Force Base air show here in O’Fallon, IL. What used to be an almost annual event has been pared down in frequency over time, but it’s always an impressive showing of the men, women, and equipment that makes the US military the mightiest force in the world. The headliners were the US Navy Blue Angels with their locally-manufactured (Boeing- St Louis) F18’s but the other demos were equally impressive. I especially liked the F22 and C17 demos. I didn’t choose to spend much time watching the events through my viewfinder so I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but I did snap a few. My wife and I attended both days since we really wanted to see the Blue Angels perform and Saturday’s performance was cancelled due to an epic storm at showtime. We live close enough to the base that we could have watched from our backyard, but it was worth enduring the 86 degree heat and extreme humidity today to see it up close. Scott Air Force Base turns 106 years old this year. The last show was in 2017 at the 100 year anniversary. I believe it is still the only major military installation named after an enlisted serviceman, Corporal Frank S. Scott. Scott was the first aircraft casualty in the US armed forces, having died in an aircraft crash in 1912. The base is the home of the Air Mobility Command which coordinates and controls just about every logistical movement of materiel for all the armed forces. They are the FedEx of the military. Not many assets are stationed here as the base of 15000 people is largely administrative, but blue and white C-40 congressional delegation planes and a fleet of KC-135 refuellers along with an assortment of small aircraft call the base home. We’ve been fortunate where I work to have had projects run out of Scott through their medical evac wing and KC135 programs. I know these events happen all over the US each year and if you’re given the opportunity to take in such an amazing exhibition I encourage you to go see how some of your tax money is spent. Steve (the last picture is of the F22 flying with a P51)

@Pullstart you da man! Gotta say I know now why all those chicks dig you (the ones in the coop, not the house)...

We’ve heard the word, and we still do it… 😆

Second that here in RI. I trim my front hedges about every 2 weeks during the season - have to be REALLY careful as the girls are sunning themselves (along with garter snakes) on the flat top of the hedges....

Almost finished.

@D_Mac try I save tractors , had good luck with their carbs,

I am also in a ....transition? position -- What with my steadily advancing age-- and more importantly-- the less and less chances of getting a 'horse' here in La, my time spent on this wonderful forum has/is becoming less and less. I have sold off all but 2 horses - I've kept a D200 with mower deck (as a back up for a ...Deere mower) and a D160 with no attachments except a 3 point used as a trailer puller. I dont like to use the D200 too much, if/when something breaks - which is more and more often - parts are just too hard to come by, plus my age limits tackling those 'major' breakdown events. To re-state, this forum is just the "bestest" (as my great grand-daughter says)

You can try running the 48, but the blades will have to be sharp, and the grass not too tall. I have mowed with a 48 inch deck on a 12hp hydro Wheel Horse, and thats pushing the limits. Yours is a gear drive, so you don't have to use any of that power/torque to spin a hydro pump. Also set the rpms on that Kohler with a tachometer. You want to have all the rpm's that Kohler is designed to run at.

Perhaps Kevin is working on a "Doctorate of Debacles" degree.

“C’mon back if you ever wanna try again”

Lots of WH work this weekend. I'm going to be away the next 2 weekends in a row so I was trying to cover some ground. First, the blades were dull on both of my 48" SD decks, so I pulled those, pulled the blades and sharpened them. I had been curious as to why, not only was the deck on the GT-1848 not cutting well (assumed the blades were dull) but it was leaving a lot of grass right behind me like it was an RD. Then I remembered that it was a partly refurbed deck and was still missing the baffles (all completely gone). So I used the other deck to make a cardboard template to cut some new material to make baffles for it. I have several weights of material to use - will probably go with the lighter stuff first because it's easiest to cut to shape, but may not hold up. I'm not sure how much pressure the grass thrown by the blades puts on these, but it will be easy enough to go back and do the same with some heavier material if these don't hold up. In the meantime, I had noticed that the hydraulic lift wasn't working on the GT - found that the hydraulics were fine, but the threaded hook or loop that hangs down to attach the chain from the arm to was broken. I stole one end off of a turnbuckle that was the same size & thread, measured the "up" and "down" heights on the 312-A manual lift, and adjusted the hook. Gave everything a good greasing and PB spray while I was under there. Was using that tractor today to pull my dump trailer and move some brush out to my burn pile, and pull my daughter's boyfriend's project car so I could mow where it's been sitting since I moved it a couple weeks ago. Also, the 312-A hadn't been running well. I cleaned the carb last weekend but it was still sputtering a lot and today she wouldn't start at all. Took the spark plug out, grounded it against the engine and cranked it a few times. The spark didn't look quite right. The nearest thing I had on hand was the spark plug from the B-100 I'm working on, so I did the same thing and the spark looked better so I popped that in there. She started right up. I only ran it enough to test the deck and put it back in the garage. Wondering what the implications are of running the wrong spark plug in one of these Kohlers? I.e., plug for a 10hp in a 12hp? The one that came out of the 312-A is a Mega Fire "SE10H". I haven't checked but I'm also wondering if THAT was even the right one to use in that engine. I'll buy a good, correct one ASAP. Oh, and the guy who has the 520-H today said he was tired and very busy, so we're going to talk after I get back from my trip. He said he wouldn't sell it to someone else before then. I hope he keeps his word on that. Hoping to pick up that tractor for a good price ("good" - for me )

Few more

Niiiiice. Little one. Them's the males. Females are the giants. Not super common up here. Might see just a handful a year. Sometimes none at all.

Nice! Good job on fitment. Eric will get to it, he’s dependable

I remember a previous USPS discussion where a package shipped from the mid west to the east coast took a two week vaction in Hawaii before it was delivered.

I wondered that too. Had a friend explain the logistics of the not so logistic means of mail package travel. As hard as it is to believe the goal is to get it there the shortest route and on time......but that all goes out the window when the system gets clogged up. As it turns out the PO has limited storage capacity and material has to be on the move. So, the delivery algorithm will make adjustments to checkerboard the delivery so the system doesn't stop or get shut down. The cause of the frequent flyer miles "Artificial Intelligence" Scary huh?

Mike I did the same thing my self. Bought a 33’ class A motor home. Well that lasted only a few years. And now I am BACK. Hope all goes well. Just take your time and think it thru.

Plunge ... I got an itch... scratch my @$$ please...

I have a 522xi with an Ark loader on it. If I remember correctly I think I had to add about 6" in width.

All you need is a plastic garbage can, battery charger, wash soda, chunk of steel and some wire!

The city inspector stopped by yesterday and did the framing inspection on my front porch roof. Passed. Had occasion to use my dad's brace and bit. The self feeding action of the bit was easier to control while I was drilling a hole perched on the top of a step ladder. It has been a couple of decades since I last used it. Also, a shameless plug for the high school robotics team I mentor.