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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.

My dad has one of those on his 312-8. Came with the tractor to counter balance the Trac Vac unit.

Back in about 1992 my wife worked in a building that had a garden and mirrored glass at the front entrance. One day as she was leaving a humming bird flew into the mirror glass and fell down near her. She picked it up and put it in a small box in the car. After picking our son up from daycare she opened the box to show him. The bird had only knocked itself out, and now revived flew around inside the car. They drove hove a bout 15 miles of heavy traffic with the bird flying around. When they got home the parked in the garage, closed the door and let the bird fly around in the garage. I was tasked to catch the bird but never succeeded. Finely opened the garage door and let it fly free. Then there was the small owl that flew up my garage attic access ladder and sat on the wind turbine going round and around. But that’s a story for another day.

@Alrashid2 A pic of the front weight. The 312 is the tractor on the right. I put the weight on when I had the issue of wheelies like you are having. I think the OP bought it for counterweight as he was 300+ at the time.

As a native Mainer, An appropriate Maine substitute could be “stove up”or something less NSFW “ ****** up” 😁

Glad to see you are back out in the shop and sharing your progress with us.

The clutch on my 310-8 works perfectly. The clutch can be eased in with no grabbing. I use the TSC wrapped belts. Note the amount of travel in the idler pulley. Does your idler pulley have the angled plate behind the belt retainer? This plate should contact a clutch dampening cylinder that eases the belt into tension.

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

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.

or this for leaves and compost