“Ol’ Red” 1979 Wheel Horse C-81

@biggasmowers wrote:

Was the tsc one wireless or did it have direct controls?

The tsc one comes with a bulky wired remote, but as an added bonus it also comes with a snatch block.

Anyway, this morning I got sick of shoveling so when I got home from work I decided to take 20 minutes and mount the genuine Wheel Horse plow I've had in my shed for 10 years on Ol' Red and it worked awesome!



There's still plenty of room between the plow and the grill for a custom bumper and winch!


This is the greatest thing about this plow.  This lever allows you to angle the plow left and right and lock the spring loaded pin in from the driver's seat.


Remember how I did those dangersous hill climbs and I thought I had perfectly good brakes?  Do you see anything wrong with this picture?

Looks nice with the plow Carl. Your brake drum though, uuuuhhhh looks like it might explode. Hahaha.

Yeah I might replace the break drum...maybe....

The drum is actually in great shape but the shoe lining has definitely come loose from the brake band and spun around.  A new one on ebay is a little too expensive at $78 so I'm going to give the clutch and brake place near me a call tomorrow.  Last time they made me a new one for $40 when this same thing happened on my C-125.  It was a long time ago though.

Oh that's mud and grass. I thought the drum was cracked, lol. STUPID REDNECK, DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING!!!!

@Double W Cross Ranch wrote:

Oh that's mud and grass.  I thought the drum was cracked, lol.  STUPID REDNECK, DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING!!!!

lol hahaha You're not stupid.

Everyone says that, nobody actually knows me...I once was talking to someone on my phone, when I reached into my pocket, noticed my phone wasn't there, and said, "Oh no! I lost my phone!"

I actually also thought the drum was cracked, it looked like there was a big chunk missing out of it too, haha. I see what's going on now though.

haha Today I just set the full pot of water on the coffee maker instead of pouring it into the back compartment where it is supposed to go. I came back 20 minutes later and wondered why the coffee was perfectly clear.

I haven't done that. Once I forgot the coffee ground, though, and just had a pot of hot water!

I really like the brake styles on the older heavy duty garden tractors, the new things they call brakes on the aluminum clam shell trannys are not designed very well.

The forum has been pretty quiet this last week, except for the select few of us anyway,.....

Are you going to enter anything in the build off carl?

Once the build off starts the forum traffic is going to pick up a lot. I'm pretty excited for that.

I have a tractor that I could use for a build off entry, but I might save that for next year's build off. For now I want to finish the tractors that I have and I have a couple of atcs that I need to get working on too. Plus I have a freshly rebuilt K301 12hp that I need to get back into my Wheel Horse C-125 that I mow with.

That brake band doesn't even look like it has any material on it.

I was missing the band material on my suburban and jbwelded a new band on.

I went to https://www.mcmaster.com/#catalog/124/3639/=1bcvo5m and bought some passing material that fit my width and trimmed to length.

That's a really good idea. Is there anything that McMaster Carr doesn't have? If the clutch and brake shop wants too much money, I'm going to go the DIY route. I wonder if I could bond the old brake shoe material back to the brake band or purchase new material as you say. Some of that friction material is very cheap.

That jbweld brake material to the metal band I did is in yr 3 now, working great.

I got my brake band back from the shop today.  They only charged me $30.  The geometry changed on the band slightly so I had to put a second nut on the threaded rod but it works great.

That might stop a little better...Jk, that should be much much much better.  Romp vid soon? 

Excellent, that looks good.

I forgot to mention that in the last picture that is a brand new clutch spring.  This tractor came with a lighter hardware store spring on it which worked, but this spring is stiffer so belt slip is less likely to happen.

It's kinda strange how well these tractors were designed and built, but the drive belts rubs on the brake linkage on the right side and the clutch spring rubs against the brake linkage on the left side in the above photo.  Even when the tractor is completely stock. I've already fixed the drive belt clearance issue but I want to fix the other interference problem.

I sketched up a concept for a bumper with a winch for Ol' Red.  It's similar to the one on the green machine except I've added a small pre-runner bar that is angled forward to look aggressive and it protects the winch.  Let me know what you guys think.

I was doing some top speed calculations and I realized that with my 5" engine pulley and 6.5" trans pulley in order to reach 10mph I was running my freshly rebuilt motor at 4500rpm!

I only did it for a short period of time.  Does anyone think that I did any engine damage by doing that?

4500? Be fine. Those K series are real troopers, have you seen what tractor pullers do with em?

Bumper sketch looks cool. I'd love to see that on there.

@Crazy_Carl wrote:

I only did it for a short period of time.  Does anyone think that I did any engine damage by doing that?

I doubt it, I ran my OHV without a governor with the stock pulleys.  Top speed was about 9 mph, and the engine didn't bust.  Stock speed was 4.5 MPH. Sooo...ran it about 6000 RPM, lol! Didn't blow up surprisingly!

I run all my ungoverned oppys like a rented stepchild, lol. Nothing blows up at 3601 ripums like people say haha.

@RichieRichOverdrive wrote:

4500? Be fine. Those K series are real troopers, have you seen what tractor pullers do with em?

Bumper sketch looks cool. I'd love to see that on there.

I won't sweat it then, but I'm definitely checking out some garden tractor pulling.

I've seen videos of modified K Series running over 8000 RPM. The bigger ones like the K301, K321 and K341s are the most popular for that type of thing.

I run my oppys super hard , i think i had my oppy that is now on the snapper around 7500 cause the carb had a racing filter and modified carb. No issues so far!