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As of February I'm officially an "empty nester". After a long search my son & his fiance' finally found a house that fit their needs. He had mentioned to to his Mother that "I think I'm going to need a Wheel Horse to mow the lawn", her reply was "I think your Dad can spare one". LOL. So I'm starting him out on the same model & deck I started out on in 1979, one of my C-81's with a 36" RD deck. I've had her ready to go for him for a while now & since the trailer was stiil hooked up from @Pullstart's plowday on Saturday, I decided Sunday was the day. All I can say is this was one of the greatest weekends of my life that I'll always rememember. Loaded up Delivered And yes, I'll give him a mule drive with a knob on it.

Midwest Utilitor The Midwest Engine Company of Indianapolis, Ind., began making a walk behind tractor prior to 1920 called the Midwest Utilitor which was powered by a one-cylinder, 4-cycle, water cooled Midwest Engine. The Utilitor had two steel lugged drive wheels and a pair of rear dolly wheels and weighed 750 pounds. It had steering clutches to aid in turning and a weight between the handlebars to compensate for the heavy engine forward of the drive wheels. A full array of plows and cultivators was available. Also available was a two-gang disc harrow, with four disc blades on each gang, an Acme blade-type pulverizing harrow, a 3-row garden seeder, a spring tine cultivator, and an adapter for hitching a 3 1/2 foot one-horse mower. Many of the images in their advertising featured women operating the walk-behind tractor, others were aimed at potential dealers to sell the tractors. Like so many other companies Midwest Engines suffered in the Great Depression. By 1929, the tractor was being manufactured by a Utilitor company that was in Dayton, Ohio. Toward the end of the depression the Utilitor General-Purpose four-wheel tractors joined the two-wheel version with the new Dayton OH address. indicates that the company moved or was acquired. No conclusive information could be found. Midwest Engine Company supplied power for several manufacturers including Lauson Tractors of New Holstein, WI. Lauson made tractors from 1926 until 1929. Production ceased when the Great Depression started, and Lauson did not get paid for many of their tractors. Electric generators were also built by Midwest which were very important to rural America in the late 1920s.

Flywheel Horse came out of the winter stables and pulled yard duty!

Finally got time to lay some paint on my buddies 702 project, 3 coats of base and 3 of clear. Came out pretty decent for being 2 hoods welded together. By far the roughest hood I'd ever saved. There's a little dirt in it but what to you expect for an old garage lol

A few years ago at @WHX?? plow day I lost my wallet in the field while plowing. Fact jokes are still made about that. To top that off, shortly there after I plowed my phone under while plowing at my brothers place. After these events, my wife requested that I either empty my pockets while plowing or plow in nothing but my under ware. My brother was planting his field today, he looked down & thought crap I dropped my phone. Well... he didn't drop his phone, he actually found the phone that I lost. Pretty sure if I put it in a bowel of rice and clean it up it should still work. Now if we could only find my wallet.

After my plow day weekend, I was glad to be able to let Justin eat a bit of furrow sammich! I believe I have a smaller plow that would benefit the cause here, it needs a different hitch welded to it. Once complete, it’ll remind me how generous my pal @roadapples was, he gave a couple plows to me hoping they would be put to use. The engine on Justin is quite amazing, until it gets warm. Once it’s been run around long enough, it starts venting quite a bit of oil. I sure do enjoy the way a Suburban drives, over the RJs. A huge Thanks! to those Spaniards running the RJs hard in the furrow, and Cecil listening to his customers!

For a while at least. Painted that screen with what ever color @WHX?? handed me, think it was paint for marking on the ground. Then some one suggested that it should have a pumpkin face. Things like that happen with boredom &

Old classmate does yard clean up and excavation. He cleaned out a barn for a family of a deceased Allis Chalmers collector. They gave him all of this and he asked me if I wanted it as he had no idea what to do with it. Stuff has been sitting a while but everything spins and moves. A B212 and 2 712 hydros with a sickle, mid grader, snow blower, garden scratcher, 2 decks, dozer blade and the remnants of a snow cab. I may have a buyer lined up for all of it already!

It was good to get this 551 going as well. There was a bit of fuel in the tank, but the bowl was shut off. The carb bowl was squeaky clean! I drained the fuel out of the tank and shot some fresh rec fuel in there. After a couple pulls, it popped to life with a big ole cloud of smoke while everyone was in the shop eating lunch! The battery I had for it was kaput, and so was the next one on the charger. After Dan and Jim messed around with the wiring for a while, we came to an ahah moment, where the starter solenoid can be wired in two ways. If the positive from the battery is on one post, it needs a ground signal to click the starter. If the positive lead is on the other post, it can be hit with positive juice to excite the coil. Crazy stuff. With a jump, it fires off the 12 volt shock box! I liked the C series wheels and tires on the front, but they grabbed on the grub screws of the foot rests. I stuck some originals back on it and it steers very well. The rear rolling stock was from the black hood that @SylvanLakeWHsent home with me for hauling his prized zapper and RJ yard art home from the Big Show. Check out those nubbies, they are fresh!

Mike didn't mention the hitchhiker that jumped into his trailer for a ride. Several months ago I bought an electric A-60 which Jim and Dam picked up for me and brought to @Pullstart Plow Day. Mike then loaded it in his trailer for the ride east to PA where I will pick it up during the Big Show. Big thank you to @WHX??, @Achto and @Mike'sHorseBarn for pulling this off. The Wheel Horse Express works because of great people.

Thanks to @WHX?? this 1267 went from WI to PA! Saw it on Facebook several months ago and asked Jim if he was closeby and he was indeed. After some intersting interactions with the seller it finally went to his house. I believe he started a thread on that. Anyway, he took it to pullstarts plowday and I went out to get at his place in michigan. I'm super pumped to have this sweet machine in my collection! Chaged all the fluids tonight. Good thing too cause the crankcase was full of gas! It was probably because of a bad float jim fixed, but I rebuilt the fuel pump too for good measure.

My neighbor is into old cars and just pulled in with this gem He found down in Md. Then he said he also had this in the bed of his truck. Said he brought it along in case I wanted it. Yep! Accepting all interest and info on it's ID.

The C-81 had mulch duty yesterday & today after work, she still has @Pullstart's cornfield mud on her feet.

Ok, I just dubbed him Sir Wally.

Speaking of painting! Painted the rims for my C-175 restoration today, actually I prepped them and my brother painted them. Primed with a good epoxy primer, then sanded a lot!! Brought a decent rim with good factory paint to the hardware store and matched it up with an oil base Benjamin Moore linen white. I’m super happy with the results.

Well the process is complete. The original seat cover of my 312-8 was seriously compromised and repairing it has been on my to do list all winter. After putting on a temporary seat I was able to tackle the project beginning by ordering a yard of vinyl from Walmart (Marine Vinyl Upholstery Fabric Black 54" Wide By the Yard Boat Auto $20.46) and some adhesive (3M Super 77 CA Multipurpose Spray Adhesive, Low VOC, $28.00). The can of adhesive was much more than I needed, but can be used for other projects. Reading the instructions on the adhesive it is some nasty stuff so all my work was done outside with a mild breeze. I also used some rubber cement which will be mentioned later. So let's look at some photos and the steps I took. 1 - Original seat 2 - Disassembly process - See following photos - Remove the metal clip from edging and peal the edging off. Save the edging for reinstallation. 3 - Remove foam and clean up seat pan. Seat pan was in fairly good condition, using sandpaper and steel wool I cleaned it up and wiped down with mineral spirits. 4 - Original idea was to replace seat foam with some foam from an old sleeper couch. Not a good idea as it was too thick. 5 - Searched youtube for videos of seat repairs where I learned about the 3m 77 adhesive and also how to repair the orginal seat foam. Taking a piece of couch cushion I glued it into place using rubber cement. Using a hacksaw blade (for want of a better tool) the patch was cut to rough shape and then sanded. Sanding did not come out as well as I would have liked, but it worked. The original foam was then glued to the seat pan using the 34 77. Be careful with this step for once the glued surfaces mate they are attached. 6 - Vinyl installation. This was the difficult part. After spending some time laying the fabric on the seat and thinking through the process I decided to start by adhering the vinyl to the seat top first. The 3m 77 works great, but also works fast. After the seat the back was then glued into place. Now all the edges were adhered. After the vinyl was fully glued down the edging was put back on. The ends of the edging did not meet and I believe the new vinyl covering is thicker than the original material. Final thoughts. Am I happy with the results? Yes and no. When gluing the sides of the seat and back into place the new vinyl developed a pleat near the base of the back. This I am sure it due to my inexperience. Would I do it again? Yes but I might take some cheap fabric and try to make a template to solve the pleat problem If upon my reviewing this post I discover anything I left out I will edit it or if anyone has a question that clarifies what I did I may add that. Final photo -

Working with help from a friend on the mount for the mid-blade so it’ll have lift, rotation, and roll (tilt). He has a Hyster with long forks. It makes me nervous having it so high up there but dang is it convenient to get under to work on! Upper and lower grader frame parts coming along. Tomorrow the main parts should be together and then onto final design and implementation of the controls.

NO PICS PLEASE! LOL

I did the same with my son back in 2019… 310-8 with a deck (and eventually a plow).

Yeah or WH plows for slot style hitches. Most of my tractors with Brinly hitches don't have draw bars so that adapter would come in handy for tubs too.

Ed, you need to have Mrs. K bake your neighbor his favorite pie! Not every day you get an uncut RJ hood, shower-head muffler and a three-piece transmission to ad to your Big Show sales buckets.

@Ed Kennell interesting ! You have about 60 days before BS so you can fix it. Leave the pipes on the front , they are Sir Skunky catchers , you can chase you know who around the grounds at the BS.

Going to have to come up with a timer that activates the shocker when the tractor has been sitting for 30 seconds without moving.

I never lock the parking brake on. That's how I remember.

As long as they are in good operating condition either one should be fine for mowing and towing. You should warm up the transmission and then test it by chaining the tractor to a tree and see if it will spin the tires.

Yes, will point you in the right direction. I seen one were the ignition module was going bad when it warmed up and would turn off intermittently. But If i was betting, my money would be on what Richard said about the 9 pin.

Sounds like a loose wire to me. I would start at the 9 pin connector, You may have a wire that is corroded or very loose that isn't making continuous connection.

Yep I did bring a hitchhiker and I gotta say it's a fun little thing to ride around on!

After half a jar of spicy pickled quail eggs, I could make those reeds move!

Not sure what that piece in the middle is. This should be all the pieces that there is to the hitch. https://wheelhorsepartsandmore.com/product/toro-wheel-horse-brinly-clevis-hitch-sleeve-hitch/ The hitch on the plow should be pinned through the sleeve in the hitch.

I am an old lazy dog that only had Eaton 1100 tractors all equipped with foot pedal motion control. But last fall I picked up this 310-8 for cheap and thought I would probably flip it. But it came with a nice 42"SD that mows nice so I decided to keep it as a dedicated mower. The problem is today after mowing for two hours, I left it running while I parked it to go for a drink. When I came back and started mowing again, the engine bogged down when the tractor started to move. I tried all gears and it bogged the engine down. I disengaged the PTO and it still bogged down. I started to think locked up tensioner pulley or bad tranny was why it was such a good buy. Then I realized these gear drives have a parking brake that works. Released the brake and mowed for another hour. A couple other times while mowing, I pushed the left pedal to go faster and when it bogged down again, I remembered it is not a hydro motion pedal but a brake and I have to change gears to go faster. So, for the question, how do you gear drivers remember to release the brake? The old dog that is still learning new tricks.

Are we gonna have a new member with lots of repair questions and how to fix PO mods?

When you have your right tires in the furrow, the inside of them should be tight against the left edge of the furrow. The right hand edge of your plow should stay in line with the inside of the right rear tire. If the plow wants to drift to the left (away from the furrow) then you have a set up issue. The cure for this is explained in Brinly's complete instructions. A "band aid" for this is to use the two bolts on the sleeve hitch to keep the plow from swinging to the left. Tighten the bolts against the plow to stop side to side movement. One other thing that can cause your plow to drift out of the furrow is a bent back bone. It takes some practice to get them tuned in properly. https://brinly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/efymirhk2pechs8bfhjk.pdf Any way that you can post pics of the plow hooked to the tractor. Show the hitch and step back a ways so we can see how it lines up with the rear tires.

Interesting RJ project. Wow, that Briggs engine has a Shower Cap Muffler.................Score 58/59 RJ Briggs not the original engine, but if it runs ......... Homemade belt guard, but nicely done. Left front rim might need a littttle fiberglass repair Seat should be a round hole seat. Dibbs on that square pan one, I might have a round hole one to trade you! Rectangular tube front axle is correct for RJ Hood has "Wheel Horse" stamped into it. Correct for 58/59 RJ Homemade foot rest. 3 Piece transmission. When you remove the tool box look if the top of the transmission has a date code cast in it.

Both my 1979 C81 and my 1964 854 8 Speed use Identical Unidrives..."We don't need no stinkin' Parking Brakes!!" Ist gear in Low range is just as good!!!

In forward and reverse with you in the seat. The Sundstrands have a pressure relief run/tow valve that will permit pushing or towing to move by hand. The Eatons can not be towed. The Eaton 700 is very difficult to move by hand and will not have a hydraulic lift. The Eaton 1100 (IMO, the best Wheel Horse Hudro) can be pushed by hand and can have a hydraulic lift.

Thank you, I downloaded the guide and I think I’m on the right track. If I jump juice directly from the battery to the coil and the issue is fixed I can assume the trigger module is ok I believe. I think the seat safety switch is already jumped as it runs with no one on the seat. My older 520 had issues with the molex plug and fuse block. I cut that all out and put an aftermarket plug and fuse bus in it and had no further issues in the 10 or 12 years since. Since I got the 95 the older one is relegated to driveway plowing and grading duties so it doesn’t see the usage it used to.

I took quite a bit of videos cruising tractors out. I’m working on putting videos together, but dangit I never took video of Hot Wheels Oh man, I guess I’ll have to fire him back up soon! I realized this weekend that I have a lot of weak batteries! I’ve made them all last quite a while, but when you acquire so many electric start rides in a short amount of time, it’s only a given they all die at the same time!

And/ or the coil. The Onan ignition coil sometimes will fail intermittently when they heat up.

She survived the winter! Pulled her out of the stables, oiled and gassed her up, filled the water hopper and went right to work!

Here’s a better pic before I took it off the 314 so should I take the piece with the 2 holes in it off and use the plow without it

whopping 700 watts, and to think that was cutting edge stuff. Life was so less convenient. Or should I say less demanding. Sure is interesting how they made machines from simple ideas work so well.

You can get it at Harbor Freight, Lowe's, HD probably Wallyworld too. https://www.harborfreight.com/material-handling/moving-supplies/packing-tape-wrap/stretch-bubble-wrap.html

Well Mike looks to be a fine workin tractor. Are you just going to mow with it? I would when you can give it a good cleaning so you can see if any leaks from the engine to the rear axels. I just did a 1057 this way will pay me back in the end.

It drove real nice, when I unloaded it from the trailer! Good n tite Thanks again for the sausages, they were awesome on the smoker!

My rookie mistakes have been replaced with elder-error. Getting ready to load up for the Wheel Horse, I was so happy at how the K-161 on my 701 started instantly. As you know, the 701 has no parking brake, so there it was, sitting in 1st gear to keep it from rolling away from the ramp of my trailer. I turned the key, pushed the starter button, and you guessed it, there she went, riderless, up the ramp.

Well said sir! I did the same with my 310-8 once. It was in gear, but you have to depress the clutch to start. I stood beside the tractor, pushed the clutch to start, and stepped off. Elder dummy here never looked to see if it was in gear. My building still has black marks on the floor, and the front door has never quite shut the same. Luckily my 200+ lbs were not on the seat to provide addition traction on the treated plywood floor.

My C-165 Automatic