MightyRaze - Red Bandit

Not much anything today, but this is something.  New tie-rods are complete.  Issues getting it welded at first.  I ended up having to melt them down good.  

My parking brake made it today!  Fits, and may possibly resolve an issue I have with the clutch spring.  I painted it and it's drying right now.  We'll see how that goes.

Other news, My hubs that returned to Ft Worth Tx made it back to OKC and to my house overnight.  Not sure what happened there.

I couldn't wait to install them.  So I did at lunch break.  They fit perfectly without trimming on the Wheel Horse.

Sweet, like the stance!

OK, finally decided on an issue that I didn't like.  Brakes/Parking Brake... clutch spring.

This is how the clutch/brake/spring was intalled when I got it.



I don't know if it was Wheel Horse or whoever replaced the trans knew what they were doing.  This totally does not look right or function well.  I took things into my own hands and made better with what I had.



Much better.

OK, goof/messup of the day.  When I was loctiteing the hub bolts into place I got some on my throttle and choke knobs.  Didn't think much of it.  Yeah... evidently loctite and plastic do not mix.  It will turn it super brittle, like shatter into many pieces brittle with just a drop.  Ask me how I know.




Needless to say, they did not install well.  I looked up loctite and yeah it makes plastic brittle.

Lessen learned.  Had no idea.  I would have cleaned them up right away instead of when I was done doing what I was doing.

MightyRaze wrote:

This is how the clutch/brake/spring was intalled when I got it.

That 1st picture is how mine is I think. I do have clutch brake issues and wonder if my springs are in the wrong place.

BairleaFarm wrote:

MightyRaze wrote:

This is how the clutch/brake/spring was intalled when I got it.

That 1st picture is how mine is I think.   I do have clutch brake issues and wonder if my springs are in the wrong place.

I think that is how it was...  Not a good design.  Also, in the first pic, when brake was disengaged.  The band still dragged due to the spring.

Check the second pic out.  Full disengage on of the band on that one.

She's coming along nicely, can't wait to see it in action!

@Brianator
That makes two of us.  I am hoping to have it drivable by Christmas break!  It could be earlier, but before the end of the year is my goal.  Then I hope to start working kinks out for the next 3-4 months and then take it to Haspin if that is still in the cards for me.  Right now it is.

It's the little things that make you happy.  Bonus, before bed.







Lights from the "light" switch are wired!   LED Front and rear.

wow that looks nice!

Finally put hands on the Kolhler K301s.

Removed the carb and broke it down.



Everything came out pretty easily.  There were a couple clogs, but nothing I don't think I couldn't clean.  I also noticed it was missing one of the gaskets. 




Not too many boogers in the bowl.  I think I will just get a kit and rebuild this one.

Engine is now cleaned up, fluffy's nest and oil build-up is cleaned.  Debating repainting it back to red with red tins.  I also thought of black with red tins, or aluminum with red tins.  Oh and that intake... it looks polished. What?  Still haven't got the exhaust nipple off.  I have soaked it for WEEKS and today I did hit it with some heat.  No go.



SO...
* Need a head gasket and bolts.
* Need points and codenser along with coil.
* Fuel pump?  Still unsure.

You are now up to date.

Also here is another video.

MightyRaze wrote:

Engine is now cleaned up, fluffy's nest and oil build-up is cleaned.  Debating repainting it back to red with red tins.  I also thought of black with red tins, or aluminum with red tins.  

I am leaning either a darker red with the red tins, or black with red tins.

I'm leaning darker red with red tins since I have it on hand.  I would like to paint the controls silver to stand out.

Decided to go with the regal red block and sunrise tins.  Like the rest of the tractor.  I am also painting some of the levers and such aluminum.

I looked over the fuel pump and it was not that old when parked.  I am going to use a rebuild kit on it.  It was like $10.



Still can't get that exhaust nipple off.  I'll try again when I get it hot from running.  See if that helps any.

MightyRaze wrote:

Still can't get that exhaust nipple off.

Sometimes it's best to leave sleeping dogs lie... but sometimes melting candle wax on/in the threads is just what the doctor ordered!

Brianator wrote:

MightyRaze wrote:

Still can't get that exhaust nipple off.

Sometimes it's best to leave sleeping dogs lie... but sometimes melting candle wax on/in the threads is just what the doctor ordered!

I'm thinking the let sleeping dogs lie is the best at this point.

MightyRaze wrote:

I'm thinking the let sleeping dogs lie is the best at this point.

Dont use a 6' pipe wrench. I snapped the corner off a block one time and got sad.

I was using a 12" pipe wrench with an additional 20 inches cheater bar. No budge. I figure I will try one more time after the engine gets "naturally" hot from running a bit. That's how I got the same thing out of an ONAN once. Otherwise, it will stay unless I get motivated in the future to cut it out. Not really feeling that path. I'll work around it for now.

Getting ever so much closer!

Engine:  Waiting for carb and fuel pump kit.  Points, condenser, and coil are on the way as well.



Body:  Started extra idlers for smoother clutching and better pulley grip.  Clutch is fully depressed in image to be sure clearance is good.



Later I realized...  I am to the point to reinstall the engine!!!




Hoping to have this running again in a couple weeks.  Maybe driving by Christmas!

Ignition is done!  New Points, Condenser, and coil installed.




Look at that fire!!!

that's a nice spark. You Love to see it

I'm still running the old plug wire. I bought a new one off the jungle website. The original here is 11 inches. Its a few inches longer than needed. Anyways, I bought a new one that is suppose to be 9 inches long. The one I received was 25 inches long. That's not usable. Guess I could trim it back and put a new end on it. That depends on the inner core.

You could try to return it, if not you could cut it and see what the inside looks like if you're not going to be able to use it it won't be a complete loss anyway

It's not a loss either way. I'll probably hang onto it.

Latest shot.  Doing a minor seat swap with Kal, and a spare I had back on Kal where it originated.

Nice Job Mighty.  I like the resto mod approach because it brings back fond memories of old red for me.

As I am serious enough about wheel horses to have the emblem tattooed on my chest so I would like to offer my expertise:

-you have the brake band installed upside down, however that is not an OEM spring but it was hooked to the right location, and even from the factory it stills rubs on the linkage and/or band, so I did a similar mod to improve it as well, I believe you have the correct 6 spd transmission because it literally says 6 speed on your dash decal, and your clutch/brake and trans are identical to red stag which is also a raider 12 but since that's a '69 it has the preceding hood design.  I'd had have to take a close look at your brake shaft location to see if it's been tampered with.  Is the brake hub on a 1" keyed shaft or is on a shaft with two flats cut into it??? On "8 speed" tractors the brake band is installed the other way because the brake hub is on a different shaft and those tractors have a separate brake pedal.

-I love that you kept the OEM carb and fuel pump as the quality is better than ebay and rebuild kits are available however I've been running a $40 plastic ebay knockoff fuel pump for approximately 13 years on the C-125 I mow with regularly with ZERO issues.

-you can test a condenser very easily with a multimeter

-you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble with fluffy.  We regularly encounter this problem at my farm and all we do it loosen and remove about (3) 1/4-20 bolts holding the small tin on top of the head and remove it.  This creates a large enough opening where you can retrieve most of the mouse nest, then we start the motor and the fan blows the rest of the debris out, then we re-install that small tin on top of the head. Kohler even slotted a couple of the holes in the tin to make this easier. 

-I recently bought a coil (with internal resistor) and universal short coil wire from napa that I just had to crimp a 90 degree spark plug end on for my C-100.  I had to do this due to really bad corrosion where the plug wire connects to the coil. However I went to crimp the end on and I'm like WTF is this carbon core?  Apparently it's the new wave in spark plug wire technology.  Anyway it started right up (once I put the condenser back on the right terminal...oopsies) and seemed to run a little better with the corrosion issue fixed.  I'm curious to put more hours on it this spring.

Edit: In my red stag thread I found a picture of my factory correctly installed brake band, however you can see I had to get a little creative with the brake linkage to make the separate pedal system work correctly.