Hello from middle Tennessee
Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2010 12:01 am
Hey y'all, nice to be here. I didn't plan to get into the little Cubs, but I did.
I've always loved old tractors. Still have the 8N we had when I was a kid, and eventually wound up with my own house with a yard and some land. I was getting by with an MTD riding mower for the yard until one day, a guy at work mentioned he had "some kind of old Cub tractor" he wanted to sell. Well, being a tractor guy, and an IH guy, I soon found myself looking at a 154 LoBoy that "runs great". Somewhere along the lines it got painted John Deere green and yellow, but it found it's way to my house. I fought it for a while, wouldn't run cold, threw the mower belt, tires leaked, all the problems that would've had me ready to scrap most other machines. For some reason, though, I just liked the goofy little thing. Slow, underpowered, ugly, and took more time to fix than to use, I liked it. I got it running to last one season, then planned to strip it down and repaint it. Well, low and behold, the last mowing of the year it quit moving. Ran well, just wouldn't move. I pushed it into the shop, and instead of repainting it over the winter, I would up redoing the transmission. Got it back together a month or two ago, and have been mowing with it this year.
While hunting for parts for my other tractor ('60s era IH 424), I met a gentleman that runs a shop and sells parts that had an old LoBoy sitting out in the grass. A customer brought it to him, got a repair quote, and didn't want to fix it. The machine had sat there for quite a while, so I got the gentleman's phone number and called him. I left a message, hoping to buy it for a parts machine for my 154. We talked, and couldn't come together on a price. A few weeks later he called me back, and we were able to make a deal.
So today after work, I jumped in the truck and went to get it. Unlike the 154, the 185 is painted the correct colors, but had to be pushed onto the flatbed. It looks alright, I'm hoping to get it to run this weekend.
Anyway, I just wanted to say hello. It's nice to see some other folks enjoy these little old tractors.
-Blake
I've always loved old tractors. Still have the 8N we had when I was a kid, and eventually wound up with my own house with a yard and some land. I was getting by with an MTD riding mower for the yard until one day, a guy at work mentioned he had "some kind of old Cub tractor" he wanted to sell. Well, being a tractor guy, and an IH guy, I soon found myself looking at a 154 LoBoy that "runs great". Somewhere along the lines it got painted John Deere green and yellow, but it found it's way to my house. I fought it for a while, wouldn't run cold, threw the mower belt, tires leaked, all the problems that would've had me ready to scrap most other machines. For some reason, though, I just liked the goofy little thing. Slow, underpowered, ugly, and took more time to fix than to use, I liked it. I got it running to last one season, then planned to strip it down and repaint it. Well, low and behold, the last mowing of the year it quit moving. Ran well, just wouldn't move. I pushed it into the shop, and instead of repainting it over the winter, I would up redoing the transmission. Got it back together a month or two ago, and have been mowing with it this year.
While hunting for parts for my other tractor ('60s era IH 424), I met a gentleman that runs a shop and sells parts that had an old LoBoy sitting out in the grass. A customer brought it to him, got a repair quote, and didn't want to fix it. The machine had sat there for quite a while, so I got the gentleman's phone number and called him. I left a message, hoping to buy it for a parts machine for my 154. We talked, and couldn't come together on a price. A few weeks later he called me back, and we were able to make a deal.
So today after work, I jumped in the truck and went to get it. Unlike the 154, the 185 is painted the correct colors, but had to be pushed onto the flatbed. It looks alright, I'm hoping to get it to run this weekend.
Anyway, I just wanted to say hello. It's nice to see some other folks enjoy these little old tractors.
-Blake