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This morning I saw my first Robin of the year.. Which for me in Minnesota means it’s time to get the Tractors out…lol

Putting the tractors back in the barn, I found myself laying in the rafters for a cool photo op.

I got the camper out of storage yesterday, so a few things had to move around in the barn. It was good to stretch the legs of so many toys! The old Pontiac looks pretty blah with the stock wheels on it…

Pi Day is on March 14, and any day that combines fun, education, and pie is a day worth celebrating! Pi, also known by the Greek letter “π,” is a constant value used in math that represents the ratio of a circumference of a circle to its diameter, which is just about 3.14….15…9265359… (and so on). Not only that, but the fourteenth of March is also Albert Einstein’s birthday, so all together it’s nothing short of a mathematician’s delight. To learn about pi, we need to go back a few thousand years and learn about this elusive number. The value of pi was first calculated by Archimedes of Syracuse (287–212 BC), one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world. However, it was first baptized with the Greek letter as its name when William Oughtred called it as such in his works dating back to 1647, later embraced by the scientific community when Leonhard Euler used the symbol in 1737. But how did Pi Day end up in a country-wide phenomenon? For that, we need to travel to the Exploratorium in 1988 San Francisco, where it was thought up by physicist Larry Shaw. Shaw linked March 14 with the first digits of pi (3.14) in order to organize a special day to bond the Exploratorium staff together, where he offered fruit pies and tea to everyone starting at 1:59 pm, the following three digits of the value. A few years later, after Larry’s daughter, Sara, remarked that the special date was also the birthday of Albert Einstein, they started celebrating the life of the world-famous scientist. Pi Day became an annual Exploratorium tradition that still goes on today, and it didn’t take long for the idea to grow exponentially, hitting a peak on March 12, 2009, when the U.S Congress declared it a national holiday.

@squonk that muffler looks pretty restrictive!

A couple comments on this modification by an engineer who spent his 40 year carreer in the automotive steel wheel industry: If this was for a dual wheel adaptor, I doubt that it worked very well. Stacking two wheels together with this type of mounting surface will not work very well as the two contoured surfaces will not allow for proper lug nut torque retention. Most likely, the lug nuts would have come loose causing failure of the studs. If used on a tractor to widen the rear track, these would have increased stress on the rear axles, axle bearings, and hubs. Again, this would encourage failure of these components. It might be possible that a second rim was slid over the pipe to create a dual wheel assembly. However, I do not see any marks on the pipe to suggest that this actually happened. It would be interesting to find out why this modification was made. Who knows, the modification might not had even been tractor related.

They're pretty relaxed about things down there. There's no "Club cut" for anything. I don't know of any other seller fee other than being a WHCC member. Just bring your stuff for sale and set it out there. If it's problem, they will simply talk to you and they'll always be more than fair. Most of us set WH stuff out there for sale without any issues at all or fees. There's a big difference between setting up a huge operation taking up a large amount of space than just a guy there unloading some extra tractor parts and stuff.

@Gasaholic There’s no such thing as a “standard 420” As @ebinmaine said only other tractor available for that year that was close to the 20hp that the LSE came with was a 418. There’s obviously a 520 but that doesn’t have a Kohler it has an Onan. Someone else said a wood trimmed steering wheel, but actually it’s a chrome leather wrapped wheel. Then there’s the button tuck leather seat which would be damn near impossible to replicate without the original base frame which is no longer available. Here’s mine 100% factory original except for fluids and the transmission filter. 22hrs on the meter and signed by the man himself Cecil Pond.

Hear that @Achto ??? Our plow day quarters has arrived he gets propane & power on it. I know he has a night time sanitary system on it too ...

In a recent post Brockport Bill asked about being a W/H dealer so I thought I'd write a short story. My family's business in Vermont was started in 1958 by my folks. Our first franchise was Lawn Boy, and then Toro. Soon after we became an Ariens and Jacobsen dealer. We sold a lot of Jacobsen Chief then GT Tractors, which at that time was the only garden tractor we had. As I remember it, Jacobsen was going through some changes and Textron ended up buying them. Our main distributor was down in Massachusetts and was called the RE Jarvis company and with this buy out, they no longer carried Jacobsen, so we were looking for another tractor to fill in this void. Somehow we got hooked up with Wheel Horse and this was so different because it was factory direct, no distributor so this was a new way of doing business for us. I believe we were the second largest W/H dealer in Vermont,197 in Burlington was the biggest. I went to the W/H School of Business out in Notre Dame and I learned a lot about our red tractors and better ways to reach customers! While there the W/H president told us that he had just came from Disney, where people were standing in line waiting to get in there and until we have people standing in line to buy our tractors, we have work to do! After Ariens bought the New Holland garden tractors we carried them. We mainly sold the smaller W/H tractors (only a few D series) and for bigger needs, the Ariens GT, especially if someone was interested in a snowblower because Ariens had their two stage blower way before W/H did. We had W/H until the end (until Toro killed it)! Our business was always very busy in the summers, but during some of the near snowless winters we had, it was tough and it's a miracle that we were able to stay in business all those years! In addition to W/H, Ariens, Toro, Lawn Boy, we had Poulan, Sach/Dolmar, Pioneer, Partner, chainsaws, Roof mowers, New Englander, Yard Man (MTD), Jari, BCS tillers, Kerosun, Toyostove kerosene heaters, Ski-doo and Moto Ski snowmobiles, Yanmar tractors, later Bolens diesel tractors (Iseki) Mercury Outboards, Green Machine and Tanaka trimmers, Didier wood splitters, basically most anything that had a small engine on it! I would love to hear what other dealers experiences were! C-85 Below are some pictures of history, the guy in the cape was the Equalizer (me) and his Super Dog, and she was way more famous than me! A Toro collage I made up -

Was @Pullstart involved? Could be one of his early oil burner prototypes...

I found my own picture on Google! Forgot I posted over here. I rebuilt every last nut and bolt on this thing. Found out the steering box is a Model A as well. It fits the period and had seven different coats of paint on it as well as the rest of the tractor so I figured it was converted early on. It really grew on me so, so much for 'original'. I had to leave it. I still wanted to keep the lever steer handle so I made it a hand brake.

I see you have 314-8, so I guess you asking about a Kohle Magnum starter. The exposed bendix (gear) shaft can get dirty and the gear stick or the spring can break. Look in the Kohler Manuel and it has a good section on starter maintenance. As a temporary test, find the starter bump out on the flywheel tin. Look in there and you should be able to see a little bit of the gear, shaft and spring. Get some brake clean or spray degreaser with a straw. Spray it in the while you have someone operate the starter on/off a couple of times. Bottom line is you need to pull starter and do some maintenance. If you have the Oman 14 I’m not familiar with it, but probable similar.

1985 & 1986 had the K-Series , 1987 & 8 had the Magnum & 1989 - 1997 had the Onan.

Seems those red breasted bandits hang around here year round. And feast on my trout bait (night crawlers) and strawberries.

Just to get us back on topic… Here’s an oldie but goodie!

What a clever trick! Thanks, BC.

@bc_gold wait ! you can't do that , thinking outside the book , i s scary , personally I like it , pete

I use good 'ol DOT 3 brake fluid. Destroys paint.

That was my initial thought as well, coming from never an engineer in any industry

After market parts are not always what they are cracked up to be. But if they help us keep going, then we need to make the best of 'em. Glad to hear that you are making progress.

Started refurb on another "Fireball 8" This is out of a 65 875 so it's a spark advance style engine. New piston and valves. This will be going into my 857 as a temporary engine whilst that engine gets rebuilt. Then it will be a spare bullet if the need arises. Used the old screw and slide hammer trick to remove the deep PTO seal

In addition to joining the WHCC, you may want to join the KGCFBC. Only $50 dues and you get a free 5 gallon bucket. I am the treasurer. Kennell Grandsons College Fund Bucket Club

(x * y) / (g *k) +(3.14 x 2r) = why the chicken crossed the road

Awesome!

Saw our first Robin yesterday

Buy abrasive from sandblaster supply like Eastwood or TP Tools. Even Harbor Freight has decent glass bead

Second choice - needle scaler. Third - bead blast.

The spring ritual when we were still doing the camper thingy. Clean the spider webs out of the furnace, hot water heater and stove.

I'm going to guess vermin involvement.

I'd buy a 122 for $200! I had a 102 once, good machine. I still use a 104 for plowing the deer plots and my dad uses it in the winter to bring in firewood. The only thing about them is that I think they're harder to work on than a horse. Everything is put together with roll pins. I put a whole new clutch in the 104 complete with driveshaft, throw out bearing, teaser spring, the works and it was quite a job.

A 109 was the 6th iteration of the Cub Cadet, following the Original, 100, 102, 104, and 106. The third number, if even, was for the gear drives, and if odd was hydrostatic, so a 109 was 10 hp hydrostatic drive, while the 108, which came out at the same time was the 10 hp gear drive version. Starting with the 147, IH started putting 14 hp engines in them, and starting with the 169, IH also started putting 16 hp engines in. The 108, 109, 128, 129, 149 and the 169 was the first of the wide frame Cubs which added more room between the frame rails for easier maintenance. The 122, mentioned in the OP's post, was considered a narrow frame.

I have some hub caps in the trunk, next to the shiny chrome circle track wheels and tires.

On the plus side it's definitely super quiet

Water cant get in when left outside in the rain! It will all go into the points!

The 122 was the third iteration of the Cub Cadet, the first was the Original, then the 70 and 100, and then the 122, which was part of a line that included the 10 hp 102, the 12 hp 122, and the 12 hp hydrostatic drive 123. Very heavy duty tractors. The 122 had the same, 3 speed transmission of the Farmall Cub. No hydraulics, but a helper spring was an option, as was a hydraulic pump or electric lift. $200 is a good buy for one. Below is the 122 I had years ago.

Or, My spot! 10% commission, ONLY 1 hot dog and I'll let you take the WH bike for a ride.

Drive out the pin remove the handle mount trany reinstall the handle

No wood trimmed steering wheel. Leather wrapped chrome 3 spoke steering wheel with 4 holes in each spoke. No such standard 420 that I am aware of. $ 8000.00 with 48'' side discharge deck and misc other items. blah blah blah.

When they came out in 1986 there was no other 20 horse engine. The largest available on a standard offering was a 418. 18 horse Kohler twin. That was a couple years before the 520 Hydro or 8-speed came out. The 400 Series have the Kohler engine. The 500 series had the Onan engine.

Doing the same thing Ed Kennell did getting into the season! Well after three 70 degree days time to remove the snowplow and put my mower deck back on my 1974 Wheel Horse B-80. Still going strong like my 701 and one of my RJ-58’s!

More progress after being unexpectedly called in to work on my day off. I’ll check it for issues in the morning.

This one is from the Marketplace ad. A couple more.

That is Kool !!

Need some help identifying some dual wheel rims I recently purchased, they have numbers and a Firestone USA label but I can't seem to find any information about them, Thanks for any help

Thanks for posting!!! Great stuff!!!