hood swap?
 

Looking at the 1450 I recently picked up has me thinking about a hood swap.

I haven't done any wrenching on them yet but it seems the hood is the same as the xx9 series wide frames. Has anyone done this swap before? I like the hood latch on the 1450 way better than the other style. It appears that a hood and support with the other half of the latch is all that would be needed. The latches on my 129 and 149's is a pretty poor set up really.

These tractors I have are going to be tore down and refinished some day (one 149 is going into the shop soon as it warms up) but I am not really looking to do a "correct" restoration on anything and am going more for what suits my likes. So if they have the wrong hood , lights , steering wheel , or whatever , it isn't a big deal to me. I think such an upgrade would actually make the wide frames better in my opinion.

What does the crew here say?

I've never had a tape measure on either of them but they sure do look the same.

Yeah,they sure do look alike. Even the hood support looks like the same dimensions. It's an easy enough job to check but , it's cold and snowing today and I'm not wandering too far away from the fireplace!!

They will interchange and you may like the QL latch...BUT...those hoods are extremely prone to cracking where that latch bracket is spot-welded on. Both the 1450 and 1650 I had had very extensive cracks in that area. Not to mention that the hood rattles a lot more with the QL design latch than the 1x8/9 latch, which is much more effective at strapping the hood down. If it were mine, I'd leave it the way it is. I've owned both and prefer the 1x8/9 version.:TwoCents:

I agree with Matt G.
I have had both styles and the hood latch is another one of the things i prefer about my 149 and 169. But thats just me. You can always change it back if you dont like it :biggrin2.gif:

Thanks for the advice guys. The latch and hood is solid on the 1450 but I could see it cracking. I have also seen other 1250 and 1450's that didn't have any cracking in that area and figured it was a decent set up. One thing that really :censored: me off about the latches on the 129 is they are pretty hard on the fresh paint I put on this last summer!! The one always gets caught in the PTO bracket. That is my main reason for thinking about the swap.

Do you think one reason for the tabs cracking and the extra vibrations on the quietline hoods is from them not being adjusted properly? Or the rubber cushions on the support being worn out?

It's the overall design...it pulls on that tab that's welded to the hood, and because it's loaded all the time and is subject to a lot of vibration causes it to stress crack. It's really not that great of a design IMHO...the IH-built lawn tractors have a similar hood latch and a similar problem.