My 155 has been with me for over 15 years now. It has been a reliable beast of a workhorse, and at 37 years old, deserves an Overhaulin' style retirement.
I wanted a perfect restoration, but with some conditions. First off, understand that I love the 155 design - both visually and mechanically. But some parts do look and feel dated. So with only a few subtle changes, my goal with this project was to have a showroom piece from 1968, but could sit alongside a brand new Ingersoll or John Deere and look just as appealing to the casual observer. At note to purists - I know some of you hate modifications. I usually do as well. For that reason, I have all the pieces to put this 155 back to stock condition in about 30 minutes.
Since I wanted my 155 to look perfect when it was done, most pieces were painted dissembled. When parts were reassembled, I used stainless steel hardware pretty much everywhere. This way I didn't have to worry about scratching up bolts and nuts, they won't rust, and the stainless really offsets the details and makes the tractor look sharp.
As you can see from the pictures above, the deconstruction was pretty complete. I stripped the tractor completely to the frame, with every moving part being removed. The only exceptions were the rear differential and the engine internals (I already knew from use that these parts performed like brand new).
Every piece in Case Flambeau Red was wet sanded by hand, primered, and painted with aerosal cans of Flambeau Red (remember the $$$ constraints of the project) ...14 cans in all.
The frame came first -
Then a rolling chassis -
The only parts done at this point are the frame, the front end, the brakes, and the wheels. This gave me a rollable chassis to bolt parts to for the rest of the project.
Then the engine -
As I reassembled the engine, any reasonably cheap parts (such as points, condenser, coil, etc.) were replaced with new to make sure the engine would run as close to new as possible.
BTW, when reassembling a Kohler engine, make sure the front cover clears the fan completely. If it doesn't, it makes a sound just like blown rod berings and tends to take years off your life...
Final mechanical assembly -
At this point, I took the rest of the Desert Sunset parts off and took them to a better facility with better equipment to be painted. This gave me some time to wire the tractor, get it running, and otherwise work out mechanical kinks before I had body panels in the way of all the moving parts.
NOTES - my assembly order was flawed. If you do this, make sure that the first parts to go in on the rolling chassis are all the hydraulic lines. Don't even attach them yet, just route them and lay them in place. Several of my metal lines got scratched up trying to get them into place, and I even had to have one made in flexible rubber, since there was no way to get it in with the engine in place. I was unwilling to dissassemble the whole tractor for one part, and the new line looks fine.
Also, don't tighten any of the hydraulic lines more than finger tight until every thing else is in place. I spent four hours trying to get the engine to line up with the mounting holes until I figured out that the hydraulic lines (which were barely finger tight) were holding it out of place.
Wiring - here is some advice about wiring: TRUST NO ONE!! Not even manuals. You would think that a tractor like this would be simple to wire, but not when all of the information is conflicting. My original case manual had a misprint, a wiring diagram off the internet was wrong, and the Kohler shop manual has nothing for a system with a generator light. The only reliable source I found was one of the new/reproduction 155 195 manuals. These seem to be right, although a little hard to read. BTW, 12 volts is apparently all the current you need to weld, since my starter button was welded nicely to the battery cable after following my original 155 manual...
- Replacement muffler
- Flexible oil line from cooler to rear differential
- All stainless steel hardware
- Silver wheels front and rear (polished aluminum coming soon)
- Goodyear lug tires on rear
- Custom hood side decals
- Rear tailights added
- Grant stearing wheel with custom paint
Note - some of these modications (such as the tires and the stearing wheel) were done out of necessity when my Dad had a garage fire. My entire electrical system was also lost, but those parts are easy to replace back to stock.
Original tractor cost - $500
Cost of restoration supplies - about $250
Cost of replacement mechanical parts and modifications - about $250
Total - about $1000
Thats $1000 for a garden tractor in better shape than most hot rods at a car show.
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