My 1450 project officially started today

[CC1450]

got the drive controls free on both tractors and the deck control lever and valve free on the '76.

came in for my coffee cup, back out I go.

[CC1450]

Geared back up in the coveralls and gloves, pulled the deck off of the '76 in the rain and then pushed it into the garage while the '78 sat out for a bit. Got right to pulling the engine on the '76, starting with removing the hood and nose pieces. That nose panel lower casting is heavier than it looks!



The engine was not too bad to remove, I did not keep track but it did not seem to take very long and it was on the floor. I am going to put that driveshaft in the '78, it has all the blades on the fan.



this one came out fuzzy, sorry.


put the nose pieces and hood back on the '76, but not before I snagged the voltage gauge.


Then back outside it went, minus it's engine.


This is what I was after from the '76 most, these brackets. They look to me like they have already had some welding done to them at some point in time. perhaps it tore the old bolt holes through and someone tacked some new ones in.


I finished the evening of cub wrenching off by pushing the '78 back in and putting the lights out of the '76 into the 78, the 78 now has a complete front end.




Somewhere in this evening's session I got the 78's deck control free and moving, the valve seems to move as it should.

The 78 cannot travel the full range of steering like the 76 can. I am going to compare the linkage settings and see what is going on with that, I need this big tank to turn tight as possible, lots of obstacles in this yard.

I am going to take the engine brackets and the better of the two decks to my buddy's shop tomorrow after breakfast and get started on them. The engine cradle mod should only take these boys a few minutes, I may even do it all if no one is around. I will pound some steel sheet patch panels into shape for the deck and tack those on. Then time and weather permitting I plan to put the deck on the '78, work out any kinks, and see about cutting some grass. I think she can handle it, we'll see.

[_DX3_]

Dang, you have been busy. You get more done in a day than I do in a week LOL. Keep up the good work. I love all the posts and updates. Make sure you check the drive shaft bushings in the front and rear. They do tend to wear and cause a lot of shaft wobble and vibrations.

[CC1450]

thanks, I have been covering a lot of ground and I would never have gotten this far without this site's info. I've been waiting so long to get a cub I feel like I have had these longer than just a handful of days.

The driveshaft from the '76 looks really good visually. Based on the welded engine mounts I would say someone had the 76 apart in the past. Some of the parts look too good to be the originals, like that PTO switch I pulled from it. Never know though, it all depends how it was cared for as stored.

[ACecil]

Thanks for the updates! I've thoroughly enjoyed them!

[CC1450]

no problem I am glad you guys are enjoying the thread so far. I have some ideas for the '76 I want to play with down the road that will be fun too. I am boning some parts off it here and there but it will be back.

I was thinking a bit ago, when I took the brackets off the engine there were only 3 bolts in them, instead of 4 like there should be. I thought one must have worked loose but now that I look at these pics and think about it, I bet whoever patched these brackets up redrilled the holes off and could not get all four bolts in. I'm not sure if I even want to use these brackets now. I guess I could figure out which hole is off, weld it in and drill it again. I think I'll just see what the ones on the '78 look like and hopefully they are in better shape to do the cradle mod.

Maybe I will not go bother my buddy tomorrow and just see about getting the '78 cutting. That sounds like more fun. I can go over there and patch the deck up one night after work or next weekend, there are just a few small pin holes in it.

[CC1450]

what a day! I went outside around 10:30 this morning. Got the '78 fired up and tested out all the hydraulic stuff. Deck lift, check. Drive system, check! It all works!!!!

The deck I want to run on the '78 came to me attached to the '76. Not a big deal right? The tractors are the same. Wrong. Someone had modified the deck lift linkage on the '76 with some spacers at the spring clip ends to run this deck so I had to swap the deck lift linkage from the '76 to my '78.



Prior to realizing this I had put the deck from the '76 onto the '78 and drove the tractor around. The deck fell off the linkage and was being dragged by the belt. So I measured and realized the brackets were different. During this ordeal I somehow managed to get the part that attaches to the lower front end with the deck idler pulleys to fall off the tractor. Brought me back to square one in a hurry haha.

So I got that fixed and locked in place like it should be after a little head scratching, then put the deck linkage from the '76 on and finally got the deck attached to the '78 correctly. Got the belt routed and it seemed like it was ready to cut.

I have been jump starting this tractor so much I see now why one member here put a car battery holder on his cub. I got my '78 fired up and drove it over to the grass, time for the maiden pass. Hit the PTO switch and it dies. Of course, it needs a good battery to use the PTO. I should have known that. So I pull my car over there and jump start it again. This time I hit the PTO switch with the jumper cables connected and the deck sprang to life with a little squeal of the belt. I guess technically I did cut some grass, but just that one spot.

I was a little bummed out I did not get to cut the grass with it today but I don't think it would have ran well enough to cut with anyways to be honest. It was smoking pretty badly today since I topped the oil all the way up, and just running like snot. The smoking is not the end of the world, I'll get to that.

The carb keeps flooding out and over filling or something. the thing will run superb for like 3 minutes then it's the worst running engine you have ever heard.

At one point today I put the carb from the '76 on it and it did the same thing. I had the '78 carb open again today and cleaned a little debris from the valve under the float. Did not help. No easy way around it, I need to rebuild one of these carbs ASAP. Basically if you turn the gas valve at the tank on the float bowl fills, the tractor runs great for a minute then you can see gas just pouring into the carb from what I assume is the float bowl vent. At one point while I was riding the tractor it started running bad and it was spraying me with gasoline mist out of the carb. good times. My first thought was just to get a replacement carb new and be done with these old ones but the price of a new carb is 200 or more from what I am seeing so far. I'll be going the rebuild route after all.

I made a little video of it running so you guys can see what it's doing. May want to turn your speakers down, it's a loud video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUKYQ4GF6Fw


This is my 1978 1450. Up until last Monday it was sitting it a junk pit. Now it runs, albeit pretty roughly.


I will fix it.

[CC1450]

The sticker on the back of my cub says: Sold by Don Bales, Lowell IN. I went to school in Lowell and that is where I do my banking and what not, so I knew they were still in business.

Gave them a call this morning and they have my carb rebuild kit in stock for around 15 dollars and are open until 6 this evening. How cool is that? Getting my parts from the same dealership who sold the tractor around 33 years ago.

I wonder what other kind of goodies are over there? Good thing I am about out of money lol.

[CC1450]

made a lunch time parts run to old Don Bales and grabbed the carb rebuild kit. 13 bucks and change, not bad.



After work I will look over the kohler service manual and see about rebuilding the carb off the '76.

I've got a bunch of car parts from another project I have listed on craigslist, hoping some of it sells sooner than later. A couple extra bucks would really come in handy this week. I paid for that rebuild kit from my lunch money for the week. PB&J will taste better with a running tractor in the shed.

[westofb]

I watched the video, I think the 1450 may be suffering from stage fright! It ran just fine while it was looking away from the camera....once it saw that camera it started acting up!