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Fired up the Fireball 8 on the Wheel a Matic for the first time after rewire and carb rebuild. B-80 engine has new valves and rings. Used the flywheel and shroud of the original engine.

Put the last deck on the storage dolly for the winter storage. Got our first snow this AM....better go warm up the 520H and the Ber Vac dually.

Been snowing all night plowed about 6:30 but has added more... lost half a tree up against the house. Been using the Charger 16 with the big plow (56in) from a D series..This heavy wet stuff is about all she can deal with actually drags the engine down before I spin out. Sorry no actionvpics my photographer avoid the out side when it snows Power off since 3:15 am

I've had a 5x8 aluminum utility trailer with wood stake sides for quite a few years. Fantastic small trailer that is easy to haul and is small enough for my tractors to haul around the yard no problem. It has served me (and many other friends/family) very well, but it had a few downsides.....I never had a proper set of ramps that worked with it well, and it was a little "short" for my last tractor pickup After a few conversations with my old man, he decided that we both "needed" access to a larger trailer with proper ramps. So, an agreement was made. I passed my trusty old trailer on to him, and we worked a deal out for this beautiful specimen a 5'8"x12' all aluminum with 24" sides and a bifold ramp. Just brought it home yesterday. Its so nice, I kinda don't want to haul anything in it...LOL. But at least I won't be scaring the hell out of myself driving my zero turn up/down a set of 2x10s again

Oh, the opportunities to make an off color remark on that quote are endless. When you put the tractor back together use a dab of blue loctite thread locker on the bolts.

Just out of curiosity I checked the head bolt torque on a Kohler Magnum 10 engine. The manual calls for 25 to 30 foot pounds, I started at 25, no movement, went to 30, still ne movement, change to 40, nothing. At 45 foot pounds a couple of the head bolts did move a bit, most didn't. My guess is the factory torques them to 45 knowing they are using new bolts and no owner is going to retorque them. When torqueing head bolts I lay this little memory aid on top of the head so I don't have to look up the sequence.

Maybe some photos will provide a little inspiration for you. Served my father well for over 40 years , and it's mine now and not going anywhere anytime soon. This trailer hauled every Wheel Horse that we sold or serviced. He bought it used and always said it was the best $100 bucks he ever spent

Wow! I've never had an old post of mine referenced before! I just wish it wasn't the one where I tried to run over my garage I did get everything sorted out, thanks to the advice on the other thread and some of the same advice on this thread. A new belt went a long way (I'm using one with fabric sides from TSC) as well as a good cleaning of the drive pulley on the engine. That is the pulley that you want to slip. When you have the clutch in, the belt is loose and is actually stopped by the belt guard up near the engine. This is why you're gonna have a hard time switching gears with no belt cover. As you slowly let off the clutch, you're tightening the belt around the engine pulley and you want it to slip a good amount. This lets both the tractor get up to speed, as well as doesn't shock your engine. I saw in your original pics your pulley was a little rusted and your belt was shiny. Shiny belts grip faster/harder, which is great in some applications, but not for what we need.

Not a fix but, why not add some weight up front? I bet it helps...Weight is your friend on a ...

Went out again to clear area in front of shop and driveway...It is a magnum 16 and thus has the walbro fixed main jet. May swap in a Kohler #30 seems to be a bit too lean when she really hits the big piles.. Still no action shots

Get Trina and the video camera back out there and do it again. You know if there are no pictures, it didn't happen. is foofed one of those words that only appears in a Maine dictionary?

Made a start on the front hubs. They have a distinctive star shaped flange in the centre which is not accurately copied on the model. I decided to try and replicate this in scale and had to think about how I could do this. I decided on machining a brass plate with false bolt heads on it and a brass grease cap with a stud set in it to screw into the stub axle. With the wheel in place it looks good, just have to make 2mm headed bolts to sit in the holes in the flange.

Ignore it.

Despite the fact it has "electric" right there in the name, it's a fairly common misconception that dielectric grease is capable of conducting electricity. In actual fact, dielectric grease is an insulator and doesn't conduct electricity. Use it to seal out moisture and cooties. do not go overboard.

I didn’t even see this

Soooooo..... picked this up this morning. Kinda excited about it but also asking myself if I really need it. I need to learn to ask if I need it and not ask do I want it. It is a one owner 946 Snowco with original operators manual. Little rusty but not rotted. Fenders are the worst part of it. They are dented up pretty good. Has a hand winch up front, splash or gravel guard, non-skid decking all original. The previous owners purchased it new in 1965 when they bought a JD garden tractor from a dealer. Thank God it wasn't painted green and yellow. The cool factor on these little trailers are off the chart. Tilt bed just drive right up. So after buying it I have no way of getting home. My truck has no hitch. Call a friend who is a little leary of hooking it up because of the whole there's no lights or plate on it. We wind up taking it to a friend of his that was like a mile away. Him and I worked out a deal where as he is going to rewire it, install new LED lights and replace the cable on the winch for a reasonable price. I will get it from his place next week. Not sure what my plans for it will be. If I lean towards keeping it I would have to put a hitch on my truck. It sits pretty low so I'm not sure if just putting a ball on my bumper would do the trick. May just pass it on, I dunno. I could picture it painted up to match your favorite tractor color scheme. That's what these things were built for. Be a hit at the Big Show !

Wanted score these seat pads while they were available. You never know when sources dry up. Had to try them on for size before packaging them back up and storing them for future use.

Put these weights on my 856 after she flipped over and put me in the hospital.

I would check your wheel bearings. Other than that, you probably have a slightly bent steering knuckle. Pretty easy to source another one. …But if you’re tough enough to bend it in a vise- even with a hammer, I never want to meet you on the street!

Here’s another picture to help nudge you towards a purchase and satisfy your addiction… My 1994 520H…

With that amount of land whether it's grass or not you could certainly justify another tractor or seven.

Using dielectric grease on any electrical connection is a good idea. The nine pin connector was used by Onan for their convenience, not because it is the best connector available. The contacts were never adequate for high current loads and should never have been used on outdoor equipment. If the RED wire going to the battery from the fuse block and the WHITE wire from the voltage regulator were not run through the 9 pin connector it wouldn't be a problem. The other wires don't carry a great deal of current so the don't have a great likelihood of overheating. Over time with vibration and corrosion the contacts develop resistance to current flow and overheat. My suggestion would be to remove the RED and WHITE wires from the 9 pin and splice them, white to white and red to red, with soldered connections.

Can’t beat a C-160! Definitely one of my favorites in my collection

As a road collision investigation cop we didn't have to worry about that until Sheffield decided to re introduce a tram system many years after it had ripped out the last one because it was no longer necessary. So we had cars and trucks on rubber/tarmac sharing the same space as trams on steel/steel contact. In the early years there were lots of crashes between road vehicles, pedestrians and the "Supertram". Mainly because everyone thought the tram could stop on a sixpence (dime) and they would pull out/walk into it's path expecting it to stop....it didn't. We treated the coefficient of friction between rail and steel wheel as being 0.1, the same as a rubber tyre on black ice! Braking initially slowed the wheel rotation, heavier braking might lead to a lock up and sliding, emergency braking triggered a "sanding command" which released dry sand in front of the wheels to increase friction, "Oh Sh1t!" Braking dropped powerful electromagnets onto the rails to wring out the last bits of friction. As an aside, in driver training as a cop, we were always told of the acronym "B B F F S B" if the instructor shouted that you were probably in the Sh1t already. It stood for Brake, BRAKE, for f@#ks sake BRAKE! There usually wasn't time to repeat the instruction.

Regardless of the load your tractor is moving from A to B... NEVER pull up on the hydro engagement lever (Park) when the tractor is moving. You MUST only use the Parking Pawl (Brake) when at a COMPLETE STOP! ! If you pull up the lever while in motion, tiny fragments of the parking pawn get sheared off and find their way to the soft brass parts I mentioned.

So, a B80 8-speed?? Nice!! Sounds like the dis-assembly has begun already. A couple of pointers - Pictures... take lots of pictures from different angles as you go. Particularly of the "little" stuff. Wire routing, linkage for carb, etc. The stuff that drives you crazy at re-assembly. Organization - bag & tag fasteners as you go. You will need a clean area at least 4x the footprint of the tractor for work & storage. Remove the engine and Unidrive (they can stay intact, for now) Bare frame - DO inspect the "F" plate on the frame mounts the Unidrive for cracks around the 4 bolt holes. If it is damaged, NOW is the time to fix it. Inspect anything that moves for wear. Front axle joints, clutch & brake linkages, upper & lower steering. Decide to repair or replace accordingly. "Do it once, do it right" Bill

Sounds like you’ve got a nice collection… I started riding 70’s Kawasaki’s.. graduated to 70’s Honda’s.. then moved onto 60’s BMW’s and a few from the 50’s. Currently I’ve got a 1951 BMW R67, several /2 era BWM twins from the 60’s and a 1984 BMW R80G/S Paris Dakar to name a few of the interesting machines in the shop.

Agreed. Of course these days I never come close to that weight anymore. Back when I cut wood for my stove? I probably exceeded that regularly.

Tracked down Matt on FB and contacted through Messenger

Today, on Wheel Horse corner… I painted the battery hold down and installed it in the 308. I mentioned in a text to @ebinmaine “it’s getting too nice for a bungee cord.” I’m about 2 hours from @ebinmaine and it’s high forties and fifties with rain off and on all day. When the white stuff comes, I've been practicing by pushing back my brother's horse manure pile with the 308.

Gonna need video on that... rules is rules...

It's tough quoting @SylvanLakeWH but he 's spot on with the front weight. The simplest and least expensive is to fill your front tires with RV Antifreeze or beet Juice. Since your not planning on using a mower deck, you can make weight mounting brackets that use the front hitch. Also like Sylvan and Ed kennel, I find weight machine's at the curb or Dumb Bells or steel weights P.S. Keep working through things you'll have that Horse tamed.

Agreed @SylvanLakeWH - I just need to find a cheap, easy way to add a bit of weight. I'll have to do some research

I don't normally run my tractor in third gear because my terrain is really rough and second is about all I want. But on the rare occasion that I am in the upper yard and feel like doing six plus mph for a few feet, I always start third gear with the engine just above idle.

Parking brake decal applied to tunnel cover plate. Battery warning decal applied to inside of console.

Perzactly. A definition of a capacitor is two conductors separated by a dielectric.

Hood stand plate and decal ready. Decal taped on. Decal applied. Holes cut out for headlight switch and ignition switch. Last decals applied to plate. Thanks to Terry for all these great decals, my machines would be incomplete without them.

I think that perhaps because I no longer have much time for riding my motorcycles, my interest has shifted to the only machine I get time to enjoy at this point in my life, my 1989 520H. I used to lay down thousands of miles across my many vintage bikes a year, but now with 3 young children, I just don’t prioritize those rides anymore but with 12 odd acres of grass to keep cut, I still get a hundred odd hours of cutting in on the Wheel Horse every season. My cutting season is just about over though with the first snow of the season falling this morning. In the next few weeks I’ll pull the deck, scrub it clean and get it oiled up and stored for next year then do my bi-annual full service and maintenance to make sure the horse is ready to go in the spring.

Thank you for sharing this!

Or as Cedric the entertainer once said “I wish a mutha****** WOULD” say I’m in his water… I’ll bet the bluebirds spend a bit more time looking over their shoulders for a while!

I summited Mt. Washington on foot with my son via Tuckerman’s, the Lions Head, and then cairn to cairn across a fog-shrouded Alpine Meadow in March one year. We came out onto the parking lot at the top with icicles in our beards only to see folks who came up on the cog train wearing shorts and tees and bewildered looks! Had a photo op at the high point marker, some hot chocolate and soup in the cafe, and then hiked back down.

Known for the most aggressive weather in the world!

Did a K car ever make 5 years.

Vintage motorcycles??? Got anything interesting? I have a few. 1970 Bultaco Matador MK3 my dad bought new when he came home from Vietnam. 1972 Honda CL175- all original, even the tires! 1983 Kawasaki GPZ750 turbo. 1984 Yamaha RZ 350 Kenny Roberts edition w/1800 original miles.

That is old used motor oil. I'll let is soak and dry in the sun for a few days before storage.

I made some good progress on rehabbing a pretty tired and worn 1963 dozer blade and getting it set to go on the 854. I’m going to experiment with plowing this winter instead of using the walk-behind blower. The last couple of years the blower was needed only a couple of times while I had to push-shovel a lot of 3-4” snowfalls that were quite wet. This frame/blade came to me through @ebinmaine. The angle lever and rod as well as mounting brackets were already gone before he got it. The ’63 42" dozer was a unicorn. Last frame with a foot release for the angle lock, first frame with cast iron ends on the trip springs. It mounted via two separate angle iron brackets with ¾” shoulder bolts for the frame pivots. Here’s the OM and IPL, if you are curious! Since I don’t know if this is a long term relationship, I prepped and painted only the face of the blade. At some point in its life, the lower blade must have worn past the wear edge because a PO layered in a new 4” band of sheet steel to rebuild the lower edge and then attached a new wear strip. Not a bad piece of work, but s/he never painted it! You can see the new band extending above the bolted on wear edge in the picture. I’m too lazy to want to have to bolt/unbolt the frame to mount the blade so from @wallfish I got one of the newer “inside” brackets. I’ve adapted the frame by adding a ¾” rod through the frame end holes and used a 1.5" spacer bushing on each side to keep the frame centered on the bracket. I drilled and cottered the spacers to the rod so it’s a reversible adaptation. I’d previously added a front attach-a-matic to the 854. It usually holds a front weight that helps me feel secure on the uphill parts of my property. But I was concerned about possible interference with the old-style “triangle” frame. Whew, it just misses! BTW, as many of you know, the nuts on the bracket bolts are a close clearance. The perfect use case for my recent birthday present--a set of Craftsman Pro ratchet/open end combo wrenches! The solid lift link (I’ll add a picture after it’s painted) is 10.5” on center for the ⅜” holes and it’s bent to have an offset of about 1” outboard at the plow frame. It attaches in the second from the end hole on the rock shaft arm. I’m waiting on a rod and Heim ends to build the angle actuator rod and finish the angle control lever. More pics and measurement progress then!

I took the last deck off and prepped for hibernation.

Wheels finally done, valve stems and dust caps made from M2.5mm bolts. Just got to make a suitable centre for the hubs now. The mode is designed to have a csk screw fitted as an extra way for retaining the hub. But it looks wrong so I'll make something to fit that looks the part.