Early Satoh S-550 Paint Scheme?

[Redrockmullet]

Has anyone ever repainted their Satoh? I've just bought an early (pre-Mitsu) s550g and intend to, eventually, clean it up and repaint it and replace misc parts as I find better ones. Not really intending to spend a lot of money, but the old girl deserves to get her hair and nails did up nice. So, question is: Since its not like you can run down to Tractor Supply and buy "Satoh Red and Satoh White" what colors have you found to be exact or at lease close to original colors? I figure, "If I'm gonna paint her up she'd might as well look new."

Also, I'm going to be replacing the wiring directly since the previous owner ghetto-rigged it up pretty bad. Is there a particularly nice style of wiring that can be used to make my own wiring harness, or should I just run on down to Lowes and by a spool of 12 guage wire and go at it?

Bought this old girl at auction a couple of weeks ago and spent 1800 for her and a 4' finish mower. Not a great price, but I would dare say not a bad one considering that she's strait, moderately clean, and runs like a top. No smoke, no sputering, no nonsense. Do you think that a 5' finish mower or bush hog would be too large a pull for her?

Thanks for the opinions!

 

[JEH412]

Not an exact answer to your question since I have an S-370 Beaver living behind the house. But, I just bought a drawbar hitch off Craigslist so I can use the Beaver to move my trailers when necessary and found that Ace Hardware's "Safety Blue" is pretty close to the Satoh blue on the Beaver. It's a little brighter but the newly painted drawbar looks like a pretty good match against the 3 pt. arms. So, unless someone else chimes in with a better suggestion, I'd unbolt a small part and take it to the hardware or auto parts store and start matching it against paint caps. If you have a sprayer, note the color name and number and you're all set. If it's mostly small parts, good primer and rattle cans work.

There are some vendors who post here, but a full wiring harness seems like a long shot. Could be wrong, but with tractors that haven't been marketed here in decades... When I bought the Beaver I found that the wiring for the snow plow lift was decidedly less than well done -- the wires were run between the battery and fuel tank and that vertical ridge on the tank works well as a wire cutter -- so I made up my own harness. I always have a couple of spools of wire, connectors and shrink tube so it took little time at all. All of that wiring is contained in wire loom so it looks decent and is protected. I still have to run wires for rear warning lights and I saw some of the wiring behind the dash looks decrepit, and that will be done the same way.

John

 

[Redrockmullet]

Thanks for the info. Yeah, I didn't expect there to be any full wiring harnesses, I was just curious if there was some particuar type of wiring or technique that people used on their tractors. Looks like the red on the older Satoh's is a pretty close match to an International or Massey red; guess I'll have to pull something off her and to to tractor supply to match. Thanks a lot.