1969 Wheel Horse 700 WORKHORSE

murphyslaw wrote:

This has been a very cool build. Everything has a very clean finished look. Looking forward to seeing what other modifications are in store for the future.

Thanks! I like to make things clean looking but sometimes I think I over think alot of things and make it way too complicated. But I should have some more upgrades coming!

I hope everyone had a happy new year! Yesterday I remade the choke return spring bracket, this time making use of both bolt holes so hopefully it wont decide to move around anymore.

This is what I made originally. It's just a piece of sheet metal with 2 holes in it. It worked good but I had to really tighten down that screw to keep it from moving around, and I've had it come loose a couple of times.


I used the old piece as a reference and cut this rough template out of cardboard to get the shape I needed.


Then I transferred the holes onto a piece of aluminum which is just an old light switch bracket, then I cut it out and rounded the edges off. I used aluminum because its alot easier to work with when making small brackets and things, plus I wont have to worry about painting it.


I got it all bolted up and it's definitely alot sturdier than it was before, plus it hopefully wont come loose anymore since it uses both bolt holes.

Thread locker might work well too just to be sure

Nice job!  That makes it look stock!

CraftsmanQuad19 wrote:

Thread locker might work well too just to be sure

I will if It still decides to come loose.

MightyRaze wrote:

Nice job!  That makes it look stock!

Thanks! Should be unnoticeable now.

I ordered a new gas tank off of Amazon. It's a Colman mini bike gas tank so it has the offset fuel cap but most importantly its black! LOL! I could have gotten a cheap honda gx200 replacement tank but all the reviews said it leaked around the cap and it cracks easily, plus I couldnt live with having a white gas tank. I know, I know, I could have painted it but it's too cold for that and plus sanding powdercoat sucks.
But I paid alittle more for this one and honestly it's pretty nice, it only has one tiny dent in it and it's on the bottom where you cant even see it.

So today all I managed to get done was get the fuel pump plate off of the motor and mock up the new tank.

I also needed to get a new air filter cause when I took the old one out it pretty much fell apart in my hand. I'm surprised it didnt get sucked through the carburetor. So while I was ordering my gas tank I also got a new air filter.......well actually you could get 2 air filters for 8 bucks or you could get 3 air filters, 3 fuel filters, and 3 sparkplugs for 12 bucks so I went with them.

The old one


The new filters and what not


I also got new front wheel bearings too. Nothin wrong with the old ones, they're just sloppy, but they were in the original rims when I got it and I just swapped them over to the 80s craftsman rims that are on it now.

Well after about 2 weeks of nothing but running back and forth between garages I finally got done making the gas tank brackets!

So here's what I've came up with. The left side was pretty simple to make but the right side was pretty complicated and I ended up making a mock up bracket before I made the real one. I also had to make some small spacers to get eveything where I wanted it to be and to also take up the shank on the studs coming out of the tank.


Here's the left side bracket. This one was pretty easy to make, I used part of the old fuel pump plate and welded it to a new piece I cut out to mount to the gas tank itself. Both of which are 16 gauge sheet metal.

Here's the right side. This one was pretty difficult and I actually made a mock up bracket so I could figure out what I was doing, then I made the actual one. Believe it or not this piece is actually four separate pieces welded together....again made out of 16 gauge sheet metal.



P.S. we now have electricity and lights in the garage! 🤟

BlakeGroce wrote:

Well after about 2 weeks of nothing but running back and forth between garages I finally got done making the gas tank brackets!

Nice fab work! I hear ya on not having a dedicated shop space, it’s a pain. But it’s always nice when someone else lets you borrow some. Brutus is getting to be quite a strong horse there!

Nice job! That's some professional work there!

Excellent work!!

Thanks guys! Yeah it'll definitely be nice once we get moved out to the big garage. I'm honestly gonna kinda miss the little one though......I mean it'll still be attached to our house.....but small garages are just nice and cozy and you ain't gotta walk too far to get something lol. But at the end of the day any garage is better than no garage and I'm definitely thankful we have one, it's crazy the things we made in that little garage and now having one 3 times bigger is just unreal to me.

Took some pictures of the inside corners of those brackets I made. Didnt get to crazy on cleaning up my crappy welds but it's sheet metal so you cant go burnin in a bead and expect not to blow through, so I just tack weld and let it cool then come back and tack weld again till it all looks like one piece inside and out. Just waiting on a warm day to paint them.

Those are actually really nice dimes there! What setup are you running? My welding looks like go to tractor supply and buy a ton of bolts lol

Here's the welder I use. It's my dad's Lincoln SP-170T, I have no idea what any of that means but it's a 220 squirt welder. Pretty sure it use to be flux core cause most Lincoln's start off that way, but it's been swapped to gas which is nice. I think it's from the 2000s ish maybe 2006? Not sure but dad got it for free from a guy at work who I guess inherited it and wasn't interested in welding so he gave to my dad, even came with the bottle. (I swear my dads the luckiest man alive when it comes to getting free stuff and he dont even know it!) But it works good, I use it all the time and it's never had an issue. Takes a bit to get the setting set right but other than that it works great! Not sure the maximum thickness it can weld but we've welded half inch plate with no issues. Works good on sheet metal too just gotta be careful not to burn through but you gotta get it hot enough to get good penetration so it takes a bit to set it up and it helps to practice on some scrap pieces before hand but once you get it set right it works good! Definitely cant complain for free!



Ain't nothin wrong with bolts they work good too!

Well I dont have any updates besides it being very cold. I did clean up the engine some though, it had a bunch of mold on it (at least I think its mold) and it was some pretty nasty stuff that was almost like a mixture of grease and dirt. This thing stays outside pretty much all the time but I always keep it covered up (I actually use a big grill cover) and I'm sure it traps quite a bit of moisture under there.

Nothin to it just used some simple green, a brush, and some paper towels.


You can also see where there is a spot for a starter so maybe one of these days I'll buy a starter and a battery and then have the luxury of electric start.............probably not.

Well I finally got around to priming and painting those gas tank brackets. Hopefully sometime soon I'll be abable to get it all hooked up and get this turd out of the garage.

Well I got alot done this weekend! Got the gas tank all installed and all the fuel line is routed. Even got the air cleaner put back on and this thing fired right up and I didnt even have any leaks! 

So here's the spacers I made. I just used some TV mount spacers that I found and cut them down to the right size and drilled them out to fit! 

Never thought parts of a TV would end up on this but hey Horders Rule! 



Also here's how I've got the fuel line routed. Might come back and try to tidy it up some but works good for now, and I'm pretty happy with this setup so far plus not having to have a fuel pump is nice! I also dont have to have a separate fuel filter because there's already one inside the tank fitting.

really beautiful fab work on those tank brackets !

Thanks! I appreciate it! 

Side note: I'm going to have to run down to the parts house and get some vacuum caps to plug off the intake port. Right now it doesn't run right unless I've got my finger over it. I need one to plug off the vacuum advance on my truck too since I dont use it and I've got a bolt shoved in the hose right now, so I'll grab a pack of them since I'm sure this isn't going to be the last time I'm gonna need them.

Well I've been pretty busy here lately but I got that intake port plugged off and I even painted the engine pulley black which I've been meaning to do for awhile now. I also went to Rural King and got a proper bolt that fits the end of the crankshaft instead of using that one I welded together. I've actually got it parked back outside under it's cover to free up some space in the garage. Been using it quite a bit with no issues or complaints! 

Tech Tip! Dont use crappy Amazon fuel line.....when I bought the rubber tank grommet for my craftsman it came with some fuel line with it, so I decided I would use it on this thing. Well it's not apparently fuel line because I went to fire it up the other day it ran pretty good but then it started spitting and sputtering. I thought it just needed to be run because I haven't ran it in awhile but seemed like it would only run good when it was full throttle. I shut it off and then it started peeing gas out of the intake. Figured the float was stuck, took the bowl off and found a bunch of black goop in the bottom, then I got to looking at the fuel line and found that it was hard as a rock and I broke a piece off just bending it.

Went to tractor supply to try and find some black 3/16 fuel line but they didnt have any. Luckily enough I saved the old fuel line and just ended up useing it, I dont like how its blue but that's all I can get around here, finding hose clamps that will work is hard too, ended up using zip ties on the gas tank and carb inlet because I couldnt find my stash of hose clamps.     I also needed a o-ring for the bottom of the carb bowl, my dad works for Parker Seal and they make o-rings, so he found one that worked perfectly!