“Ol’ Red” 1979 Wheel Horse C-81

Okay fellas, let's try and get the conversation focused back on Ol' Red again.

Any plans drawn up for a neat front bumper Carl?

I'm thinking of something like the bumper on my john deere with an added hoop protecting the winch and lower part of my grille.

OH MY GOD!  Where did the rear end of the tractor go?

In preparation for the ride with CreepyCrawler and Redzz02 in late October I'm going to lock the rear end in this thing, build my front bumper and mount my winch, and if I can get to it the rear bumper with the toolbox.  I work a lot on the weekeneds so I'm taking Fridays off from here on out to accomplish this.

This thing is built heavily.  Look at the size of that ring gear!



The inside of this case looked pretty good considering it came from a scrap yard and sat a lot of years.  The top of the case is rusted pretty bad inside in a couple of spots so I'm working on wire brushing that out of there before I get everything cleaned up.  I have my gasket on order.  The gears in it look in really good shape too.

@Creepycrawler  What's the best way to go about locking the diff?  This one is an 8 pinion.  I'm almost tempted to flip em because there are so many but I'd rather not take my chances.  Do most guys flip the pinion gears anyway before they weld them so there is a longer area to weld?  What's the best weld process for that?  I'm great with TIG and I have stick electrodes too.  Does anyone bother welding the snapring on to the end of the axle so the axle can't come out the the housing?  I've heard of pullers doing this.

Maybe try the idea that moose came up with. He updated that thread earlier today so it’s fresh in my mind, but I think it would work with your setup

He just needs to come up with one more gear.

I know I’m mr. anti flipping gears, but this particular rear end is the sole exception. Flip the gears 180 degrees from each other and it will never break, my buddy Andrews been running his that way for 10 years with no issues and I’ve done two for myself, they hold up great, unlike sears rearends. Also some wheel horses had 4 pin rearends, I’d weld those but it’s not nessary on 8 pins

YES!  I Love this 8 pinion rear end with 1 1/8 axles! I'm very happy that I get to take the easy way out here.  I still might weld up the snaprings for insurance though. @Creepycrawler Thanks for the advice.

That will save a lot of time!  That trans looks to be pretty durable for that mod as well.

No problem bud, I’ve never had issues with the snap rings but it can’t hurt

So with the rain today I took the day off to clean up the parts for reassembly.  Per request of @TheBeal here are plenty of pictures.  Sorry no  buddy.


I went out and bought a little tiny cup brush for the dremel that cleaned up the rust in the case halves pretty nicely.  I also picked up a full tank of Argon too.  Here are the overbuilt differential parts:



Here are the flipped pinion gears:

The assembled differential makes my 18v impact look like a 12v impact.

I started reassebling the case halves thinking my gasket wouldn't be here for a couple of days but it showed up today just in the nick of time!



It went together really well with the help of my Dad.  We just had to tap it together once the dowel pins were engaged.  I cleaned up the outside to prep it for paint.

Now some bad news that I'm glad I discovered before the upcoming group ride.  The front part of the gas tank and the seat hinge bolt to this bracket which is bolted to very thin sheetmetal that I would refer to as the "tunnel" of the tractor.

Ouch!  Tons of cracks.  I plan on welding a little 1/8 plate underneath to reinforce the area.  Problem is this part doesn't come off the tractor easily because it supports the dash, hood, and other body work and I can't TIG weld upside down.  I'll have to figure out a way to turn the tractor over or put it on its side to weld them in.

Your Transaxle looks good! So You have now locked Diff?

Maybe drain gas and oil, and turn the tractor upside down? Do you have any access to a hoist or something like that so you can support it? I use that thing on my mowers if I have to work on the rear end area all the time.

That trans is beef, I wanted to look inside one of my wheelhorses sometime, even the small ones look to be really well built.

Yeah the Uni-drive rears in Wheel Horses are built really well. Mine is locked now.

I don’t need an oil change really but I could drain it out to facilitate turning the tractor over. The gas tank is already out of it.

Well I got a coat of paint on the underside of the trans today and on the shifter:

What the Heck?!!!  What happened to Ol' Red?!

I pulled the motor and flipped the chassis over so I could weld up the cracks I found.  Next step it to reinforce it.  I might put some small pieces of formed angle in there.

Kind of glad you took the engine off and hood to do it right. Ol' Red is going to be a beast when you get it back together.

I thought the second picture was like a Picasso rendition of Ol' Red or something. Transaxle looks pretty good all painted up. Nice that you're welding up those cracks too, before they good any worse.

At some point somebody painted the body work, but didn't paint the underside of the tractor.  Maybe this is when the replacement motor was put in before being flipped maybe?  hmmm if only tractors could talk.  Anyway it's kinda rusty underneath so after the group ride I'd like to blow this thing apart again to do a proper restore/paint job.

I'm also going to add a brace going from the bottom of the trans mount diagonally to the frame to strengthen the trans mount.

I reinforced the cracked area of the tunnel with every mower modder's secret weapon...bedframe angle iron:


I painted the top of the trans and with my dad's help I got the motor and the trans bolted back in.  I also found a proper npt pipe cap for my oil drain line.  I was using a compression one before with a rubber seal in it.  It never leaked but I noticed when I drained the oil that it was loose.  It's starting to look like a tractor again, but there's something missing on this side of the tractor that was there before...hmmm....any guesses?

Oh yeah, The lift mechanism has been removed for now to lighten and streamline this a little.

Them there are parts to make new parts!  LOL

Nice job on locking the diff, that trans is huge and really well made.

Well I decided that this part that bolts on top of the transmission that supports the seat, fenders, and gas tank was too rusty to bolt back on so I painted it:

Then I decided while that paint was drying to start re-wiring the motor back up and I realized I had a winch contactor and switch I had to mount somewhere.  I used this empty real estate for contactor block.

Kids this is why you save these old school drills.  They fit into tight spaces really well. 

I like the spot I found for the winch switch.  I'll probably get the power for the switch from the accessory post on the ignition switch.

So regarding tires for the upcoming trip.  I'm going to run the slightly shorter tires from the rear of mud rat to lower my center of gravity.  I'll also take Ol Red's bear claws and the fronts from mud rat to have as spares.

Looking really good man, did yours have any cracks where the transmission bolts to the frame? Wheel horses love to crack the frame right there, mine was cracked when I got it around the bolt holes, I welded em up and ground them down, then 3 or 4 years of very hard use later it did it again, so I refixed them and welded reinforcements to the area.

This one isn’t cracked yet, but mud rat was. I plan on adding some bolt on gussets from the fame diagonally down to the lowest point on the transmission mount to keep it from flexing.

NICE JOB!!

So today I got most of the body back on Ol' Red...wait what's that on the front?!



That's right I finally built my custom front bumper with winch mount.  I have to give a huge thanks to @AllisKidD21 for helping me design a great off road looking bumper.  It's made out of 1.5" 11 gauge square tube angled to match the lines of the hood and leaned forward to give it a more aggressive stance.  It's mounted right to the frame of the tractor with 1.5 x 1.5 x 1/8 angle.  I spent a lot of quality time with my portaband, drill press, and tig welder today.  I almost got stumped figuring out how to mount the winch to the bumper because it needed to be raised up 3/4" but I came up with a strong way by notching some 1.5x1.5x3/16 angle iron pieces to make the mount.  I solved the hood opening problem by drilling a clearance hole in the bumper mount for what will be a more easily removed hood hinge pin.



Hopefully tomorrow I will build my rear bumper.  I plan on painting both of the bumpers black.  I'm a couple of steps closer to being ready for the group ride!

FYI there's a trick to removing body pieces where you drill small alignment holes through the pieces and use pins to perfectly locate the panels for reassembly.  I wish I had done that for the fender/gas tank mounting bracket.

Bumper looks great Carl!


Edit:  When building the rear bumper.  Keep in mind ground clearance.  Watching the guys that go to haspin, those with rear bumpers low to the ground seem to get hung in ditches.