My Honey's 657 Repaint & refresh

[ebinmaine 67,483]

Trina spent the evening wire brushing and painting and priming and repeat procedure.

 

I spent some time degreasing and depainting the engine and a fair amount of wire brushing on bolts and also cleaned up the cylinder head.

My parents and I spoke this afternoon and tried to add up how many hours we think maybe on this machine. Probably no more than four or five hundred hours. Likely much less.

It definitely shows in the condition of the internals of this engine.

Below you see a picture of the cylinder head. All I did to that was to squirt a small amount of brake clean in the valve pocket and slosh it around a little bit and then lightly wipe it out with a brown 3M Scotch-Brite. Then the towel.

 

 

 

 

Still a fair amount of paint sitting in the little pockets and crevices on the engine block but it's cleaning up very nicely.

 

This is the plate that used to sit on top of the snowblower that the engine is mounted too. I'm going to try to use this as the adapter plate on this tractor.

It will require a little trimming and there's a bracket piece on the back that you can't see that I'll have to grind off.

We are going to mask off that decal and try to save it. Sort of a tribute to the machine that it came from.

 

 

 

 

[ebinmaine 67,483]

And in tonight's news....  More of the pretty standard scrape, clean and paint.

The Briggs engine is painted. Also some other stuff like brackets and linkages.

 

Tomorrow I'll spend some time making the adapter plate.

 

 

 

 

[ebinmaine 67,483]

Back on Friday I spent several hours working on the tractor. Got the starter all cleaned up and repainted.

Just a bunch of other general busy work.

I got the adapter plate finished up. I ended up purchasing a piece of 1/8 inch thick steel from a local fabricator.

Marked out 6 holes and drilled them.

Oddly enough, I am actually able to use two of the holes that were in the Wheelhorse frame and very nearly line up with the engine that we are putting on. It's only off by about a 16th of an inch front to back and I think I can make up for that because the new engine has 5/16 bolts and the old one had 3/8 bolts.

I'll know when we go to fire it up and see if it wants to walk away because the belt might be just a tiny bit too tight.

 

Two holes in the frame go through the other side of the adapter plate. The other two holes in the engine go through the adapter plate between the frame rails because this engine is substantially narrower.

Spent some time this afternoon adapting where the battery and the gas tank are going to go for this setup. I'm actually moving the battery tray up to where the gas tank used to be and installing a gas tank in the steering tower tray that I had purchased for a different tractor. That gas tank came out of a 1969 charger.

This is why the battery got moved to where the gas tank used to be.

 

Starter all masked off and cleaned up ready for paint.

 

Abracadabra!

 

 

This is where I'm at with it right now.

 

My honey painted the strap for the gas tank tonight. Pretty likely that tomorrow she can install that and we'll see what else we can get done.

 

We have three evenings left before the Owls Head transportation show. Fingers crossed!

 

[ebinmaine 67,483]

The gas tank is installed into it's happy little shelf space. New shutoff and filter.

 

 

Trina spent some time cleaning up and priming and painting the air cleaner housing we got from @A-Z Tractor.

 

 

 

Speaking of...

I was watching the youtubes the other day and taryl the loo loo says use a business card to set the coil back in place.

 

 

Here's the intake and exhaust.. 

 

 

 

[Sparky-(Admin) 21,315]

So close!!

[ebinmaine 67,483]

6 hours ago, Sparky said:

So close!!

YESS

[drewd 55]

Great thread on your project!  Making great progress.

[ebinmaine 67,483]

Got the Briggs engine running tonight !!!

 

I need to rebuild and clean the carb. I was hoping to wait until later but it doesn't idle right and seeps fuel from the top gasket.

No worries... I have a kit for it.

 

The starter and kill switch work great so that's a plus.

 I won't have time to get the 657 running right by the weekend so it won't make it to Owls Head.

Oh well... there's always next year.

 

Here's a few pics and videos.

 

Note the red wooden pull handle. It is from a VERY old Napa pull cord kit.

 

Here you can see the complete layout of the tractor with the replacement engine and the way the gas tank and battery are set.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[stevebo-(Moderator) 8,330]

They are a hard carb to set. My boy had a 5hp Briggs and I could not find a replacement carb as all the new ones I found in line were for the 7hp and up like yours. You might want to go with a new carb depending on how worn the throttle shaft is. 

[ebinmaine 67,483]

6 hours ago, stevebo said:

They are a hard carb to set

Agreed.

This one has always been a bit challenging.

 

I'll triple double check that shaft.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

 

[ebinmaine 67,483]

We got back to the Briggs carb tonight after a few days.

I took it apart and put the pieces in to soak overnight.

It was pretty crusty and had a tiny bit of water in the bottom.

@stevebo I checked the throttle shaft and it could be tighter but is far from the worst I've seen.... I'm thinking it should be good.

 

We'll see how it looks tomorrow.

 

 

 

[WVHillbilly520H 10,373]

We have an 8hp Briggs on a Go-kart for the kids, it was missing half the carb when I got but still "ran", but with that said it was way cheaper to buy 2 carbs than 1 repair kit, Jeff.

[ebinmaine 67,483]

47 minutes ago, WVHillbilly520H said:

We have an 8hp Briggs on a Go-kart for the kids, it was missing half the carb when I got but still "ran", but with that said it was way cheaper to buy 2 carbs than 1 repair kit, Jeff.

That looks like it would be a wicked fun ride Jeff!

 

I appreciate you posting the pictures because it gives me the idea to put a top strap as a brace from the top of the air cleaner over to the engine top somewhere.

In order to clear the hood on the 657 I'll have to move the air cleaner away from the engine 4 inches or more.

What I'm hoping to do is keep it as simple as possible and buy a 1.5 inch exhaust adapter that is 4 in Long and then make up 3 longer steel braces. Top, middle, bottom of air cleaner assembly.

 

 

[WVHillbilly520H 10,373]

That's the Briggs factory muffler on there as far as I know, but I put a 45° elbow in there to help clear the roll cage better, the air cleaner assembly was MIA found that in a friend's "salvage" yard, but you could search eBay an aftermarket "performance" version like they use on the 212 Predator engines...

[ebinmaine 67,483]

30 minutes ago, WVHillbilly520H said:

That's the Briggs factory muffler on there as far as I know, but I put a 45° elbow in there to help clear the roll cage better, the air cleaner assembly was MIA found that in a friend's "salvage" yard, but you could search eBay an aftermarket "performance" version like they use on the 212 Predator engines...

 

Thanks for the info and picture Jeff.

 

I had thought about going that route.

We're trying to make it look like it is period correct so that it will fool Non Wheelhorse folk at least.....

I got an air cleaner off of a late 60s Briggs from one of our fine vendors in Pennsylvania.

The muffler I am using is actually anNOS Tecumseh Pepperpot.

 

[ebinmaine 67,483]

I was able to tighten up the muffler quite a bit by running a thread chase a little further down the hole and also removed the broken stub from the exhaust bolt that snapped from the other muffler.

Then I put another full rotation on the elbow and tightened up the lock nut against the engine.

 

The carb had been soaking in acetone (what I had on hand) for about 26 hours and we scrubbed that main body off. That cleaned out well enough.

The main jet (emulsion needle) was pretty crudded up and after it soaked for a day and I cleaned it off I could see the tiny holes better. In fact I found another.....

We'll let it stay in the drink another day.

 

 

 

[ebinmaine 67,483]

It's up and running!!!

 

Still needs some adjustments and finishing touches I'll post questions about.

 

 

[PeacemakerJack 10,738]

Grandpa is smiling down on that  old repurposed snowblower motor that used to be his!  ‘Honey’ looks happy to have HER tractor running and looking good doing it!  Well done my friends—so which project is next from the restoration duo?

[Chris G 3,296]

Great job with the whole process, including the repurposed engine!!!

[ebinmaine 67,483]

45 minutes ago, PeacemakerJack said:

Well done my friends—so which project is next from the restoration duo?

Thanks Josh!!!

 

Well....

Let's see.

 

We need to finish up the dumping trailer...

Get the log splitter put back together...

Repaint the 1976/77 Ohio steel trailer a dear friend gave us...

Get the homemade log trailer axles back on and add a deck to it...

Get a C160 up and running.....

 

Oh yeah.... Paint the house.

You know.... Life.

We should be able to stay busy for a few more days... Or weeks... Or months...

[rjg854 11,361]

All that hard work really pays off, doesn't it 

[Stormin 9,981]

Just read your thread all the way through, Eric. A superb job you and your beloved have done.

[dclarke 4,032]

Great job you two have done, Eric!    Thanks for taking us along with you. 

[ebinmaine 67,483]

18 hours ago, Chris G said:

Great job with the whole process, including the repurposed engine!!!

If I can find a crankshaft for the Tecumseh... I may put that back in.

If that happens, this engine will likely be used on a different .

 

I'm really happy with the way it runs and sounds.

 

 

14 hours ago, Stormin said:

Just read your thread all the way through, Eric. A superb job you and your beloved have done.

 

12 hours ago, dclarke said:

Great job you two have done, Eric!    Thanks for taking us along with you. 

Thanks gentlemen, very much.

 

[ebinmaine 67,483]

This evening I spent some time getting the belt guard installed and I made a rebentified belt guide. See the pic.

 

Notice that the front of the engine is nearly clean in the upper picture and that in the next picture it is covered with belt dust. Also noticed that in the upper picture of the pulley is probably 3/8" away from the end of the crankshaft and now it is closer to the end. The belt was just touching the bolt head of the lower guide screw and that has been relocated and hopefully solved.

 

I also removed the throttle cable and clipped about 6 inches off of the casing and reinstalled and rerouted that. I tightened up the base of it so that  it will actually stay in the dashboard and lock and unlock as it should.

 

Tomorrow's Adventures are scheduled to include the installation of the relocated air cleaner housing assembly.

I'll be making an extension pipe 4 or 5 inches Long to go between the carburetor and the air cleaner assembly and then a couple pieces of strap steel to hold it in place.

These modifications are necessary so that the air filter will clear the hood.