Cub 149 Resto-mod
 

I am going to try out having a build thread on my 149, I am calling it a resto-mod since I am restoring it and modifying it at the same time. It will basically be a restored 149 which I am going to change to red in color, install an older set of narrow front wheels, and running tri ribs up front, and ags in the back.

I have bought this tractor after the first of the year, was looking for a 149, 169, 1450, and 1650....this just happens to be what I wound up with that met my purchase criteria....was wanting a hydrostat with hydrallic lift. I had a cub 102 about 15 years ago that I restored and have missed so I decided now was a good as time as any to jump back in with both feet!

Anyhow, here is the beginning of my build thread, I have been buying parts ever since I got the tractor, purchasing things I know that it needed and things I wanted. I will go into that later. Today I began disassembly, attached are a few pics of what it looked like before I started!

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In the next segment, will show the progress I made.

Wow, looks to be in really good condition. I'm anxious to see the progression of your resto-mod. Thanks for sharing!

disassembly
 

Here are the pics of what I did today.

Attachment 9820[ATTACH]Attachment 9822[/ATTACH]

The carb is now residing the the chem-dip bucket and you can see the pto shaft of the engine has issues, hopefully I can have a new keyway cut 180 degrees from the old worn one.

I will try to get better pics as I go along, I always forget to take my digital camera with me and result to using the iPhone for pics. I had taken some pics of the carb issues I ran into (twisted off both the choke butterfly screws) but turned out too blurry to view. It turned out an easy fix to get the broken screws out, after the butterfly was removed, rotated the shaft 180 and the ends of the screws looked swelled causing them to snap off (they came out easy for a few turns then became stuck and snapped the heads off). I took my dremel tool with as narrow a cut off wheel as I had, cut slits in the back side of the broken screws, inserted a small flat bladed screw driver in them, and they backed out of the thread as easy as could be!

Nice pics, looking forward to your updates! :beerchug:

I am REALLY looking forward to this redo :)... I have been wanting to do the same thing myself on a WF model.

It is kind of a 10 maybe a 20 footer at best! She has here share of wear and issues I have to work through.

Is this a #30 carb?
 

I saw a thread about looking down the throat to see the number but not until this evening. I will look inside it when I pull it out of the chem-dip, here is the best pic I have of it.Attachment 9825

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The last 2 pics are of the choke shaft with the screws removed, and the remains of the screws that snapped off, had to put on my reading glasses to perform surgery on those little devils!

Prior to chucking the carb in the chem-dip, I got it totally taken apart, except there was no way the main jet in the carb was coming out, so I left it in there.

Need to get the carb kit ordered, throttle shaft is sloppy, real SLOPPY, need to address that, and get a new float just to be on the safe side!

Next on the agenda is to get the engine disassembled and into the machine shop.

Made a little progress today
 

Yesterday I went out and removed the carb and it's guts from the chem-dip bucket. I am not sure what they po had used for paint on it, but the chem-dip basically had no effect on it. So I tossed it back in the chem-dip for another day. Here is the best pic of what it looked like before.
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Went back out this morning to check the progress of the chem-dip, still no effect on the paint. However, I had grabbed a can of paint remover (you can see it in a later pic that shows all the parts cleaned) to attempt to remove the stubborn paint from the carb and components. Well, it worked very well, it warns not to get it on your skin, it was a little windy and a minute amount of the mist got on my arm. They are serious about avoiding skin contact, had to immediately wash it off, felt like my skin was on fire. After getting the paint off, did a little bit of scrubbing with the chem-dip and a brass brush, then washed everything with carb cleaner, then soap and water. Finally I blew off the water with the air compressor. Below are pics of how it turned out.
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If you look closely in the last pic you will see a tiny spring that fell out of the carb somewhere. I think it may have came out of a hole under the choke shaft, maybe there was a ball bearing with it that was a detent for the choke lever? I downloaded MATTG's carb rebuild how too and he did not remove the choke shaft from that carb, so guessing that is where it might have went. Any ideas of where the spring might go? Am I on the right track? If I am, would it matter if it was omitted from the rebuild? Let me know what you think...

I will start tearing down the motor next, was not sure what I had for a carb until I checked it yesterday, placed an order for the rebuild kit, a new float , a bushing for the throttle shaft, and some other miscellaneous parts from Chris Westfall. http://www.cubclassics.com/decals.html Will put the carb back together when I get the parts in.

In the background of the carb pics you can see a frame I ordered to replace the one on my tractor. It was very worn around the QA forks (to the point the IH snow blade would fall off). I got the frame, some narrow wheels, and a better hydro control lever from Classic Cadets in Washington, MO http://www.classiccadets.com/3.html, there are very good to deal with and were by far the cheapest for the frame replacement ($65.00)! For that price I wasn't going to try to repair my original QA forks, time is money!

The spring and ball are a detent for the choke lever. I think it helps keep the choke from vibrating closed. I would say you probably want those in there. I never removed the choke shafts from mine because I never had one that was worn.

Oh, I forgot to include pics of my custom made decals for this project. You can find them in another post I had, but thought I should include them here. The tractor when finished will be red and white like the 82 series, I just like red better than I do yellow!

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That was my best educated guess where it came from, the ball is missing in action, if I can't find a replacement or the one that fell out in the floor, I doubt I put it back in. I was lucky to find the spring, it fell in the floor as well, I am sure the ball is there if I can find it. With the choke cable closed, I see no way for it to vibrate enough to close the choke.

I guess I went a little overboard when I disassembled it, there is no wear in the choke shaft, should have left it in there....besides those are the 2 screws I twisted off when I took it apart!

After crawling around on my belly on my dirty shop floor (was clean before tearing the 149 apart) for about 1/2 an hour, I found that MIA detent ball hiding behind some chunks of grease and dirt. I am amazed I found it, it is no larger than the lead in a #2 pencil. I went ahead and got it back in the carb, turns out it was a detent ball for the choke as I suspected it was, MATTG suspected the same and was correct, again. Before I started the quest of looking for it, I looked at the choke shaft and it has a place the detent ball "detents" into when the choke is completely open.

More Progress
 

I went out to the shop today and got the engine torn down. The po said that the motor had been rebuilt and from the looks of the inside of it, I don't think it had a lot of hours on it. There were no ring grooves at the top of the cylinder, inside of the engine case was very clean. I had no issues getting it apart, well except for the govern assembly. I mistakenly pulled out a screw that was next to the governor shaft, apparently it holds the governor gear in place, once it was out, the governor gear fell down behind the cam gear and will remain there until the cam comes out.
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I had read to use a harmonic balancer puller to pull the flywheel off. I just happened to have one and used it. I had to use the impact to get it to break loose, man it was on there, when it finally let loose it sounded like a shotgun going off! I forgot to mention that I failed to use the brand new can of PB Blaster to aid in it's removal, I wacked it off of there dry! LOL
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Here is the pic of my balancer puller mounted on the flywheel. I intended to take more pics, but after getting into the inside of the block, my hands were so dirty I was afraid to touch my phone to get more pics. I actually did snap a few more pics of how things attached to the block to aid in reassembly, nothing too interesting though.

Tomorrow or the next day depending on work, I will get the motor to the machinist and have him measure everything and get the parts that I need ordered.

Thanks for the pics .... Keep em coming and happy wrenching :beerchug:

This is getting good.....I look forward to reading more. I like your decals. :ThumbsUp: Will look really good I think once your finished - very custom, unique look. Great idea!

Sweet decals!!!:beerchug:

I was going to say the same thing Mike! Looking great!

First thing this morning, I went by the machine shop and dropped off my motor. The first thing the machinist looked at is the piston, I was in a hurry to get it apart and did not pay much attention to it and it was marked on it's face that it was a .30 over piston. Then machinist took a little time and measured the bore and the crank where the connecting rod attaches. Well, the measurements came in not so good, the cylinder bore is in awful shape, he checked in several areas and found some areas where less than .30 over bore and others where a few thousandths over the .30 o/b. He could only figure the last fellow who worked on it must have messed it up, the bore looked to be in good shape, no gouging, scratches, ring grooves, and you could still see a good bit of cross hatching in the cylinder walls from the honing. Basically, the only fix for this is to sleeve the engine, I think he said that was going to cost me $135 including the sleeve and the engine would be back to the original bore again.

Then he measured the crank, I suspected it was .10 under (rod had a small hole through it), and it came in at .19 under. I had found a place that had rods sized for .20 under and he said that would work, but since I had issues with the pto key way, he suggested I find another crank. I mentioned to him that I had bought a parts tractor a 125, but had posted a thread on this site and was told that the crank would not work. He pulled out an old book with all the kohler measurements in it and said he could not see a reason why it would not work and recommended that I bring it to him.

So, I spent this afternoon disassembly the motor in the 125. The only issue getting it apart was the pto would not come off. The set screws were stripped, I decided I had to get it off so I basically destroyed the pto on that tractor, but did get it off. I had tried to drill out the set screws, got one set drilled out, but the other two were not cooperating, broke several drill bits and was getting frustrated. Then I decided to take my cut off wheel and cut the clutch fingers off and removed the center pin. This allowed access to the crank end, then I installed my 3 eared gear puller on it, was worried it would not stay on since I was gripping the PTO pulley. It worked great, pulled the PTO assembly off as a unit, only leaving the concentric ring on the engines output shaft. Luckily the set screws on it and the S/G pulley came off fine as did the rest of the disassembly.

The K301 had a cast iron oil pan, steel governor gear, high boss cylinder head, and better looking valve train components. I took the crank and block (cam, valves, governor still installed) to the machinist and he said he could use the best parts of the 2 motors to get the 321 back on its feet. I don't intend to use the high boss head, maybe list it for sale later. Just as a side note, the K301 was not usable, it was cracked through the clinder, I knew that when I got if for parts.

I was in a rush to get parts back to the machine shop so I did not get any pics:Boohoo:

Here is a couple of pics of a stand I made for holding the engine upright on my work bench. I just made it out of some scrap 2x4 and it measures inside 6.25" x 5.25". The short side goes under the oil sump and it is about 1" tall. It fits pretty snuggly on the bottom of the motor and works nice to keep it from fall over when working on the bench.
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I will post more (with pics!) when I get back on it in the next day or two. I need to get the rest of the tractor apart and prepping for paint!

Oh, by the way, thanks for the compliments!

Now I gotsa build one of dem'dere frames.

But I can tell it will simplify the work i'm going to do on the 10hp..

I need all the help I can get.

Nik,

I bet your carb screws that broke were staked in place and as you tried to remove them the staking jammed in the threads.. Remember to stake the new ones or lock them somehow so you don't end up running a screw into your new engine...

I like the project, wide frame but no ISO mounts to mess with. Were the engine holes cracked out on the frame at all with that big motor?

I have two of the frames and have not noticed cracks in either of them (but I have not cleaned them up good for paint, may find some then). I did find 6 out of 8 mounting bolts had worked loose on the 2 tractors when I pulled the engines. The one from the tractor is getting scraped, it had major wear in the QA forks, got a replacement frame from a 129 to use on this project.

I have new butterfly screws coming from Chris Westfall, they look to have some type of thread lock on them. Just in case, I have a new tube of blue thread lock on standby...LOL!

Jeff, thanks for the update! Bummer on the bore and crank but sounds like your machine shop knows what they are doing and are taking good care of you. Your going to love how your motor is going to run once you get it back.

Just looking over some other posts regarding engine rebuilds and was looking for some input on what I should or should not purchase. I have faith in my machinist's opinions on what to buy or not to buy, but just thought I would toss this out there for opinions of non-virgin kohler overhaulers.

If you have been lookiing at my thread, you know that I am basically using 2 motors (K321 & K301) to put my 321 back together. Where it stands now I intend to sleeve the 321 back to stock bore, use the best of the valve train parts from both engines, use the steel governor gear, crank, and iron oil pan from the 301, have the valve seats ground, replace valve guides if they are out of spec, true the head and engine deck if needed, and order a new piston/ ring set, gasket set, connecting rod, and tune up parts (points, condensor, plug, and plug wire).

Anything I am missing or overlooking? The machinists doesn't care where I purchase my parts, infact he said he would check prices for the parts I need with his suppliers and sell them at his cost and that way I could get cost comparisons between his quote and what I can find myself. Thanks for the input guys, hopefully get some pics of some disassembly this weekend if work and the WIFE allow!

Have your machinist weigh the piston and rod from Both engines before you use the K301 crank in the K321. There are some 12 horse cranks that will work and some that will not without proper balancing. Only way to find out if yours will work as is, is to compare the rod/piston weight. If they are within 10-15 grams or so then you should be fine. Anything else then you will need to add or remove weight. Best left to someone who balances rotating asseblies for a living. Ask your machinist.

Went to the machine shop today to check in with there progress. The cranks are slightly different, the 301 has an extra hole drilled in the weight closest to the cam gear, otherwise they are exactly the same. I asked him about weighing the piston and rods from both engines, and we did, the 301 rod and piston were 125 grams lighter! Then we noticed the rod from the 301 was much slimmer than the one from the 321. He got out his kohler book and the book shows that both engines used the same rod, we looked at both rods again and compared them to a new kohler .010 under rod he had on hand. Both of the used rods are apparently after market, neither had kohler markings on them and both engines had been rebuilt at some point in there lives.

I am going to try to go ahead and use the 301 crank, the machinist said he would fill the extra hole in the wieght on the crank so that it would look exactly like the one out of the 321 (I think he said it would be filled by welding it full and machining if off, anyhow, it would not be visible and would add weight back to the crank). May or may not work, I already have this crank and if it doesn't, I just have to take it apart again and find a useable 321 crank...I priced them new (just over $400.00!), trying not to go down that road.

The rest of the engine has been hot tanked and bead blasted, and he is waiting for me to get my rebuild parts in and for the cylinder sleeve to arrive. The only other issue that he could find was that I needed a new exhaust valve, one was bent (301) and the other was pitted so bad that it was unuseable. The seats were good as were the valve guides. I got my parts order today, I went with a stens rotary rebuild kit (gaskets, piston, rings, and rod), the machine shop had the kohler exhaust valve I need on hand and will be using it in the engine.

I have been trying to get the engine work, rebuild, sorted out so have done little else to the tractor itself. I did get a wild hair today and decided to get the steering wheel off. I see some folks on here recommend buying a steering wheel puller, I decided to see if I could make one myself. I looked around my shop and found a piece of 2x4 about 8" long. I took that and got out a hole saw for installing door handles in doors (I think it cuts a 2 1/8" hole) and drilled a hole in roughly the center wide side of the 2x4. Then I took a 3/8" bit and drilled 2 holes throught the narrow sides of the 2x4 about 1 1/2" to each side of the first hole. I then drilled 2 more 3/8" holes through the wide portion of the 2x4 between the 1st (big) and 2nd set of holes, these holes were staggered off center of the large hole, one above and one below, but they roughly were in a straight line with the center hole. Then, I took my miter saw and cut the 2x4 in half long ways, cutting the large hole down the middle. I then used some bolts I had laying around, bolted the 2 halves of the 2x4 around the base of the steering wheel, and attached it to my harmonic balancer puller with 2 more bolts. It made some cracking and popping noises as I applied pressure to the steering wheel, but popped it off without a bit of trouble. I think the version they sale is about $60.00, if I had to buy the parts for my homemade version I would guess you would have about $2.00 invested! Mine is not pretty, but it did the job, and I have $58.00 (well really $60.00) left in the wallet for other stuff I need to get the tractor up and going! Here a couple pics on my homemade steering wheel puller, feel free to make you own, I don't intend to patent it!

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If you look at the pics, you can see that I have already removed the hydro handle, and you can see my "rare" and fully operational cigar lighter, I still would let that go for an even swap on a tiller! LOL!

Okay, once the wheel was off, I found these little do-hickeys setting on the shaft between the wheel and the plastic bushing that goes into the end of the steering column. Here are the pics of them:

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Anyone have any idea what these are supposed to do? They kind of look like the remains of a bearing, I could not see they were doing anything, just occupying space. Note: my cheap puller had no ill effects on the steering shaft!

Here are the pics we talked about. New style rod/piston vs old style. Please pardon the high tech Sharpie lableing. In the first pic the small bump behind the old style piston is a bolt head to keep it from rolling.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...ldpiston-2.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...ldpiston-1.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...wVoldrod-1.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...wVoldrod-2.jpg

Thanks for the pics, both engines have the old style pistons, the 321 had the old style rod and the 301 had the new one.

Got the tins back from the machine shop, they hot tanked them and bead blasted them....I was so excited to shoot some etching primer on them I forgot to get a before (primer) pic of them...LOL.

I also started to reassemble the carb, float is on back order so I couldn't do much. I bought new screws for the choke and throttle butterflies from Chris Westfall, I am not very happy with the quality, everyone of them twisted off trying to install them in the carb, they came with thread lock on them and pretty sure that what caused them to fail. I had one heck of time getting them (four) back out after twisting them off. No, I did not overtighten them, when they twisted off, they were no where close to snugging up against the butterflies. I was too pi**ed to get pics after the screw problems, I used the 2 originals to at least get the throttle butterfly in. And instead of lock tight, I supported the head of the screw with a punch, then hammered the thread end with another punch to stake them in place.

Does anyone know the size for sure of the carb butterfly screws? Mattg's how 2 list them as #3-46 (I think) he thought, would like to know for sure, I will order some steel ones from mcmaster carr. The ones that twisted off cost me $1.75 each! Here are a couple pics
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and some of the carb kit/ throttle bushing install...well up to the point where I lost it...installing the butterflies!!!!!
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149 resto-mod
 

I Have several kohler engine in my barn and most are from Cub Cadets. I noticed that the k301, k321 and k341 engines all have the same stroke. In checking further, I discovered that from the factory, (mostly unmolested engines), that it was the same connecting rods used in all three engines...EXCEPT for the fact that the k341 piston had beefier wristpin bosses and thus required a narrower wristpin end on their rods.:bigthink: All the other measurements were exactly the same without respect to the weight of the rods. That being said, the rod on the left that you have marked "new style" is more than likely a k341 rod and the rod on the right marked "old style" is either a k301 or k321 rod. Just a little of my checking with mics and calipers and such.

Anyways, good luck with your redo and try not to wet yourself when it fires up for the first time. And try to start the engine EARLY in the day so that your smile has time to wear off before trying to go to sleep. Best of luck!!

FFGino. Happy cubbing!

Those dohickeys don't belong on the steering column,They are nuts you use on electrical boxes.There should be a foam spacer and a washer on there.Check the parts manuals for the correct ones.Looks like your doing a heck of a job on a ready to go tractor!

The pics of the old vs new where mine. The old or "A" style can be found in all K series engines per Kohler. The new style piston in my pics are of the "D" style piston which can be found in some K181, K301 and K321 engines. They are also found in the M series. The one in the pic came out of an M12. The K341 used what Kohler called the style "C" piston which looks quite similar to the style "D". You cannot use a style "A" rod with a "D" or "C" piston.

I thought they looked like them too, if that is what they are they must have been there a very long time, there is no signs if threads in them, they are worn smooth!

Not much to update, did get USPS to deliver my engine rebuild kit. Looks great, took the piston and the rod to the machine shop and the machinist told me the sleeve for the cylinder had arrived as well. He believes he might have it done sometime next week! I have ordered some more parts (steering upgrade from IH Cub Cadet Parts [see top of this page], and another {steel} set of carb screws), hopefully my back ordered float will be in before long. I decided against further disassembly of the tractor until the motor is done...got to hear it run before tearing the rest of the tractor down for repair and paint! Figure hearing the new motor run will help inspire the completion of the project.

149
 

Good luck on the build, it looks like it's coming along fine. I have a working 149, and am in the process of buying 2 more, one running with a snowblower, one for parts. Keep the pics coming.

Not much to up date yet, still waiting on the machine shop to get the motor sleeved and crank turned....they are really busy getting stock car and pulling tractor and truck engines done, thought they might get to it later this week or the first of next week. I have been working on building a new entertainment center for the livingroon also, so I have been busy on that and not getting much done on the cub. This project is to keep the little woman happy and to keep her off my back when I hit the cub project full throttle, here is a pic of the entertainment center (in case anyone cares, it measures 68.5" wide, 90" tall and is 12" deep, made to house a 47" flat screen, the open middle shelf is for blue ray and dvd players, the doors are for storing dvds, blue rays, and vcr tapes):

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Oh, yeah, the entertainment center will be installed as a built in unit. The reason behind it is actually to get a heat- a/c duct to the bedroom located above it (the duct will run inside the left upright), just one of the many things you have to deal with when modernizing a 100+ year old house!

Since my last post, I did get some more of the tractor disassembled, here are some up to date pics of the cub:

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While I was watching paint dry on the entertainment center, I decided to get out my dremel and do a little cleaning and polishing on the carb. I took a stainless steel brush and polished the case of carb. I actually got a little carried away, once I discovered the carb bowl was aluminum, I wet sanded the bowl with 1000 grit then buffed it out. Now it looks like a mirror, ought to stand out on the tractor when I get it back together. Here are some after pics of the carb (the bowl was hard to get a clear shot of, it looks much better in person!):

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that carb bowl looks great! I might have to do that too. You can that to the head on the engine when you get it back it makes a big differants.Attachment 10902 Here is a pic of it when i was done it is a puller trick.

Nice work on the entertainment center! I know what you mean working with old houses, I have one to and everything has to be custom fitted.
That bowl looks good too.
Where did you get the decals made? I need a set custom made for my project.

+1 nice entertainment cabinet, that turned out nice. I'm an older home owner myself, definitely can relate to you guys there. This place is all real oak flooring right over the joists and slat and plaster on the walls. I'd have it no other way. People can be pounding on my front door and I cannot hear them :)

After searching the web, making many calls and emails and finding no one that would do custom work, went in the local sign shop and they said sure no problem! I did all that calling/ emailing for nothing, the place is down the street from me, It is called City Sign Design and located in Brookfield, MO....you should be able to get their number off the web or pm me and I will gladly provide it to you. The decals cost me $25 if you're curious.