Project Basket Case - Finishing up

Now that all the painting was done and everything was nice and shiny, the big day had arrived. 

I could finally put the tractor back together.

Reassembly in of itself was pretty straightforward. It was after all a matter of bolting the bits that I had removed earlier back onto the tractor's frame and reconnecting the remaining electrical components, mainly the headlights. 

But of course not everything was smooth sailing, I did hit a bit of an unexpected snag. 

The engine that I transplanted into the tractor has an oil filter. While I consider that to be a huge upgrade from the original engine, it also meant that I now have an oil filter protruding out from the side of the engine block. 

And as luck should have it, the oil filter was also occupying space that would have normally been occupied by the left footrest. 

Obviously, they both can't occupy the same space, so a bit of surgery was needed. Thankfully the footplate was made from relatively thin 1/16 inch steel, so modifying it to fit shouldn't be a big problem

I trimmed back the corner of the footplate so that it would clear the oil filter (plus leaving about a half-inch gap to allow for the changing of the oil filter) and the footplate was bolted back into place.

With that little wrinkle sorted out, the rest of the reassembly went ahead with no further issues

Soon enough I was able to step back and admire the results.

 Looks pretty darn good if I must say so myself. 

The big question is how does it work?

It works pretty good. I used the tractor over the summer pulling the lawn sweeper and hauling a little garden wagon around. For the most part, it works quite well with no major issues. 

Well, I have noticed that it doesn't have any brakes, but as long as I don't stop on a hill, that's not a huge problem. 

Obviously, that is something I need to look at, and I do want to look at replacing the seat, but that is the beauty of tinkering with an old tractor, there is always something that you can improve on. 

But for now, I am just going to enjoy experiencing the new life that this former Basket Case now has