what tractor do I have and what shoud I do with it?
 

Needing some help. I got a cub in a trade deal. its red and says 982 but when I tore into it to do the engine swap, i noticed it has yellow paint underneath the red. from what I have read it's a yellow and white 982 but the tag says Cleveland Ohio. did they make cubs in Cleveland? I was going to fix it up and make it nice... so do I put it back to yellow and white? Also the hood decal says International on it. Is this just something that someone pieced together? thanks

better picture of plate

It's a 982 that someone has re-powered with a Kohler. It came with an ONAN. I'd leave it red but that's up to you.

I second the RED:beerchug:

I third the red.

Kudos on the Kohler Command V twin swap. It will make for an overall nicer unit, as most Onan parts are getting harder to find and pricey. The Onans do sound nice, but they are finicky.

That is a 1983 982 originally yellow/white.

143-982-100

With the tag reading 143 that tells us it was built in 1983. It looks like the tag ends in 722341 so that would be near the end of the 1983 run.

982 is the model number of non optioned (from the factory) machine. (No rear lift, rear pto, turning brakes or front ports) You have turning brakes so they could have been dealer added. This can be argued because in the early stages of CCC they were still trying to figure out model and tag numbers. The original engine as Sam said should be an Onan B48G.

100 tells us it came from the factory in yellow and white.

I vote to go original and paint it yellow and white. I would also pull that Command and drop a B48G in it..........:biggrin2:Ya, I'm a little different.

I am with Oak. Not many yellow and white 982’s. I say yellow and white.

Thank you everyone for the information. I do like the red ones, but I also like stuff different. So, a yellow and white 982 is different because I didn't know they existed until I started digging in on the subject.

Would this be the right decal set to get for it if I do go head-first into a complete teardown and repaint?

You can't beat the looks of a Y/W 82 series. BTW, I understand by the time MTD was making these turning brakes were standard? :bigthink: