By
ohiofarmer
My buddy Jay needed a tractor pretty quickly. His Huskvarna blew a head gasket and is barely alive. He liked how tough my Wheel Horses are and I told him I would be on the look out for a suitable machine.
Bob Ellison recently put up two and I had not seen anything that looked this good in this price range. I told him that we had the money cash in hand and that if my buddy did not have quite enough that i would cover the rest. i also offered to send a down payment to hold the tractor. We had a messy eviction that was just disgusting , so Bob graciously worked with us until we could get up there.
What a nice guy he is. Then i found out that he is the seat guy and the tractor came with one of his seats. It was a seat that the impressions did not meet his high standards for his customers., so he called it his own seat. I enjoyed his company so much that it was a bit difficult to make sure that all the stuff like the mule drive and the deck was all there. After all, we were 175 miles from Deploraville , Ohio. he took the time to explain how he made the two piece seat upholstery with top of the line foam and marine grade vinyl. It makes me wish I had bought one when they were still available.
Ok, so the tractor has a 48 inch deck that Jay has already patched a bit and given a coat of Hammerite. He bought a decent amount of the stuff at auction, and it is good paint even though the color is a bit off. Bob threw in a second deck that is a 42" but has a different pulley system that i am not familiar with. He also had two extra tires holding air on rear wheels for a 520. plus, we took a few other tires for some of my junk.
We had a few Wheel Horse stories and i mentioned my daughter had landed a job at Umich and her studies there that enabled me with the help of my daughter in Ann Arbor to trade a Briggs motor for a Kohler in a grocery store parking lot from the trunk of a Buick lesabre. Then Bob told me how proud he was that his grandson was just entering the military. Then my buddy Jay and Bob talked about the Navy since they are both navy vets.
We are missing the clutch engagement handle, the push rod, trunion nut, and interior clutch mount.They just never were on the tractor that Bob never had a mower mounted to, so it was overlooked at the time of sale. Jay probably can make them off my spare parts robbed from another of my tractors for a pattern.
We will get to the pictures and process later. For now, I just wanted to mention our appreciation that Bob Ellison is such a gentleman. The fact he wanted his tractors to be used and not just flipped and sold will certainly be fulfilled in this case. The fact the Jay has his first Wheel Horse as a C-160 auto is just icing on the cake.