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Cub 1864 Restore for Garden Duty

12K views 36 replies 10 participants last post by  B440 
#1 ·
I picked up an 1864 recently from FB Marketplace. The description didn't mention the model, but I spied this from the pic. (This is my pic. Seller's pic was from far away and hard to see.)


Power steering! Which I do not have for any of my current machines. I picked it up in the middle of a rainstorm, with no front wheels, just as you see it. :00000060: The 54" deck had to be removed first. and we winched it onto the trailer.


The seller said the engine would run.... but you know how that goes. It's a Kohler Command V-twin. When I got some free time, I put some oil in, hooked up the charger/starter, and fired some starter fluid down the carburetor. It ran! He wasn't kidding.


So the next day I went to the mower repair/boneyard and they just happen to have an 1862 or 3 with everything but the engine. I bought the front wheels and bolts.


I got it running well enough to go for a ride. I think the fuel in the tank was bad. I changed out the oil and filter. and drove around the yard. Love it!


Now on to the issues:
1.) Reverse wasn't very fast and it failed my test hill going up in reverse. There was hardly any oil in the transaxle. I added a quart and it brought it to the Low mark. Not sure if it is leaking?

2.) The lever for hydraulic deck up/down seemed to be frozen, but I gave it a little tappa-tappa from the back side and it works now.


3.) It is a filthy, oily mess! The engine leaks oil just sitting there. It peed on my garage floor and I had to lay down rags.

4.) The hood mounts are broken. Here are two pics of it just kind of sitting on there.




So I need to pull the engine and find the leak, or leaks. Then investigate changing the transaxle oil and fixing slow reverse. If I'm successful with everything I want to do, then this tractor will replace my John Deere 212 which has full-time garden duty.
 
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#35 ·
Updating this thread with some stuff I posted in another and something new. First, I added a sleeve hitch so I could use my implements for gardening and towing.








Pretty simple setup. I used a Harbor Freight winch and converted it from a remote switch to hard-wired toggle switch. It works good and I have changed the tiny steel pulley once as I broke it shortly after.


And this was the last pic for some time as I switched to other projects and just used it for garden duty.


This past week it has been nice hot weather, so I painted.






I didn't capture all the pieces and process, but you get the idea. Definitely not a pro paint job; there's bugs and spray lines in it if you get close enough, but I'm ok with what I got.







I may add a Cub Cadet decal or two later on. Looking at the pics just makes me want to paint the rest, and then I wouldn't want to get it dirty. But its beginning to look a little less frankensteiny now :D
 
#36 ·
Wow, this is quite a project, nice work!

My apologies for not being familiar with the machine. Are those disk brakes for each wheel? If they're independent, is that to help work around not having a locking diff, if one wheel started to spin? Or if they're actuated together, is it just to ensure you actually stop both wheels, unlike having a single brake at the input-end of the tranny? Rather than the open-diff letting one wheel slide while the other locks up.
 
#37 ·
Wow, this is quite a project, nice work!

My apologies for not being familiar with the machine. Are those disk brakes for each wheel? If they're independent, is that to help work around not having a locking diff, if one wheel started to spin? Or if they're actuated together, is it just to ensure you actually stop both wheels, unlike having a single brake at the input-end of the tranny? Rather than the open-diff letting one wheel slide while the other locks up.
Disc for each wheel so it actually stops the machine instead of just one wheel. The next model up (the Supers) had steering brakes. I could add steering brakes to it if I wanted.
 
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