My cabin fever is reaching its limit, and I am so glad spring has finally sprung. Living in town is an ongoing adjustment for me. I came from a farm with 180 acres to go and do whatever on, even during the winter months. I am thankful that we have a decent size yard for me to play with my tractor.
I use an Allis-Chalmers 710 lawn tractor for mowing. It was built in the late 1970s by Simplicity, which was an Allis-Chalmers subsidiary. It’s equipped with a Kohler 241S single-cylinder engine. It used to be my great uncle’s tractor, but he had not used it in years. We got it as part of a deal to repaint his Minneapolis-Moline tractor. After 30 years of use, the engine is in serious need of overhauling. I was adding oil every week when I mowed last summer, and it smoked enough to keep the mosquitoes away! It is a fuel-efficient engine that sips gas. It was filled up full in May and I didn’t put gas in until end of August.
Now that it is getting warmer out, I decided to pull out the engine and tear it down. It should be a nice little DIY project before the mowing season commences. I don’t have all the tools necessary to complete the project, so I am just tearing it down as much as I can at my house and taking it back to the farm shop to complete it, with some help from my brother (he is the expert on this stuff). There are some other small things that need to be repaired (batter wires, carburetor, etc), but hopefully it will run like new once it is all done.
Austin M. Frederick 