White wheel horse ?

[Mark siebenaler 88]

Maybe  someone at the factory  put in the wrong paint?

[Handy Don 12,233]

Just now, Mark siebenaler said:

Maybe  someone at the factory  put in the wrong paint?

Not so easy. In a factory, parts arrive from different suppliers at different times and get painted in batches. Intercepting a full set of parts for one tractor before they got painted and then getting them all together in one place to get painted, cleaning and changing the sprayer equipment to the new color, painting, changing the equipment back, drying, tracking, and on and on... A TON of extra effort and expense for one tractor? Could it have been done? Sure. Likelihood? Near zero in my mind.

 

[The Freightliner Guy 1,327]

10 minutes ago, Mark siebenaler said:

Maybe  someone at the factory  put in the wrong paint?

or maybe cub cadet pulled a prank on wheel horse 

[Racinbob 11,082]

I've been deeply interested in Wheel Horses since 1960. I've toured the South Bend plant several times and seen the assembly process which of course included the painting line. While I or nobody else can say with 100% certainly that they didn't do one offs in a different color I wouldn't hesitate to say I'm 99.5% certain. The only other color was the gray Work Horse series in the mid 80's and they weren't one offs. I have no doubt though that dealers repainted some and just said that they were 'factory'. Orange and yellow sometimes show up but this is the first white one I've seen. From the factory? Nope. From a dealer who repainted it? Maybe but unlikely. Got it from a guy who got it from a guy who said he got it from the original owner who said it came from the factory like that when he actually got it from a guy who repainted it? Most likely. Sorry. The Ponds were way too che.....................frugle to do one offs at the factory. 

[Achto 27,594]

I think that your ID tag & the white paint on the motion control lever tells the story. If it was painted in the factory your motion control lever would have still been anodized silver & your ID tag would look like this.

 

It's just paint though, I would still pick it up if the price is right. Then you can paint it any color that you like. Please no JD green. 

Edited March 10, 2023 by Achto

[c-series don 8,710]

@ebinmaine I agree with @Racinbob I can’t imagine the factory painting one tractor a different color, waaay too much work to change colors. If they did change they would have painted more than one, had they done that I believe we would have seen one by now. To me this is in the same category as the Work Horse that was supposedly painted black from the factory. We’ve only seen one or two ever. No written proof was ever presented about that being available. I bought my Work Horse GT-1800 brand new from the dealer and they never once said it was available in black. Sorry didn’t mean to change the subject. 

[Racinbob 11,082]

52 minutes ago, c-series don said:

@ebinmaine I agree with @Racinbob I can’t imagine the factory painting one tractor a different color, waaay too much work to change colors. If they did change they would have painted more than one, had they done that I believe we would have seen one by now. To me this is in the same category as the Work Horse that was supposedly painted black from the factory. We’ve only seen one or two ever. No written proof was ever presented about that being available. I bought my Work Horse GT-1800 brand new from the dealer and they never once said it was available in black. Sorry didn’t mean to change the subject. 

 

That's the first time I've ever heard of a Work Horse being factory painted black. I walked into Hwy 19 Wheel Horse back in the 80's with no intention of buying a tractor when I saw a brand new GRAY 84 Work Horse GT-1100 sitting on the showroom floor. Of course I asked about it. $850.00 with no attachments. It came home with me. I had a spare 48" deck that I put on it figuring that when the Briggs blew up I'd put a Kohler on it. That's when I found out an 11hp could handle a 48" deck pretty well. That Briggs handled everything I threw at it including a full submersion in a pond on a Superbowl Sunday. The mid 80's Work Horse series were always had gray sheet metal and black frames from the factory. There's even a brochure with a bunch of red and gray tractors on the front lawn of the factory (I think 1983). I would imagine they had a separate area where they painted them. The red line consisted of an overhead conveyor with a gazillion parts from hoods to brake pedals hanging from not much more than bent coat hangers. The parts went through a 'booth' where they sprayed them then on to another booth where they sped the drying process up (I wouldn't say baked). From there the workers picked them off the line. I don't see how is would make sense to convert it to gray for the relatively short run of Work Horses. 

 

Side note here. After Toro moved them out the factory sat empty and for sale. The contractor I worked for looked into buying it. But there was an issue behind the building. It reeked of reddish color ground contamination. The only option was to buy the building and gamble on how extensive it was. In any case the new owner would be assuming the responsibility of the clean up. Too risky so we passed. 

Edited March 10, 2023 by Racinbob

[squonk 41,136]

Didn't see it mentioned but the hood decals are wrong for an 875 and look too nice compared to the rest of the tractor. Somebody was in there playin! 

Edited March 10, 2023 by squonk

[OldWorkHorse 3,045]

I say drill the rivets out on the ID tag so we can all get some sleep at night and know for sure 

[WHX?? 48,823]

14 hours ago, ebinmaine said:

Adjusted your text a bit.

Here in the Herd of EB & BBT we are odd.

Adjusted your text a bit. 

[ebinmaine 67,553]

14 minutes ago, WHX?? said:

Adjusted your text a bit. 

Definitely accurate

[Sailman 1,291]

@ericforster

Glad you gave the "Sherlock Holmes" folks here a new problem to solve. These same "guru's" are amazing at solving any issues you might have with the wheel horse.

As a side note, perhaps....just perhaps the local dealer did the repaint for a special customer. I only bring this up because my Dad in his retirement was working at an implement dealership and being a big "Greenbay Packers " fan he had a new John Deere garden tractor delivered with a special Packers paint job. It was painted like a Packers helmet! I doubt it came from the factory that way and perhaps it was done at the local dealership just for dad. That could explain why the owner believes it came from the factory white. 

Edited March 10, 2023 by Sailman

[WHX?? 48,823]

@squonk and I would get along well with your dad Sailman... well maybe not about the JD thing tho...

Lots of equipment were done like that here in 🧀 land. I have seen late model vertical horses done Packer themed. Someday I should do it to a sixties 

[rjg854 11,376]

to play the devil's advocate.

 

The thought I have is, if it is a dealer repaint, they went to a lot of work to strip all the red paint and then paint it white. That must of cost quite a bit extra to do that. I could see them keeping the engine, generator and gas tank red.  

[Sailman 1,291]

20 minutes ago, rjg854 said:

to play the devil's advocate.

 

The thought I have is, if it is a dealer repaint, they went to a lot of work to strip all the red paint and then paint it white. That must of cost quite a bit extra to do that. I could see them keeping the engine, generator and gas tank red.  

 

Valid point. Could the dealer have ordered one "unpainted" from the factory, or just primed?? It would have been easier than the factory painting it white. Could explain the over spray on the tag as factory would have tagged it. Could also explain the wrong decal and the engine parts still being original red (from the factory).

[oliver2-44 9,756]

It's slightly more common then ya'll are thinking for the factory to do a special color paint job.  Think about all the state transportation/highway department equipment.  In Texas it's industrial yellow, in other states, orange, white,  etc.  

Eons ago when I worked at Ford in 1974/75, that dealer bid on supplying Tractors to TxDOT for a large area.  One TxDOT requirement was they be factory painted yellow. In other words no dealer painting allowed. 

I remember he had a factory custom order Ford tractor that was University of Texas " Burnt Orange" 

He supplied a tractor to the local County that he dealer painted and they raised quite a fuss about it.   

 

[ericforster 69]

So the question is, if I were to restore, red or white?

[Handy Don 12,233]

1 hour ago, oliver2-44 said:

It's slightly more common then ya'll are thinking for the factory to do a special color paint job.  Think about all the state transportation/highway department equipment.  In Texas it's industrial yellow, in other states, orange, white,  etc.  

Eons ago when I worked at Ford in 1974/75, that dealer bid on supplying Tractors to TxDOT for a large area.  One TxDOT requirement was they be factory painted yellow. In other words no dealer painting allowed. 

I remember he had a factory custom order Ford tractor that was University of Texas " Burnt Orange" 

He supplied a tractor to the local County that he dealer painted and they raised quite a fuss about it.   

 

Absolutely sensible for a large-scale operation like Ford. Their paint shop is, I’m sure, set up for multiple paint colors from the get go. I worked at Case Corp for a couple years and saw how they handled DOT and other orders that had specific paint requirements. There were minimum order quantities and they carefully scheduled delivery dates to be able to build an economical quantity of the tractors, graders, or loader/backhoes in a single production run--even though there might be several colors used for different purchase orders. No onesy twosey stuff, though. And NOTHING left the factory unpainted--too much risk of warranty issues if they could not control the painting process.

[ebinmaine 67,553]

Just now, ericforster said:

So the question is, if I were to restore, red or white?

 

Ultimately that's your choice.

 

Some of us are fundamental traditionalist and others, like myself, not so much. Looking at my Herd you'd see that's very clear.

😄

 

 

That particular tractor. If it was me. I would go with white because it's such a obvious looooong history with that color.

[Handy Don 12,233]

3 minutes ago, ericforster said:

So the question is, if I were to restore, red or white?

Now you’re really gonna poke at the hornets' nest! 

[Pullstart 62,905]

42 minutes ago, ericforster said:

So the question is, if I were to restore, red or white?

or blue?  

 

[WHX?? 48,823]

37 minutes ago, ericforster said:

So the question is, if I were to restore, red or white?

Like I said personally I would do neither but use original patina techniques and just get it sound mechanically. That tractor has a story to tell. 

On the other hand if the original paint has been messed with it's fair game for a full resto. If it was indeed red from the factory, I would return it to red. 

White I wouldn't be able to find it in all this snow we got.... 

[ericforster 69]

28 minutes ago, WHX?? said:

Like I said personally I would do neither but use original patina techniques and just get it sound mechanically. That tractor has a story to tell. 

On the other hand if the original paint has been messed with it's fair game for a full resto. If it was indeed red from the factory, I would return it to red. 

White I wouldn't be able to find it in all this snow we got.... 

Personally I agree that a machine should show its age. Behind all imperfections is a story. Thats why I dont restore many machines unless a customer wants it.

[Achto 27,594]

4 hours ago, Sailman said:

Dad in his retirement was working at an implement dealership and being a big "Greenbay Packers " fan he had a new John Deere garden tractor delivered with a special Packers paint job

 

I have seen the Simplicity Green Bay tractor but not a JD one.

https://www.tractordata.com/lawn-tractors/003/2/4/3243-simplicity-packer-backer.html

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by Achto

[D_Mac 8,619]

Big difference between a factory paint job and a dealer paint job. Even if it was a " dealer " repaint, that dosnt make it "original". Also if those decals didnt come out till the 70's how are they on a " Factory White " 1965 ? I have no problems with making a tractor any color you choose. I do take issues with ... Hey anyone see my 856 with " Factory Flames" ? I have an 875 also. Its one of my favorite tractors so I would buy that thing if the price was right.

Edited March 10, 2023 by D_Mac