snorris
Active member
I recently got an old Noma 18hp riding mower to cut my yard with, but it needed a starter. While looking online for a good one, I thought about hotrod parts for it just for fun... So I stumbled onto the tractor pulling stuff ! It looked like a lot of fun, and I saw that a lot of the racers were using cub cadets. A friend of mine has a small engine repair shop and he had a pair of old cub cadets sitting in the back of his farm, so I asked him about them. I had planned to make a pulling tractor and didn't know hardly anything about cub cadets, so I just bugged him about one of them, with no particular preference, not knowing much about it other than it was really old. He said he would trade it to me for a pair of my old black powder cowboy pistols, which I didn't think was fair, but I really wanted to try the tractor stuff, so I said ok. We drug the tractor out using another tractor, since it was sunk into the mud so much we couldn't move it. All four tires were flat, but he swore the engine had run a year ago. The engine on it is a kohler 10hp, that after a lot of fiddling and cleaning out the carb, fuel line, and gas tank, did indeed start up. I drove it around a bit, and tried the mower deck, which seems to work fine. That night I started searching the net for cub cadet info and found this site, and others about them! I really learned a lot in a couple days! Sadly I think I overpaid for this tractor (guns cost me $700), but I'm sure it will be a fun project and I want to restore it as best I can. Its a original cub cadet, number 16880. Its got the square mower deck with the tooth belt, no fenders or lights, and a damaged hood. The 10hp engine is physically almost too big to fit, so whoever put it in there cut chunks out of the hood to clear the exhaust outlet on one side, and carb on the other side. The gas tank is attached to the fan housing, but its obviously the wrong tank, as it doesn't fit and has some metal pieces rigged to support it. But it does run, and drives fine, tho the steering wheel is very loose, with about half a turn of play in it. The mower deck works perfectly, but the two small mule pulleys at the front have bad bearings, so they squeel constantly, I need to find replacements for them. So I got the cadet thinking of tractor pulling, but after I agreed to trade for it, I realized its got a small belt driving the transmission, and probably is no good for pulling like that... but by that time I thought it was such a neat tractor, I decided to keep it and fix it up. I know now that it should have a 7hp kohler, but I kinda like having a 'big motor' on it. Any of you know a neat and proper looking way to setup some kind of gas tank ? The one on it is really sloppy looking since its rigged and doesn't really fit. As far as damage goes, other than the hood, grill, and mule pulleys, the only part I want to replace is the lower front cover for the frame, I don't know what its called, its the flat plate that is below the front grill. The IH emblem for the grill is missing, as are the correct rear fenders, and lights. The tractor has rear fenders now, but they are home made, and rather ugly. Oh, the other cub cadet my friend has is a 124 with fiberglass dash and very rusty 12hp kohler. I'm not sure if I can get it tho, he said he wanted to keep it. I ended up getting a Oregon Magnum Starter for my Noma and its briggs 18hp twin, so its all fixed, but boy, compared to how the cadet is built, that Noma feels like cheap junk... lol
Anyway, I wanted to say hello to the group, and that I'm looking forward to fixing up my original cadet to be as sharp looking as the others I have seen on the sites about them!
Steve
Anyway, I wanted to say hello to the group, and that I'm looking forward to fixing up my original cadet to be as sharp looking as the others I have seen on the sites about them!
Steve
