Garden tractor acquisition

[bill25]

I am not really saying that these luxuries aren't nice, I am really just saying what I think would be worth paying for and what is really fluff that I could do without.

[kevm14]

The tractor is still on Craigslist....

[kevm14]

Still working hard for me.

[kevm14]

Another tree.

Only lost 2 logs on the ride back to the wood pile. Which Ian dutifully picked up for me.

[kevm14]

I pulled the deck. Since Adam now has a truck he can easily throw his welder in the Ranger and bring it over. I need to repair that broken bracket that I discovered and posted earlier in this thread. Here is the Simplicity without deck. I didn't power wash it - just the regular sprayer.

Fun fact: I never took the battery out this winter, though I used it occasionally. Also, these tires still hold air (fix-a-flat).

[kevm14]

Badly yellowed fuel gauge (in fuel cap):

Finally got annoyed enough to order a new cap/gauge. I sprung for the OEM replacement part for whatever reason and it looks great.

[kevm14]

Adam came over yesterday to help weld the deck back to proper strength due to some cracks. One bracket was completely separated which put extra stress on the front deck mounts. Those developed many small stress cracks. So all that was welded up, including a patch on the worst of the rust holes. I have painted with Rustoleum primer so far. Here are some pics.

This area wasn't cracked but I decided to wire wheel down to paint as it sits under the bracket.

Look, the Ranger! Now that is a useful $400 vehicle.

He even wore his finest Ford shirt for maximum annoyance.

[kevm14]

Bracket tacked in place. You can see that this would be the weakest part which is why it cracked here. The middle part goes around the center blade pulley and they did add significant strength with the lip. As to why it cracked at all though, I don't know. Maybe someone just ran the deck into stuff. I mean this is from the mid to late 80s so let's call it 30 years old anyway. As Adam put it "it had a whole life before you got it."

You can see the stress cracks pretty well here. He basically just welded all of them and then we ground it back down. The weld penetrates so in theory you are left with a solid piece of metal again.

Ian enjoyed the welding mask.

Shot from under. This should really be a good penetration in those cracks. We did not bother grinding this side.

The patch job. This ended up being fairly time consuming so we didn't really get to finish. Plus it was getting late. Better than it was at least.

All primed up. Yes I did the underside of the deck also.

You can tell from the drips that I was extra careful.

If I really cared, I could buy the correct orange Simplicity paint. The Rustoleum black will look pretty crappy admittedly but much of it is somewhat concealed when the deck is on the machine so whatever. Not trying to make a show tractor here...

[kevm14]

First coat.

I did a second coat this morning because it was pouring when I got up. May as well do two and help it last even longer. I guess I will put it back together tomorrow. Hopefully I can figure out where all the linkage stuff goes.

[bill25]

The Simplicity orange color should be printed under the hood with the belts blades and other random info.