It's been a while since my last update and I've been busy. I'm pleased to announce that the seat is finally done! The old one was beyond salvaging so I cut out new forms in plywood and my wonderful wife upholstered them. Now when I'm out cutting the grass my butt isn't in a hole. Here is a before and after shot of the seat. I couldn't be happier with the finished product.

Mower deck

I've had the tractor running great for a while now and I have been using it to mow the lawn. I took some time over the past couple days and refinished the mower deck. I greased up all the pulleys, sharpened the blades, adjusted the tension on the belt and most gratifying of all is the fresh paint job. I took it for a spin and it cuts just like the day it left the factory 40 years ago.







The next thing on my list are the wheels... I was going to get new tires but I have since decided to keep the ones I have until they need replacing. It is after all a work tractor and not a show piece.

Today was a big day for me... I put a battery in the tractor the other night and it started right up after sitting in pieces all winter. This morning I was up early painting a 2nd coat on all the parts. Once everything was dry I was able to reassemble the pieces and apply the decals that I bought over the winter. All that I have left to do now is the seat, wheels and some new tires. The mower deck that came with the tractor will get a fresh coat of paint and the blades sharpened at some point in the next few weeks. All in all I'm pretty pleased with the results so far and thrilled I was able to take the much anticipated victory lap around the back yard.

The warm weather has finally arrived. Today I made some great progress and I was able to clean up and paint quite a few parts. With the nice weather my new air powered sander and a few beers it was a perfect day. Here is a before and after of the foot rests along with a few other refinished parts.



I have the front grill of the tractor refinished and put back together. I can't wait to be done and take a victory lap around the lawn.


With the warm weather here I hope that I'm able to complete this project within the next couple of weeks.

i spent some time this afternoon cleaning up and painting a few engine parts. here is a before and after of my progress. i still have a few more areas on the engine to do but for now it looks a little better.

Here are a few pictures of my progress as promised.


This is about as far as i want to take the tractor apart. The engine is running quite well and I don't want to risk running into an issue by pulling it from the frame. The frame appears to be is really great shape.


The tub is in rough shape. It will need quite a bit of attention to bring it back to it's original state.


Here are the seat cushions. As they currently sit they are pretty much trashed. It looks like at some point in this tractors life it was raided by mice that were able to pull most of the padding out of the many holes in the cushions. I'll be interested to see how the fabrication of the new seats comes out. I'm thinking of maybe straying from the original design of the tractor and having them reupholstered in some heavy duty waterproof black canvas.


Here is one of my tupperware bins after my latest trip to the hardware store. I have been able to find all new screws and blots at the local hardware store. It's been unbelievably time consuming removing and individually labeling every single screw, nut and bolt but i think the finished product will look great with all new shiny hardware. The labeling and recording process will make reassembly much easier.

I'm at a point where i really want to start sanding and painting but I need to wait until the weather warms up a bit before i can. i don't really want to sand down the parts and leave them exposed to the elements unprotected. There are a few parts that need to be fabricated. I think doing that will keep me busy while i wait for the warmer weather.

I have the tractor striped down pretty much to the frame right now. I took my first of what will be many trips to the hardware store. I'm replacing every nut and bolt off the tractor with new hardware so that if I ever need to remove something it will be easy. 40 year old bolts tend to get pretty rusty... plus, new bolts look shiny. Sorry there are no new pictures... I'll toss a few up when I get a chance. I've also removed the seats. The old vinyl seat covers are pretty much garbage. My wonderful girlfriend has offered her assistance in reupholstering the seats for me, Thanks :) I'll have to let her take it for a few laps around the yard when its all done.

I had some free time this afternoon so me and the dog spent some time on the tractor. With my small portable heater and radio turned on I was ready to go. I removed grill and it's housing from the front of the tractor. The front grill logo plate was in pretty bad shape. It's made of aluminum and was showing it's age the decal was pretty pitted from 40 years of work. I did my best to clean up the aluminum. I was really surprised how well it polished up. Next I had to semi fabricate a logo decal out of the kit I had ordered off the internet. The exact decal I needed wasn't available but I did have an extra one in the kit that didn't have a home so I cut it to shape and applied it to the plate.

I also removed the gas tank. It is going to need to be painted. The last owner gave only the portion of the tank that was visible through the hood a quick paint job.

Frank the dog gets up from his blanket to view our progress.

The whole front of the tractor is in boxes on the garage floor. It now looks like something mad-max would use to mow his lawn.

I think my next task will be to remove the wheels and clean up the rims. The tires are all pretty dry rotted so once the wheels are done Ill get some new tires for it.
This project is quite the undertaking but the work is enjoyable.

It's been ridiculously cold out the past couple weeks. Today the temperature finally went above freezing for a little while this afternoon so I figured it was a good day to go out to the garage and spend some time with the tractor. I had tried to start it a few days ago but the battery was as dead as could be. From the looks of it I'd say it's been in the tractor for quite some time and doesn't really owe me anything. I don't really like to let engines sit idle for too long. I make an effort to start and let idle all my gas engines every few weeks just to keep all the moving parts moving. I've had pretty good luck with this method. I'll have to go pick up a battery maybe next weekend.

Once I had the battery out I realized that its been resting on a broken piece of plywood. I've seen lots of other jacobsens with a similar plywood battery shelf. I will have to cut a new piece to replace the old one.

I pulled off the hood to make the engine easier to get to. I'll just leave it off until I sand and paint it once the weather warms up in the spring. I changed out the spark plug and the very, very, very old air filter. I was really pleased to see that both the spark plug and the air filter were so easy to find at an auto pars store.

The gasket between the air cleaner and the carb was looking pretty worn and cracked so I managed fabricate a replacement out of gasket paper. Here is a picture of the original gasket the new one came out looking identical minus the cracks and tears.

Well that's it for now. I have a lot of work left on this project so I hope to get some more warm days.