What's everybody doing?

Had to do a bunch of running around today.  Hadn't had a haircut in over 6 months, had the Bee Gee's look going on,     hadn't been groc shopping in 2 weeks, had to go to the bank, get some McDonalds so I didn't have to cook a few lunches, dropped by the bank, do some Medicare stuff, and got some gas for the CTS and mower.  

I still have to get out to pay prop + car taxes this month, renew my license, get to the chiropractor, and do a few other things this month.  I'm sure the chiropractor will be several visits because I'm way overdue.  It's really ruining my hermit lifestyle...       

My friend Kevin was here last Sat so we did some other things.  Someone also came on Sat and bought a single stage snow blower.  One more thing out of the way, only 5 of them left for sale minus my personal one I'm keeping.

Day 1 of trying to finish up most of the Onan stuff.  Spent all day looking on carts, benches, and anywhere I could think of trying to round up and blast what needs to be blasted.  I got out all of the small containers to finish putting what belongs in those together.   There's so much stuff and going back + forth with the Kohlers for awhile that some of it is buried under other things.  Progress is being made so that's a good thing.  

Today was also a nice 76 degree day outside so I also did some rearranging in the lot.  The 520s are all lined up behind the other newer body style tractors like they were and all of the round hoods are dug out and easy to get to.  There are 9 or so more of them out there and I think they will all be parted out next.  All of the round hood stuff minus motors, transmissions, and small parts will end up inside on the lift rack/shelf with the ones already done over the past few months so parts are easy to find.    

Still a lot to do.  Winter is coming so I've got to get some of these things done before cold weather gets here...

  

 

Finished the wiring on the new engine tester this morning minus the main hot + ground cables.  Didn't get pics yet but will soon, it's gonna be a really nice addition around here. 

Did a lot of moving things around this morning getting everything round hood sheet metal related on the 4 post lift/shelf.  After that we started on the last 9 round hoods to part out.  They've only spent 1 Winter outside so they need to get done by next week.  1 of them was finished today including the lift handle apart (forgot before pics), the 2nd one is close to done and the lift handle, all the roll pins, and the clutch rod is out of that one also.  The lift handle is the very worst part of the job.  

Slowly but surely things are getting done and tons of Wheel Horse parts are getting saved.   

 

The 2nd one from yesterday is being real difficult.  It's all apart minus the right stirrup + clutch pedal.  It was heated several times today and is barely moving but eventually I think we'll get it.  There are some pics of the round hoods left outside, 2 of them were brought in the shop this evening because tomorrow is supposed to be rain + less than 70 degrees.  That's freezing cold for me...  

There are still 62 tractors outside.  My neighbor pulled the seats off of every one today.  A few are good but most are being scrapped so that's some more bad stuff gone.  All of the brackets, springs, etc were taken apart and put up in the shop on a seat pallet where they belong today.

I got to spend some more time blasting today.  I had to widen the holes just a tiny bit on the mill for the plate to block off the Kohler engines + carbs for blasting but it worked out good.  7 of them were milled on the bottom, capped up, then blasted, they look like new.  The 8th one has the throttle + choke rods stuck so it has to be freed up and torn down to see if I can save it.  Hopefully it can be saved, we'll see...  

 

Finished the difficult 753 that was in the shop this morning.  We spent several hours trying to save the stirrup and that was enough so it got cut off.  

The next 753 went pretty easy and saved every piece, a lot of very nice parts on that one.  We started on a complete Suburban (minus rear tires and wrong rims) and it's coming along good so far.  The hood minus a few minor easy fix dents is great. The fuel tank mounts are still good with no holes in the hood, and all the controls are still in it.  There will be some really nice parts from that one too.   

 

My neighbor didn't feel good this morning so I had a nice quiet day to myself and the chance to put away a lot of parts.

Something happened that I've never had before, I had to get out the big impact to get the front end bolt out of the Suburban and as soon as I bumped the trigger it snapped off.  The jam nut came off easy and I lubed it from the back last Sat.  It's kinda funny but not really.     After that I decided I would spend the rest of the day putting things away.

I moved on to putting up most of the Onan stuff that was blasted.  I had some empty drawers in the engine section for small parts but running out of room there too.  I may have to move the tires + rims underneath the fixture and add more drawers.  Those drawers are mostly for smaller engine parts, gaskets, etc, and the 2 fixtures behind it are all engine stuff as well.  I'll prob do a major rearranging on all 3 fixtures and maybe add some drawers to the back ones too.  I think I may have too many engine parts but they always say too much is better than not enough...  

 

Finished up the Suburban this morning minus the broken off bolt in the front axle.  The frame is sitting upright in the back where I can lube it for awhile.  The bolt is loose in the threads but stuck in the axle.

We completely disassembled a 64 today, and the last one (other than 2 older Lawn Rangers outside) is the 753 in the pic.  The 64 had a non Wheel Horse Briggs on it that we had already pulled off of it that was junked.  All of the rest of the parts were nice and were saved minus the hood.  I think I had the 753 running at some point so I'm gonna try to start it in the morning.  I may restore that one like my fav round hood I did for Bethie Pond and out it up front.  It would be restored like hers, tricycle kit, silver wheels and all.  That would be a spare time project after all of these parts everywhere are put away...  

 

The 753 wouldn't start so it came off to find out why, you can see the rod pieces in the oil pan...   I can't figure out what caused this other than the governor rod looked like it was set to a higher RPM which may be the cause.  There is practically no wear on the engine other than that.  The piston fits great and the block is super nice so with all the parts around here it's a good candidate to rebuild and even use a standard piston.

The tractor where it had been painted before looks rough but there is absolutely no rust pitting anywhere on it.  The original ammeter looks great and works, the original choke and throttle cables even still have good lettering, and the steering is still really tight. The stirrups and all the other parts came off by had with no shaft cleaning and no lube.  It will make as nice a tractor as anything else restored and it is all original.  It will end up being restored like Bethie Pond's when time allows prob this Winter. 

The motor was put back together to keep up with the parts, a nice set of front wheels and tires put on it from one of the others done recently, and it is under the center rack for now.  

 

Today was doing a few little things, getting the next batch ready for the steam cleaner, and putting things away so we had more space to work.

First thing was cutting off the front tilt catch and axle setup off of an old dump cart that someone dropped off here a long, long time ago that was rusted out.  I'm sure at some point I'll make something out of the good parts, and it's something else I've been meaning to do for many years...  

Next was getting a mountain of Kohler engine covers from all over the shop, on carts, and everywhere else together and going through them so they could be put away.  The ones that weren't made for Wheel Horses were all thrown in the wagon and put in the neighbors truck to be junked.  There's prob more around here but majority of them are sorted and put on pallets minus some that still need cleaning.

While I was doing that my neighbor was scraping down a lot of parts and filling another cart to be steam cleaned next week sometime.  For now there are only 2 carts that need steaming.  Catching up on blasting is another story.  I have a few carts loaded and the small bench with a lot of parts cleaned and ready.   We did manage to get enough stuff organized and ready for next week that cleared more of the big bench than we had seen in a long time. 

I didn't realize how huge of a task this would be at the start, but it feels good to have a lot of things parted out, cleaned, blasted, organized, inside the building, and about 10,000 pounds of it hauled away this year before Winter.   

 

My friend Kevin was up today and we built a hitch for the back of his Kubota to pull things with.  Of course it can be used anywhere, we tried it in his truck to check the fit and look.  

We also went to Lexington and farted around over there for several hours eating Sbarro pizza and ice cream so we didn't get a tremendous amount of things done but it sure was a good day.