Pics of my new (to me) 1700 and some questions

[pacerron]

Peter,
It is not cracked welds...

The actual plate that holds the gearbox gets cracks. There are angle pieces under it and beside it to attach and to hold the belt covers, but it is the thick plate the gearbox sits on that is cracking. It must be torque stress from the gear box. I have always
been at low RPM when engaging and diss-engaging the PTO, but there has to be a lot of stress back there. I buy shear bolts by the bag. Break at least 3-4 per season.

You may have to look close or run an oily rag over the area to see them.
Ron

 

[FairfaxStu]

Peter:

Just got off the horn with the Fat Bastard. He recommends that you remove the exhaust flange and have some welder cut off the existing up pipe and weld a new one in at the proper angle. Should be fairly trivial. Guess the guy that did it was drinking Everclear and doing meth. Of course the other option is to do what you said and pick up a new one from your tractor dealer.

BTW, he is using the old motor from your generac in a stock pulling tractor and kicking a**. However, he does say that it smokes like crazy until it is warmed up. Possibly a cracked head. He has new heads coming.
-Stu

 

[pacerron]

Peter:

Just got off the horn with the Fat Bastard. He recommends that you remove the exhaust flange and have some welder cut off the existing up pipe and weld a new one in at the proper angle. Should be fairly trivial. Guess the guy that did it was drinking Everclear and doing meth. Of course the other option is to do what you said and pick up a new one from your tractor dealer.

BTW, he is using the old motor from your generac in a stock pulling tractor and kicking a**. However, he does say that it smokes like crazy until it is warmed up. Possibly a cracked head. He has new heads coming.
-Stu

Why not just take the muffler and pipe to a muffler shop and have them bend the pipe so the muffler is straight up?

On my old ford, I have bent mine a number of times hitting low tree branches. It is usually the bottom of the muffler that really bends but same result. I used to put a pipe on it and bend it back. After the metal on the bottom of the muffler started to tear in about 15 years, I took it to a muffler shop and they welded it back with added metal. The original muffler is now going on 24 years old and still good.
It has always been noisy, but back then the regulations let engines breath.
Ron

 

[FairfaxStu]

Here is a pic of the fat bastard and his "stock" garden tractor pulling in Galax, VA. He won, of course. He did not even run his real pulling tractor because they were afraid he would break the sled. ****, they would not even allow him to make an exhibition pull.

I would be interested to know how much they would charge you for the OEM muffler setup. The fat bastard said that having a single exhaust port for a 3 cylinder diesel is not a good thing. He also noted that your injector pump has 4 outlets (one of them plugged) so it must be dual use between your engine and the 4 cylinder. God knows how he picked up on that so quickly after I sent him the link. That is what makes him so special.
-Stu

 

[pacerron]

Peter,
I believe in the adage that " a picture is worth a thousand words" so I found the folder of the pics I took of my mower cracks last fall. I file all pics with the RAW camera shot number in tact and file those by year and subfolders for months and subfolders in the months for subject days, so easy to find, if I can remember the time of year and which year.
Your cracks, if you have any, could be in a different area, but this would be a good place to start looking.
Yes my castors were off the ground but because that was a more comfortable height for grinding the paint off.
I forgot to mention, I have a FEL or at least everything but the bucket on both tractors 99% of the time so I have plenty of counterbalance weight
for that heavy mower.
I hope this is not adding another chore to your very busy life at this time.
Ron

 

[pclausen]

Thanks for the pics Ron. I'll be sure to check those areas on mine. I need to grease everything and change the gear box oil. I was bad and did the 1st mowing this season before doing my maintenance.

Stu, the 1700 is actually a 2 cylinder tractor. The 1900 is what has the 3 cylinder. OEM style muffler is $100, so not too bad. It's a 1 piece unit. Unless The fat bastard changed the valve guides, I would imagine it would smoke like crazy.

I got done cutting the field and took some cell phone pics. I love my little private valley. The only house one can see from the field in any direction is my own. It's away from everything.

I got about 1/2 mile worth of river frontage

All done!

So Stu, is this where you think I should make a road straight up to the house?

Looking down into the field from the house

Another view from the house. I just love this time of year.

 

[pacerron]

Beautiful view.

Wouldn't a switchback road be safer than straight up?

 

[FairfaxStu]

Beautiful view.

Wouldn't a switchback road be safer than straight up?

Yep, current path is a switchback road and it is not so good because of erosion. I spoke with Peter on the phone and we both jokingly agreed that having a path straight down would be hoot. Imagine sledding down that sucker in the snow. You would probably hit 60 MPH or greater by the time you hit bottom. Tons of fun. And yes the views in that neck of the wood are incredible.
-Stu

 

[FairfaxStu]

Yep, current path is a switchback road and it is not so good because of erosion. I spoke with Peter on the phone and we both jokingly agreed that having a path straight down would be hoot. Imagine sledding down that sucker in the snow. You would probably hit 60 MPH or greater by the time you hit bottom. Tons of fun. And yes the views in that neck of the wood are incredible.
-Stu

I hate to quote myself, but it is what is. If we put some non-nutritional cereal varnish on the bottom of our saucer pans, we would probably hit 100MPH at the bottom. Prize to the first person that gets the reference.
-Stu

 

[FairfaxStu]

Here is my reference, Christmas Vacation was an awesome movie:

Christmas Vacation (6/10) Movie CLIP - Downhill Fast (1989) HD - YouTube

-Stu