Geared back up in the coveralls and gloves, pulled the deck off of the '76 in the rain and then pushed it into the garage while the '78 sat out for a bit. Got right to pulling the engine on the '76, starting with removing the hood and nose pieces. That nose panel lower casting is heavier than it looks!
The engine was not too bad to remove, I did not keep track but it did not seem to take very long and it was on the floor. I am going to put that driveshaft in the '78, it has all the blades on the fan.
this one came out fuzzy, sorry.
put the nose pieces and hood back on the '76, but not before I snagged the voltage gauge.
Then back outside it went, minus it's engine.
This is what I was after from the '76 most, these brackets. They look to me like they have already had some welding done to them at some point in time. perhaps it tore the old bolt holes through and someone tacked some new ones in.
I finished the evening of cub wrenching off by pushing the '78 back in and putting the lights out of the '76 into the 78, the 78 now has a complete front end.
Somewhere in this evening's session I got the 78's deck control free and moving, the valve seems to move as it should.
The 78 cannot travel the full range of steering like the 76 can. I am going to compare the linkage settings and see what is going on with that, I need this big tank to turn tight as possible, lots of obstacles in this yard.
I am going to take the engine brackets and the better of the two decks to my buddy's shop tomorrow after breakfast and get started on them. The engine cradle mod should only take these boys a few minutes, I may even do it all if no one is around. I will pound some steel sheet patch panels into shape for the deck and tack those on. Then time and weather permitting I plan to put the deck on the '78, work out any kinks, and see about cutting some grass. I think she can handle it, we'll see.
