IH Cub Cadet 147 Restoration Thread

[TheSaturnV]

Okay Matt, I'll check into getting just the bearings. So what is the expensive part? The whole mandrel / bearing / casing unit? Supposedly $150?

[Matt G.]

Yeah, because you can't even buy that exact style of spindle anymore, to my knowledge. You either have to use the ST-745 'water pump' integrated spindle/bearing as was used on the 44/50" decks, or the later MTD aluminum-housing spindles with tapered roller bearings, both options of which are expensive new.

[TheSaturnV]

A little progress. I got past the first common hurdle with these models, the 8 flat-head screws that hold the no-slip foot rests and fender pan to the frame. It's not uncommon for some or all of these pests to be fully frozen to the chassis. They came out relatively easy with a big screwdriver, PB blaster and some patience.

Here are the pics/captions:

Small but feisty. They came out with a minor skirmish. If you get them halfway out and they lock up on you, don't keep trying to extract them at all costs and damage the flat head slot. Spray in some more PB on the newly exposed threads and run the screw back in again. Seems counter intuitive, but it works.



Underneath the no-skid pads the fenders look great. Just some oily dirt.



Fenders came off easily, the paint on the under side looks terrific considering she's a '71. This is a great resto candidate.



Appears to be a local machine from my Mom and Dad's home town. I actually found this IH Scouts newsletter blurb about Mr. Dolph on the interweb:

http://www.binderblues.com/main/sws/march03/index.html




To my untrained eye, the trunion/mechanism look to be in remarkable shape.


So, not a huge amount of progress but it's a start. Tomorrow I will do the bodywork on the fender pan to get it straightened out.

[Methos]

Great pics and update! The trunion looks great.

[ACecil]

Originally Posted by Methos

Great pics and update! The trunion looks great.

Ditto!

[_DX3_]

Need of pic of the trunion looking downwards at it. Also looks to be some rust which is normal between the plates. It would be worth taking it apart and sanding and painting and installing some new springs and end pins. Everything looks really good on the 147, a very good and should be easy restore Cub.

[TheSaturnV]

For sure.

I do "frame-off" restorations, so if anything comes apart it gets stripped and repainted. I'll have a look at the trunion from overhead and post a pic if anything looks off.

Thanks fellas.

[CC1650Dave]

Yeah, the trunnion wear, at least where it was present on my tractor, wouldn't be visible from that angle. Here's mine:

[_DX3_]

Yes, that is typical wear. Just fill in with some weld. Hand file down flat on top and re-square the corners and you are good to go. If there is any play in the plate you removed you can use shims to get it trued up again and centered over the springs.

[CC1650Dave]

TSV, there's something annoying going on with your thread. The pictures take a while to load, so while I'm trying to read posts further down the page, the page keeps jerking back up to load the pictures.

I'm not sure if it's the hosting service you're using serving them up slow, or the size of the pics. I've been resizing them to around 800x600 to make them load easier.

Don't know if anyone else is experiencing this, but it's playing heck with my browser.