[cumminsjeep]

About eleven years ago while moving to my new house in the ‘country’, I spied what I thought was just a forlorn riding mower next to the road with a sign on it that read ‘free, take it’. Being 100% East TX redneck, I stopped to look at the little mower. It was missing the seat assembly, the fenders, and the wiring harness had been cobbled together with very poor workmanship, the 38in mower deck had two spindles that had a huge amount of slop in them, and the blades were worn down to little nubs. Since it was also missing the spark plug, I stuck my thumb over the hole and tested for compression. Yep, it was OK. I then tested the transmission by selecting each gear and rocking the input shaft. Well, I thought, at least the price is right. Since it also had four flat tires, I quickly found that I could not budge it from its resting place. As there was a front-end loader doing some work in the neighborhood, I enlisted the help of the operator to help me move it to the house. One of my friends took one look at my latest treasure and commented ‘that will be a flowerpot, for sure’, not realizing that he had just thrown down the gauntlet, and it WOULD be fixed now, come heck or high water. One week later, run it did. After replacing the wiring harness, the two loose spindles, a set of blades, a new voltage regulator, two new front tires (and tubes) and supplying a new battery, I had a ‘new’ lawn mower.
Why, might you ask, would a perfectly sane individual spend about $500 on a nearly 40 year old riding mower? Well, let me just say that after I vicariously drug this gem to the house, I remembered something my grandfather had said many years ago, to the tune of ‘if you ever get a cub cadet, it will be the last mower you ever buy’. After working on the beast, I figured out why. This thing is HEAVY!! Without any options or implements attached, it weighs in at nearly 600 pounds by itself! The motor has a cast iron block, the nosepiece is cast iron, the frame is heavy steel, the rear end is composed of cast iron, and it has something other ‘mowers’ only dream of, a driveshaft. I started learning then, just how tough this ‘mower’ was and learned that even small pine saplings were no match for the mower deck, and I only had to push them over with the front end to chop them up into kindling. Needless to say, I was hooked. After a few more years, I learned that this was not a ‘lawn mower’ or a ‘lawn tractor’ but a ‘garden tractor’ and had many implements with which to perform several useful tasks. Yes, I still have ‘Old Faithful’ and he is currently outfitted with homemade fenders, factory lights, NF-Hydro, Tiller gear box (for the #1 tiller I have used)(note the iris bed in the picture), Ag tires, 70lb wheel weights, and usually gets mowing duty on our approx. 2.5 acre yard with the 48in mowing deck. I have since obtained several more IH cubs, 3-100’s, 2 more 124’s, two and a half trenchers, a 71 that came complete with a #1 cart, creeper and tiller, a 72, a 108, a 122, a 127, 2-149’s, and maybe some more around here somewhere….