Wifey Deere

Hi all though I might share some pictures and videos of the wife’s tractor in here
Here’s a video explaining the tractor and the recovery
https://youtu.be/5aLQ7UP8NNk

Here’s one of me getting it running after it’s abandonment
https://youtu.be/e9KCOkD-nwo

And this leads up to us riding it at Good Evening Ranch

https://youtu.be/bTII7F5v_2E

Now it’s been a great little tractor but she’s really enjoying it more than I tough she would so I decided to do some upgrades, the 801 was fine but the low gear wasn’t really slow enough for crawling, so I’m swapping in a 820, which will also be faster in top gear, gonna go from 21 inch rears and 15 fronts to 25 rears and 20 inch fronts, at the same time stretching the wheel base and making the tractor wider, which will be more stable. Gonna upload some pics later on too show the progress later

Here’s a few pics of the lift and stretch I did to get the 25s to clear the fenders, 3/4 stretch and 1 1/4 lift

Chopped the trans mount here, slid it down and back and added a filler piece to make up the difference


Buffed the welds off the outside, so it will look factory at first glance, left the inside welds alone to help with strength

Well now the tire clears the front and top of the fender but the rear lip is hitting hard, I could have cut the back lip off but it would have looked funny to me so I decided to section the fenders

Before


After


Mocked up with the rack that’s going on the back, I’ll have to modify the rack but I think it’s gonna look good.

Worked as a JD tech for a long time and I can't express my hatred for the newer models.

These older ones however just hit the right spot.
Those fenders look amazing like so and those tires just fit perfect
Might be a pain if they're full of mud though, are you perhaps still lifting the pan a little?

Thanks man! This thing is built pretty good for being a lawn tractor, but I’m not lifting the fenders anymore than they are, I don’t mind if mud touches em, it will just rub off
Got the trans pulled apart to lock the diff


Was really sad to see the shift keys was trashed the tractor I bought that I took this 820 out of was a Murray in really nice shape that came with a snow plow, not running. So I’d guess they was overly aggressive and tore up the keys plowing


Decided to try a “Fozzy” locker, cleaned up the gears and then tig brazed up the gears

Got the frame chop started, took the spare frame and got the extension pieces cut


Built this hub puller to help get hubs off without breaking them, took these hubs right off, and they were stuck, had a 2 ft breaker bar and was leaning on it pretty hard

Played with the grinder and files till the fit up looked





Got it squared up and tacked up, been welding it little at a time and letting it cool in between.

I know this is outside the quality build you got going, but I just love the name.  "Wifey Deere"  

Nice work man that's really looking awesome!

Nice work, I like how you sectioned those fenders going to look pretty good.

Thanks Fellas! I really like the fenders too, came out better than expected to be honest, but decided to do them a little different, they will look the same when done it’s just less welding and fitting. I felt pretty clever with the name, glad you like it too Mighty. Got some work done today on it

Got the outside welds ground down


Quick coat of primer


And some black to finish

Cut the pan for the mid stretch, did 2 inches same as the frame Got some filler pieces bent up, they was a real pain because the pan tapered slightly and has a different radius at the spot I cut it (right in a transition) but tomorrow should be fairly easy the rest is just copy and paste out of the donor pan

Put a big day in yesterday, made some good progress, got the middle filler cut and tacked in


Decided to do the rear fenders this way to save a weld seam plus this pan is in better shape overall


Another shot showing the new tire clearance

Got the rear filler unrolled and tacked in, felt pretty clever doing it this way, but turned out being a big pain in the but because I didn’t flatten it before I welded the extension on, so I had to use to hammers one as a backer kinda and pound it flat, took a long time to get a decent result but I am happy with it now


Sweet looking booty if I do say do myself 🥰


Now on to the seat mounts!

Seat mocked up with the mounts, still needs drilled so the seat can flip up, ended up trying a few seat pan flip mounts laying around, but had one off a wheel horse that her seat bolted right up to, so went with that one. I could have reused the leaf type springs but I really wanted a flip up seat so I can add a storage box under there for her


Mock up pic with the rack and seat definitely gotta cut the rack down some but it’s gonna fit nice

The seat mounts were kinda big and bulky so I drilled some speed holes in em. It was going good till somehow my math got off and the spacing got out of whack, and I went a step to far on the step bit once like every time I used the dam thing lol but thats ok it still looks ok and I don’t feel like remaking them so it will have to be good enough
.

Great job welding up that thin metal! I can tell you have the patients that I seem to lack! lol.

Creepycrawler wrote:

The seat mounts were kinda big and bulky so I drilled some speed holes in em. It was going good till somehow my math got off and the spacing got out of whack, and I went a step to far on the step bit once like every time I used the dam thing lol but thats ok it still looks ok and I don’t feel like remaking them so it will have to be good enough
.

Does that add 5 or 10 horsepower? I forget lol. Looks awesome!

Thanks guys! I’m thinking it adds at least 4 hp and I don’t know if patient
is the right word, I’d go with stubborn anyways I got the mounts and springs in tonight, need yo add some bracing underneath for the springs but that will be a project for tomorrow
Got the seat mounted tonight, it’s a little higher than I like but it’s more work to lower it than I care to do due to the springs, but if it becomes a issue I can lower it later by drilling a couple holes and then frenching the spring mounts into the pan. Need this add some bracing under the springs on the frame but that’s. Project for tom

Got some catching up to do! Got the trans prepped and locked finally, broke down and added grease zerks to the axle shafts and input bearings

So the front axle needed to be wider to get a decent steering angle out of the new much bigger front tires and also to match the new stance of the rearend. I decided to make it a “stretch” axle to add a little wheel base up front to help keep the frontend down also. So I took two factory front axles and started cutting

More cutting welding and grinding gives you this


But Lieutenant Dan you ain’t got no legs!


That’s better! This was definitely not the best way to do this but it came out ok but wouldn’t do the same way again

Lots more welding cutting and grinding gives you this!


How it looks installed

Some stance pictures


[url=https://servimg.com/view/19896805/141]

Two more and I’m done for now, hope you like em