The Tow boom works, and a massive christmas tree

Projects do eventually come to a close here at the Rusty Gold Farm - at least temporarily.  I succeeded in getting the Tow boom mounted onto the Quadractor and testing it.  The last post I had it mounted but still had to attach some mounting points further forward. 

I mounted an I-hook on both sides of the tractor and anchored two cables from the boom forward.  The cables are taking most all of the twisting motion out of the frame and keeping the boom more solid.

Test runs started with a light duty MTD tractor so there wouldn't be to much strain on the tractor if something was to not work out.  I was able to winch the tractor a total of twenty feet to the Quadractor and then easily lifted the front tires off from the ground for towing. 


I will be making a bolt on tubular steel bumper for when I am towing tractors as they have a tendency to roll forward and bump the tractor.  Speaking of bumpers someone sent me a picture of another Quadractor with a very simple tube style bumper that I really liked and want to build.

We then moved up to hauling the heavier of the garden tractors.  This one is an old Cub Cadet with the cast iron rear end and the Quadractor was able to lift and tow it.  I did have to use the lower attachment point to reduce the leverage and not tip take to much weight off the front end.

Overall The boom works well even though I am not able to use the full length of it.  One thing that is for sure is that it looks pretty sweet. 

 

Its tool time again and today's "tool" of sorts is my Work Tunes.  I have had these work since I was in High school mowing lawns.  I am missing a few of the dials from the hard wear they get but I can still run everything just fine.  

 https://www.amazon.com/worktunes

Lastly this week Allyssia has decided that Christmas has arrived.  We went and cut our tree and this is where I realized that no cathedral ceilings are not that great.  We have almost a nine foot tree in our living room....  It had to be decorated with a step ladder!

I may not have enjoyed getting it into the house and set up but Parker sure approves of it.

So until next time stay tuned everyone, and don't forget to let me know what you think with a quick comment.

Quadractor tow truck

Finally I am figuring out this darn Quadractor steering, it has taken four cables and countless hours but I have finally figured it out and have it right.  I can now get the tires straightened without redoing all the steering cables and it steers like a dream.  I tested it this weekend and of course Allyssia wasn't around to take pictures but I towed a couple of garden tractors down the driveway with it.  Now after towing said tractors I realized that tow trucks lift the fronts of cars off the ground so that they can't steer themselves and they just follow along. 

The boom on the back will hopefully be the solution. My plan is to use it to lift the front tires off the ground as well as hang the tractor back away from the rear wheels so that the Quadractor will be able to steer without the tires hitting the towed vehicle. 

As you see it does cantilever out the back quite considerably but it is built quite heavy so it should withstand some smaller garden tractors.  I do have to finish hooking the support cables from the boom to the frame further forward so it has support all along the tractor. 

The tailgate does work and the boom folds in half to transport in the trailer when it isn't in use. The last thing it needs is a pulley at the top of the boom for the cable to run through.  Hopefully a test video will come soon. 

Today's blog is another special where I talk about some of the tools that I use fixing all this glorious equipment.  Today's tool is an 18 volt Milwaukee stand light.  We got this at work and I tend to sneak it home in the evenings especially where it is getting dark so early.  It does have its drawbacks such as you need a headlamp in addition to this because it is cumbersome to move every time you shift to the other side of a tractor for just a second but it combats that with being super adjustable in height, angle, and brightness.  It folds down to a small size with a great carrying handle.This light was a key piece in fixing the steering cables on the Quadractor and has helped many nights fixing fence.

This light is quite pricey but when it comes to working at night you wont feel it when you switch this on.  Enough being a salesman and back to the blogging.


https://www.amazon.com/Milwaukee-Lithium-Ion-Cordless-Hardware-Construction/dp/B01N40LCSO/ref=sr_1_17?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1511146868&sr=1-17&keywords=milwaukee+work+light

                           Be sure to check back often, you never know what we will be doing.
                                     Let me know in the comments what you all think!!

Scrapping and getting some new tractors

Through this past weekend I was able to load The old Dodge Grand caravan onto the deck over trailer.  The van was not loaded in what you would call the conventional way to load a vehicle.  For a bit of a backstory the van has been for the last few years what you would call a field bomb.  We had ripped the rear doors and hatch off from it and have just beaten it around the field driving it however hard you could.  It has been flipped onto its side once before and jumped and crashed.  The very end of the line for the van was the shooting of 2017.

This is the aftermath of our going away party for our dear friend Connor.  There were eight of us with over a dozen guns and 1500 rounds of ammo.  Before the shoot we removed the rear axle so that my father could build a wood trailer on it.  We also removed the fuel tank to avoid any explosions. So by the time we were done there was nothing salvageable left.  So with no rear axle and only one front rim it was tricky to figure out how to load it.  Tipping the van on its side turned out to be the winning way to get it onto the trailer.  Once it was tipped over I drove the trailer next to it and we rolled it back on it's bottom and onto the trailer.

You can see the chains that I had to put on to tie the van to the trailer while my father reset the tractor to finish pushing it on.  The van is going straight to the scrap yard just like the red Ford F-150 that I had parted out.

 You can barely see the old ford as the junk yard owner hauls it off on a pay loader.  

On top of getting rid of some junk I received a few free lawn mowers.  The first is a Craftsman that is not running but has a nice mower deck and a plow.  I have done a little with it and found that it needs a starter and I have already ordered one.

This next tractor is a cute little single blade riding mower that also isn't running but everything seems to turn over and move.  I believe that this one just needs a little cleaning up of the flywheel and coil to give it spark again. 

These two my parents pushed across the road and saved for me because the neighbor was giving them away.  The last came from a friend of ours that dropped it off in the barn dooryard and at the moment I know nothing about it except that it needs a few tire tubes.

 As you can see a lot of the tractors that I end up are pretty beat up and almost every single one of them comes with their own flat tire


 This coming week I would like to think I will have lots of updates but my boss is going to Paris Island to watch Connor graduate from Marine Corps boot camp and it is going to be a busy week.  Nevertheless I still would like to get the Quadractor finished AGAIN and back up and running before the snow flies.  It is looking better for the Quadractor as I am going to replace both cables at the same time and I have figured out how to properly adjust the tires and steering so they will all be straight.

                                                   Until next time - stay tuned!

The Satoh S650G Project

Today is a bit of a time-hop post where we are going to visit the love hate relationship that I had with the Satoh S650G. This tractor was a project from the start and I knew that.  In the process of buying this tractor I made a great friend.  I came across this tractor while looking for a truck bed and tailgate. I stopped in at Dixfield Salvage and Met Cliff the owner and unfortunately did not find a bed, what I did find was was the Satoh sitting in front of the garage.  Cliff had just taken it in on trade and didn't know much about it.  I asked Cliff if I could go home get some gas and a battery to test it, and Cliff said no but we can go out back and get some and try it out.  We did get it to run but it was leaking anti-freeze into the oil.  I bought the tractor anyway and hauled it home.

It was a nice looking tractor when I bought it but needed work.  The biggest thing that it needed was a head gasket.  The engine in the Satoh is a Mazda with an aluminum head.  Not only was the head gasket bad but the head was also warped.  I got the whole tractor torn apart and covered in drop cloths while I flew to Florida to drive Allyssia home.  On the way home we stopped at the only place on the East coast that sells parts for the Satoh.  It was a small shop in Roanoke Virginia that specialized in the Satoh brand of tractors.  They got me all the gaskets and parts I needed and they also were so kind as to give me a complete service manual. 

Here I have it partially torn down.after that I pulled the head and and when to have it Planed.  In the manual they claim that you can plane off seven to ten thousands of an inch off the head.  When I had it planed we had to remove over thirty thousands of an inch to make it almost level. 

I was able to flush the radiator and change the thermostat as well as rebuild the water pump.  After replacing the head gasket and reinstalling the manifolds I went to work installing the new carb. kit.  I had some problems with the Carb. when rebuilding it but with multiple calls to the parts dealer in Roanoke I got it back together and onto the tractor. 

This was my first time starting it.  It took quite a bit of time to get the distributor timed right so it wouldn't backfire.  I also had to repair the fender and the hood. 

This video was almost two days later as I had to go through the Carb. again and replace the coil and points.  While I was working on it I was also able to change the fluids in the rear end and transmission.  I used it a bit to bush hog a bit and even hauled a few logs out of the woods with it.

I really liked the tractor but it needed a few other small things.  I sold and delivered it to a guy in Wilton who as far as I know is still using it today.  This tractor was also the project that pushed me towards working on larger engines and bigger tractors than just lawn mowers. 

A very slow week

So I haven't posted For a while and to be quite honest nothing much has happened for the last week.  Mostly I have been working late hours at work as it is coming into the heating season and the problems on everyone's systems are starting to become urgent.  In the few minutes of spare time I have had this week and into the weekend I have been able to sell some equipment.   I was able to sell and deliver an old parts snowmobile I had to Monmouth as well as a set of rims that came off from that old f-150 that I had.  I was also able to sell a leaf vacuum for my boss as he is slowly cleaning his garage out. 

 My boss converted it to run off from a Honda motor so it would work on the bigger tractor that he has but finally bought a new PTO driven one that is a lot easier to hookup and use


        The big thing I did accomplish this week was getting the old Ford truck on the trailer and getting all the fluids drained for the scrap yard.  I saved as many parts as I could use off from it and sold a bunch more but I just have no room or use for the rest of it.

It is a homely looking vehicle with all kinds of parts missing off from it and my night time picture taking skills aren't to great.  The only other project that has shown up and is on the very very far back burner is this little sand spreader that I picked up.

Now it is nothing fancy and is nothing pretty to look at but it spins freely and isn't to badly rusted. My plan is to someday hook it onto the front of one of my Bolens Groundskeepers.  I think that it could work decently to be able to snow blow with one and sand with the other. 
      I may not have been up to much but Allyssia has been busy with her second business.  This fall she took on being a Consultant for Lu La Roe and has been excelling at it.  We fixed up a room that she has dubbed her Lu La Room and she has portable racks to go to what they call pop up's.  This Saturday she had a pop up at a craft fair being held by the local high school. I helped her pack the car and unload it at the school then she was on her own. 

By herself and in a short time she had her mobile boutique set up and ready for business.  An event like this helps her to get more people to see what she does and who she is.  She is extremely good at making outfits and helping people pick the clothing that is right for them.  It is a job that she is seeming to enjoy thoroughly and is fun.
          Tomorrow night I plan to do a looking back in time blog and show off a tractor that I really enjoyed fixing up, The Satoh S650G

                                                           So stay tuned until next time.