The Horse's First Rodeo

I loaded up the Horse and headed for the ranch.  I just couldn't wait to see this girl perform!

Once out at the ranch, I unloaded the Horse and was told the ranch needed a 300-foot-long trench from the barn out to a 3-acre pasture.  They were going to bury electrical conduit for an electric fence, and they needed a trench.  Sounded pretty easy to me.

I fired up the ol' Horse and started aiming out towards the pasture.  The Horse was running ok, but it wasn't perfect.  The ground was hard, uneven (especially through a big rut area), and dry.  But the Horse plodded through.  I set the gauge to just pierce the ground did another pass.  Then I lowered the depth and did it again.

The Horse is back in service!  She's ugly, but she gets the job done!

The 300-foot stretch towards the back pasture.

The engine was running fine, but not perfect and would bog down when going uphill.  So I checked out the carburetor and found an adjustment screw.  I altered and screw, and voila!  Problem solved!  Now the engine was purring like a kitten (albeit a very loud kitten!).  The Horse was now tearing through the dirt.  Back and forth, back and forth.  The ol' girl moved slowly but methodically.

And the dirt was gettin' tore up!  I was ecstatic.  My brother joined behind me with the ranch's Pony, and we just kept making passes, trying to work up the dirt so we could dig later.

Dad came by later with his furrower (per our request), and what a difference that made.  The Horse hunkered down more and the dirt just pushed aside (we were shoveling it out earlier).  My only regret was not bringing my massive hiller/furrower with me, and I had to settle for Dad's pony version, but it work working.  It also helped the Horse by keeping it put on the hard ground.  It didn't jump nearly as much.

Once we added the furrower, the dirt just moved away.

The dirt is no match!

I couldn't be more pleased with my purchase.  The tiller really is a beast.

Gearin' Up for the First Till

Through the resources on the internet, I learned that my new purchase is actually quite old.  Based off the serial number, I learned that this Horse was actually built in October 1977.  So she is 38 years old!!!  I also learned that this is the Horse I model with the Tecumseh 6.0-horsepower engine known as the HH60.  My particular Horse has had a few replacement parts, most notably the carburetor and tine guard.  So I am thankful for those!

Not knowing how previous owners take care of equipment, my first order of service was to fill up all the fluids.  Of course, before I started the engine for the first time, I checked the oil, but now I wanted to give the Beast fresh oil.  I had found numerous manuals online detailing the Horse, and I also wanted to give her a top-off of gear oil.

I drained the engine oil and filled her up with new.

Then I went to drain the gear oil.  The manuals told me it holds just under a gallon of oil.  So imagine my surprise when less than five ounces came out of the drain hole.  Hmm.  That's not good.  Actually, that's not good at all!!!

So I headed to the store to pick up some 90-W gear oil.  And sure enough, it took nearly the entire gallon.  And that's when I realized I had a problem...probably why the gear oil was empty in the first place!!!  The gear oil was dripping out from the axle seals!!!  I had a big problem on my hand, not the least of which was drops coming out fast!

The axle is a dripping mess!!!

The old seals weren't sealing anything!

I called our parts store, and thankfully they had just two seals remaining.  I made the drive out to the store and drove back.  I installed both seals in about an hour, thankful that the tires came off fairly easily.  Ok, back in business.  I again topped off the gear oil, and I waited for tomorrow's project.  My brother needs help at the horse ranch, and I volunteered the tiller to start digging a trench.

The new seal in place.

Basically, I just want to see what this girl can do!

The seals still have a couple of small drips, but the book says that is to be expected until a few hours of use.  Here's to hopin'!

Can't wait to try out the Horse tomorrow!

The Horse Runs Again!!!

You have to understand that this Horse tiller is supposed to be my winter project.  In my mind, I needed a nice, long project.  My goal was to completely strip down the unit, sandblast it in my (as yet unpurchased) blast cabinet, rebuild and restore the engine, and paint the tiller to look like new.

Over the course of a couple of months.

So I couldn't fully explain how I was ripping apart the tiller just minutes after I arrived at home!

Hmmm, no spark.  Let's take a look.

The engine turned over freely.  So I decided to pull off the engine shroud.

"The engine is fixed!"  That was my first response anyway.  It was a statement in surety.  The engine, of course, wasn't actually fixed, and I still had some work to do, but with one pull of the shroud, I clearly stared at the problem:  a mouse!

Sometime between spring and fall, a mouse had called the engine home.  And in so doing, he chewed up anything and everything he could find in the previous owner's shed, not the least of which was the grounding wire (and magneto wire) for the engine.  As soon as I saw the exposed threads, I knew that was what was happening.  The engine was constantly dead...always dead!  It HAD to be dead!  For every time the rope was pulled, the spark would not go, for the mouse had grounded out the engine.  The spark went through the exposed ground wires, into the frame, and the sparkplug had no spark!

The mouse had called the tiller home!

The culprit.  These wires were grounding out the spark coming off the magneto.

Such a large bed the mouse had made!

After removing the bedding, you could see just how much wire had been eaten away.

The mouse had even bit through the magneto wire.  Fortunately, no wires were showing, so I just taped this back up.

I pulled out the massive bedding from the mouse, not sure I wasn't going to find the mouse in the mess, too.  I sent off a text to Dad, "Problem found."  And I started figuring out what needed to be done.  It looked like all I needed to do was replace the ground wire with a new one!  I examined the kill switch, and it functioned properly.  I just needed a new wire and two spade plugs.  I asked Dad if he had any, and Mom and Dad came over to watch me resurrect the beast.  Dad supplied some wire, and I put it back together.  I tested the spark.  A perfect blue!!!

I wheeled the tiller out to my driveway, and would you believe it started on the first pull?!  I was ecstatic!  In just a few hours, this dead Horse was now alive again.  I tested out the gears.  Forward worked.  Reverse worked.  The tines worked.  It was time to test it out for real.  I took it to my backyard and decided to throw down a piece of yard for the cause just to test it out.  It didn't do much!  I adjusted the depth gauge, realizing the tines barely hit.  And it just turned over that black soil like you wouldn't believe.  No lunging.  No jumping.  Just churning over topsoil.

You can't tell it in this photo, but the ol' Horse is smiling.  She is alive again!!!

I have a new Horse!!!  I can't wait to put it to work.

The Purchase

I let Dad in on my Horse hunt.  He said he'd tag along on the half-hour drive out west.  It's always nice to have him along for the drive...and furthermore, it involved a Troy-Bilt tiller, so he HAD to join!  The drive was absolutely picturesque.  It was a half-hour drive out on country roads, and the crops were just beautiful.  I hadn't been out in the country for some time, and I was just eating it up.

Dad asked how much the guy was asking.  I told him I didn't know!  I was serious!  The owner just said to make him an offer.  I didn't want to offend him, and I also didn't want to buy a piece of junk that was going to require a lot of money.  So I told Dad my number was $200.  I thought that to be fair for a Horse in unknown condition.

Troy-Bilt is a mainstay in our family.  A few weeks ago, Dad told me that his dad (my grandpa) owned a Troy-Bilt Pony.  I was so convinced it was a Horse (I remember it being big), so our little wager had to be settled.  Dad called his brother who now had the tiller in his own garage, and he settled the score for us:  It was indeed a Pony.  Agh!!!  Then why did I swear it was a Horse?!  I'm not fully convinced.  :)  Grandpa's Pony dated to the 1970's...and it was still running!

We arrived at the exact minute we had planned (5:30 P.M.), and the owner showed us the BEAST.  I don't know what I was expecting, but this tiller was bigger than my wildest imaginations.  I had grown up tilling with the Pony, and this tiller was simply no comparison.  The tires were huge, the engine sat up high, and the hunk of metal (that's what it looks like!) just commands a presence.

The owner let us know that he had tilled with it this spring, but that when he went to start it this time, it had no spark.  I figured it was the points and condenser, but I played shy.  "Ok, so it doesn't run..."  Let the gravity of those words sink in before saying anything else.

I walked around it, talked about the Pony in our family, and just played the ever-so-fun game of buying from an individual.  It really is a dance.  Both guys know it, and you just have to play the game.  He wanted me to throw out my offer.  Dad told me to start low if I wanted to get it for $200...he said start at $150.  But the tiller did look in good shape.  The owner was also throwing in the hiller/furrower, a piece he said was selling for $100 alone on eBay.

"Would you take $175 for it as-is"?  Atta boy.  Even in your offer, throw out the fact that it does not run.  It's all in the emphasis on the sentence.  Not offensive, just factual.  PLAY THE GAME!!!

"Well, I was really wanting to get $200 out of it..."  He didn't say anything else.  Neither did I.  He stood silent, letting me know the ball was in my court.  I stayed silent in thought, not letting him know that inside I was actually celebrating the fact that my $200 goal was met!  That the drive wasn't a waste!  That Dad who stood silently letting me play the game knew we had a deal even before I said anything!  Oh, what a fun game!

"I'll take it.  I assume cash works?"  And with that, the deal was done.  I just bought a Troy-Bilt Horse for $200!!!  So it didn't run!  Who cares?!  Time to take her to her new home.  I wheeled it across the large yard, not really knowing what any of the levers did.  What a BEAST!!!  She was so heavy!  I needed help loading it up the ramps into my truck.  But she was mine.

We drove back through a monsoon of a storm, but not before we stopped for ice cream in a small town.  Seriously, I find it very un-American not to stop at tiny town ice cream shops.  I just HAD to.  I bought Dad a cone, and I enjoyed a lovely "blizzard."  I took a different route home, stopping by 49 acres of land I have my eye on.  If only I could figure out a way to buy it.  I am in love with land.  With tilling.  With crops.  I'll start small-scale on this Horse, but I would love to keep this story going with a John Deere tractor, too.

So starts the restoration project...

The Hunt

I'm not sure when the hunt began, but I became dead-set on finding a Troy-Bilt Horse tiller a couple of weeks ago.  The funny thing is...I have never had ANY attachment or connection to a Horse at all!  I'm a child of the 80's, and the only Troy-Bilt I had growing up was my Dad's.  He bought a Pony in the early 1990's (still running faithfully to this day), and I have fond memories working up his large garden with him.  But no Horse!

So I can't say for certain what initially led me searching for a Horse.  But I just knew I wanted one.  I researched the history of the tiller.  I read with fascination the story of Troy-Bilt and its subsequent sale to MTD in 2001.  But what really grabbed my attention was the machine itself.  It seemed that EVERY owner of a Troy-Bilt Horse spoke highly of it.  Owners praised its handling, its durability, its strength, and, of course, its tilling power.  You just pointed the tiller over anything, and it took it under the ground.

With today's cheap mowers and weed-whackers and, yes, unfortunately, tillers, I had no desire to buy cheap crap.  I wanted a legend.  I wanted a workhorse.  ha!  That's it!  I wanted a work HORSE!!!  So I started looking around my area for Horse tillers.  Oh, they exist.  But most were two hours away.  So I decided to put out a specific ad saying I wanted a Horse.  I listed the post on a For Sale site on Facebook.  Here is what it said:

WANTED:  Troy-Bilt Horse Tiller ($200)

I'm not sure if this is allowed, but I am looking for a Troy-Bilt Horse tiller in any condition (running or not). These were made for a few decades. Please let me know if you have one laying around...in any shape! Thanks.

I attached the above picture.  And that was it!  Now all I had to do was wait...and hope!!!  Well, would you believe that that evening I received a response back?  It read:

Andy, I have a Troy Bilt I'd sell. It ran this spring, but isn't getting any spark (last time I tried to start it). Here's a pic.

 

 

 

Oh, what a beauty!!!  That is EXACTLY like what I'm looking for!  I was on the road, so we coordinated a time to meet.  The owner lived about a half-hour away.  We agreed to meet two days later...