Got a 129!
 

hey fellas. picked up a 129 yesterday. was riding around for a bit until the tire went flat, so parked it in the garage and got to work. first off, the P.O. broke off the hydro lever and decided he wanted to use vice grips instead :bash2:
removed tunnel cover, seat pan, discovered the steel flap on the tunnel cover to push in the check valves rusted and broke off, and the hydro and everything is caked in crap, as is the screen over the flywheel and all underneath. a bunch of missing bolts,etc. small stuff so far. i plan on taking the engine out, power washing everything, giving it a quick coat of paint and some much needed fluid changes, along with repairing the damage that others have done over the years.
also got a 3 blade mower deck + sub frame. not sure what model?

just though i'd share with everybody, i keep reading others' threads and have been getting antsy to get another :beerchug:

few more pics

Congratulations on a running 129 in the rough! It will be a great tractor for you once you give it the attention that it needed over the years but probably never got. That is the way to buy 'em! It will be interesting seeing your progress pictures.

Cub Cadet 123

Congratulations on the new 129 :beerchug:
It will be a nice one when you are done.

All of that is pretty typical, a lot of people think it's just an old lawn mower...

Yet at the same time, they think they are worth a fortune in that condition.

Go Figure.

Congratulations on the 129.

i just stripped a 149 that the dash tin is pretty nice on, pm me if your interested.

i plan on plowing snow with it. i think i was reading a thread somewhere about a super steer swap? what are the pros/cons of this.

anything else i should check while i have the engine out and rear tins off?

Check the trunnion for wear and slop.

Congrats on the 129. I sure like mine. Yours will be like new in no time

Terry

antsy to go and powerwash it! but i cant, the whole blizzard deal going on outside probably wont mix with a pressure washer lol:bigthink:

Looks like the back seal on the pump is leaking pretty good, the way the top of the transaxle is caked up. Nice score, give that thing some luv.

Congratulations on your 129.

a little progress today due to heavy snow removal. i scraped a whole bunch of crap out from around the hydro and rear end. got 2 shovel full of stuff. i agree with you saturn, i think it is also. a few questions i have:
first, in this picture, what does this push button do? infront of the rockshaft. not really sure, its hooked into the wiring harness.
second, is this a sunstrand hydro? if so, where can i get this rear seal if it is indeed leaking? does this remove from the tractor just by removing the 2 bolts in the frame, the hydro line underneath and the driveshaft?

thanks guys :beerchug:

That pushbutton is the clutch interlock switch. Supposed to keep you from starting the engine without having the brake pedal depressed.

All the hydros are sunstrand units. The gaskets (and other parts) are available from forum sponsors, partstree.com and numerous other sources.

The hydo unit comes off the rear end by removal of the drive shaft, the suction pipe underneath, the hydro lift lines, and 4 bolts that go through the unit into the rear end.

okay cool thanks for the info. now i need it to not be freezing so i can go powerwash! lol

EDIT::: the pulley that is on the flywheel side of the driveshaft, is that for a hydraulic pump for hydro lift?

You could, but that style of lift is for a Narrow Frame tractor and was never used on a Wide Frame.

The hydraulic lift on a Wide Frame uses a ported transmission and all the rest of the parts fit in under the tunnel cover.

gotchya. wasn't looking to do it, just curious if that is what it was for.

i just noticed the headlights are stickers, can i add lights from another rig to this one?

Has anyone ever made a NF hydro pump work on a wide frame gear drive? I know that they made an E lift for the wide frames but they seem very rare and expensive.

Yes you can find light panels complete, extra harness for them and switch from our sponsors or put an ad in the wanted section

As it happens... There s a picture of one, in my pictures thing, that I did on a 128.

By far the best one I have ever seen re-worked to a WF. Neat job on the setup and definitely worth looking at!!! :beerchug:

Cub Cadet 123

just to circle back to the hydro lift one more time..a 129 popped up on CL and claims to have a hydro lift. i asked for pictures of it :bigthink:

Thanks for the kind words.

I tell you what, it makes tilling a whole lot easier and a lot more fun.

It is entirely possible that the 129 has a factory type hydraulic lift, weather it came that way or if someone added it, I'm sure there are many of them out there. FWIW, I have a 109 with a hydraulic lift. All the parts are pretty easy to come by to add one to a Wide Frame.

Being there is no hydrostat transmission on a gear drive they require an auxiliary pump.

Since he asked, does anyone have any ideas about how many 129's came with a hydraulic lift?

hopefully the guy responds to my email with some pictures!

got an update: motor is out, i believe i found where the mess came from. either the oil pan gasket or the flywheel oil seal? havent pulled the flywheel yet to confirm. this is the state i am in right now, waiting for a day of atleast 30 degrees to pressure wash :BlahBlah:

a few questions:
1- what is the spring on the side of the dash in the picture?
2- what are these clips for on the flywheel shroud? wiring harness for lights?
3- the p.o. kind of messed up 1 rim removing the old wheel bearings and the new ones fall right out when the rim comes off the hub. how to fix this? bodywork hammer and dolly?

cheers :beerchug:

The wire springs that you are pointing to, are the hood latches/hold downs. They are something of a pita, when working under the hood the pto lever "nub" always gets hooked on the spring on the left and the spring on the right always falls down between the the dash tower and the pto rod making it irritating to latch the hood back down. AND they often times rattle, and that makes me crazy.

The clips on the shroud are to run the pos. coil wire through to keep it out of the flywheel screen.

Yeah, I would try to "peck" the wheel hub back into shape with a hammer before spending any money on it or trying to fabricate some kind of shim. If that doesn't work then you can move to more drastic measures.

I think you can get that seal at http://www.ccspecialties.org

just a small update, took the old girl outside since it was a whopping 33 degrees today and gave her a good hose down! some simple green and a pressure washer did magic, i realized that there is actually some decent paint under all the grease and grime :biggrin2:

for the life of me i cannot remove the steering wheel though :bash2: i got the nut off, and have had the splines soaking in PB for 2 days now and have been trying with a gear puller, but i don't want to ruin a perfectly good steering wheel :bash
normally i would just leave it, but i want to paint thoroughly, and have to change the dash tin. thoughts?? :bigthink:

Just search steering wheel removal. It's been discussed here a lot. I would just put the link here directly but I'm not too computer savvy


Terry

You will find as many opinions on the best way to remove your wheel as there are morons in our congress. But if you are intent on using a puller you can try something like this to save the wheel. Just a simple block of wood.

i got it off using a bearing puller/3 jaw puller. borrowed it from work, with a good soaking from Kroil penetrating oil! :biggrin2:

now that it's off and the dash tower is removed, time to paint prep.

Looking good. Glad it came off.

Terry

I would recommend some anti sieze on the splines when you replace the steering wheel. Just sayin.

absolutely paul, i am going to neversieze anything i think i will ever have to remove again. :beerchug: