Spring cleaning--pull the tins

[john hall]

Not a Cadet, not even a lawn mower, but a great example why you need to periodically pull off the sheet metal and clean the cooling fins on your air cooled engine if it runs in dirty environments--I guess pressure washers and generators are exempt. Anyway, this is on my ancient New Holland hay baler with a model TF Wisconsin engine. I always have blown it off with it running using a leaf blower every time we are done. Sometimes I even use a "non-OSHA-approved" blow gun on the manifold side to get in what few cracks there are. Lets just say it has been many years since I had pulled any of the sheet metal, I'll be pulling the top piece once or twice a year from now on.

[jaynjeep]

Good idea John! you never can tell what you may find under there.

Is that a TJD Wisconsin? I used to work on those back in the 80's. Had a farm supply dealer that ran several of them on various different pieces of equipment.. They had a very unique sound especially under a hard load..

Good engines though... just bulky and heavy

[RLause]

Those are really cool engines. I wish I had one to play with.

[john hall]

Originally Posted by jaynjeep

Good idea John! you never can tell what you may find under there.

Is that a TJD Wisconsin? I used to work on those back in the 80's. Had a farm supply dealer that ran several of them on various different pieces of equipment.. They had a very unique sound especially under a hard load..

Good engines though... just bulky and heavy

It is a TF, we think. Long story short the original engine blew about 15 -20 years ago in the middle of baling wheat straw. Someone had give dad this one but it didn't have electric start. So we had to transfer all of the sheet metal over to this one. The IH dealer dad worked for was also a Wisconsin dealer. Back in the 80's they worked on a ton of these. I just robbed the starter and starter gear off a TJD to go on this one, going to switch carb to. Hopefully the new carb will work, its a fixed jet. The old one is shot where the throttle shaft goes through the body. Being on a baler, you can imagine how bad the governor surge is with every plunger stroke. I doubt Kohler or Onan either one ever built an engine that would tolerate the abuse a Wisconsin will.

[jaynjeep]

Originally Posted by john hall

It is a TF, we think. Long story short the original engine blew about 15 -20 years ago in the middle of baling wheat straw. Someone had give dad this one but it didn't have electric start. So we had to transfer all of the sheet metal over to this one. The IH dealer dad worked for was also a Wisconsin dealer. Back in the 80's they worked on a ton of these. I just robbed the starter and starter gear off a TJD to go on this one, going to switch carb to. Hopefully the new carb will work, its a fixed jet. The old one is shot where the throttle shaft goes through the body. Being on a baler, you can imagine how bad the governor surge is with every plunger stroke. I doubt Kohler or Onan either one ever built an engine that would tolerate the abuse a Wisconsin will.

Most of the ones I used to service were on the front of Killebrew fertilizer hopper trailers.. They powered a hydraulic pump to dump the hoppers when they delivered bulk fertilizer to the farmers. I always thought the pumps were not matched well to the engine.. pumped too many gpm's.. the poor little engine had to be in excellent mechanical condition and the tune up had to be spot on.. when you pulled the dump lever for the hopper it would bring the engine to it's knees... but they were tough.. never saw one blow up. Doubt they made much HP but I know they made lots of torque... All American Iron for sure.. not much aluminum and no plastic.

[john hall]

I think the TJD models were about 18 hp. The old one on the baler just locked up, don't know why, never opened it up. The dealer dad worked for didn't play around, they kept serious parts inventory. New carbs, magnetos, heads, overbore pistons, you name it and it was on the shelf.

I've always wanted to put a Wisconsin in a grass mowing Cadet. You'd need power steering with all that weight!