“Ol’ Red” 1979 Wheel Horse C-81

Using it on a truck(mall crawlers) and ruining the scrub radius and whatnot lol

I got the wheel spacers installed today after my uncle machined some counterbores in them so they would fit onto the wheel horse hubs.   Oh my god this thing handles like a dream!   I was ripping laps around my house in third gear wide-open throttle which is set to about 3600 RPM right now.  With the new tire rods,  alignment, the pulley swap and these rear wheel spacers to widen the track width it is so much fun to drive around on and it doesn’t want to tip over.

Nice Carl! Those are Bear Claws in the rear, right?

Looks good Carl! Should be more fun now that you don't feel like you're tipping over, haha. You think that your transaxle will handle the little extra stress? Hehehehe.

Nice! I love the widened stance on the rear.

@Double W Cross Ranch Yes I'm pretty sure I'm running the same exact bear claws that Mr. Modified is running on his Simpliciity Adventure Edition.  We both also have 8hp engines.  Maybe we should go head to head at Haspin?  Tug of war maybe?

@AllisKidD21 The transaxle is made to handle the stress.  The axles are 1 1/18"!  Plus my dad and I have been running 50 lbs worth of wheel weights in the rims of our C-125 and C-105 for years without hurting anything.

Crazy_Carl wrote:

@AllisKidD21 The transaxle is made to handle the stress.  The axles are 1 1/18"!  Plus my dad and I have been running 50 lbs worth of wheel weights in the rims of our C-125 and C-105 for years without hurting anything.

Yeah that was a joke eh? I was being sarcastic, cuz I know how heavy duty those transaxles are. Hahaha

I thought I would point that out for those here who don't know.  

Crazy_Carl wrote:

@Double W Cross Ranch Yes I'm pretty sure I'm running the same exact bear claws that Mr. Modified is running on his Simpliciity Adventure Edition.  We both also have 8hp engines.  Maybe we should go head to head at Haspin?  Tug of war maybe?

Yusss!!! For sure, that'd make a great video.

Lovin the look Carl! Excellent!

I had a fun romp out at the farm today with Ol' Red and my ATC200.  I did some trail riding and some crawling.







Then unfortunately this happened.  



The snap ring holding the wheel on came off.  Luckily this happened where I could drive my truck up to it, but I didn't have any snap ring pliers so I lost the snap ring trying to pry it apart and it flew away. Then I drove home to get a spare snap ring and snap ring pliers, put it on and drove it back to the trailer.

The snap ring that popped off and the snap ring groove were badly worn and with all the added force of cornering at higher speeds this was bound to happen.  So now I need to fix this.  I have the old spindles from my C-125 that are the same except they use a cotter key to hold the wheel on instead.  This seems better than a snap ring.  Or do I find some way to hold the spindle in my drill press with v blocks and drill and tap the end for 1/4-20 and use a bolt with a washer and spacers to hold the wheel on?  Or maybe I'll see if my buddy with a machine shop can help me out here.

The rim got a little wobbled out where the inner bearing goes in.  I'm not happy about that damage because the metal is stretched and not easily repaired, but it seemed to do okay on the drive back to the trailer.  Maybe I'll massage it with a mallet and see what that does to it.

Even though your wheel came out, still looks like a load of fun. I think I see a 5 leaf and a 4 leaf clover there in your pic.

Man, Your Wheel Horse is a damn cool Offroad Mower! The Kohler sounds like the Briggs Flathead on my MTD with stock muffler. And that Price at the Scrapyard is unbelievable! And your Work is thoughtful! I really Like it!

Well after finding some 5/32 cotter pins and fixing the wobbled out rim the best I could, this morning I installed the old spindles from my C-125 which are in better shape than these.  I greased everything up again. Now I just want to check alignment before I tightened up the tie rod ends. 

Now I can finally sleep a little better now that Ol" Red is sitting back on all four wheels again.

Excellent! Did you just mallet the rim where it was wobbled out as you mentioned?

I have the day off of work since it's raining off and on.  I got the alignment dialed back in and she's ready to romp again.

It looks toed in.  Here's what it looks like after the alignment.

I found a clever way to hold this wrench instead of growing a third arm.  I needed to hold the inner rod end while I tightened the outer so the ends would be in the correct orientation to one another so the tie rod won't bind when I steer.

I have no idea why this image uploaded sideways.  This happens every now and then and I have no idea how to fix it.  I even try rotating the image in my photos thinking the uploader will turn it back to the right way and it doesn't.  

Have the same problem with the pics Carl. Good idea with the wrench holder.

Nice ingenuity... I not sure why image rotate sometime.

So I finally got around to making a romp video with the knock off go pro footage I've had laying around.  Ol' Red is the star so I'll post it in here.  I accidentally pop a wheelie with it right near the tail end!

The Vid is great! Looks like you and your friends had much fun! Once Mud Murray is finished, i should can do the same!

I decided to test out the spindles so I took Ol' Red into some more challenging terrain today.  I decided to take it through my old ATV trail through the woods that's on a hill at the farm.  I snagged this flex pic haha.  It was fun pushing over small trees, driving over small logs, and due to the dry weather I was able to climb the really steep hill on the trail too.



The motor seems to vibrate a lot at idle and I can't really smooth it out with the idle mixture screw.  The screw is also turned out way more than it should be.  Maybe I'm due for another carb cleaning?  I do have a spare one in stock but I'd like to keep the original going.

Love the pic! Could be a booger in there on the low speed jet. If it just started, a cleaning should be good.

Great! MAybe i can romp Mud Murray once it's finished (i should maybe start working on it soon) also through the woods!

Well maybe third time's the charm for carb cleaning.  I did find some rust in the bottom part of the carb where the main jet is and where the bowl attaches.  I'm going to let it soak for at least a day this time and try my best to get all the rust out I can.  Some of it is unfortuneatly in the threads where the brass plug screws in that holds the bowl on.  

Sometimes you gotta clean em a few times, I've had to before.

As a couple of you witnessed tonight on youtube I got my carb back together, and after priming the bowl, the good ole Kohler fired right up.  I had to adjust the idle speed up to get it to idle, but I left the idle and main needles at the factory specs and the motor ran very smooth at idle and full throttle.  I'm calling this a success.