2055 White resto modding “White Lightning”

Hi there! I bought this 2055 White MTD in April for $200. It is a beast! It has 1” front spindles, 18” front and 27” rear tires (stock), hydraulic deck lift, rear 3pt hitch (cat. 0) and a horizontal 20hp vanguard.



Here it is when I got it. Cracked tire special 2 front tires, a battery and a new solenoid later, it runs and drives.
I am making a tilt hood for it and front fenders, which aren’t in this photo but they will be painted this spring a la hvlp and rust oleum.
And here it is mocked up! (New hood still needs some fine tuning and a repaint-I sanded waaay too fine and now adhesion isn’t great)
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This is how it is as of late.

This is about 2 feet of snow. Old girl didn’t even complain! Got stuck here more because it’s a very steep grade out of the shed to the driveway.

My plan is to add the new hood, make a grille for it that looks like a 300 series brockway, which means I need a new muffler because it won’t clear. I also need to make some new spindles (https://www.atltf.com/t6536-seeking-advice-on-spindles-and-their-wear-resistance-making-new-spindles#113686), Get better tires for the rear, and make a redneck computer geek style dump loader (all credit is his for the idea, I’m just going to try the idea to replace my shovel   Obviously this is nowhere near as interesting as some of the other builds out there but I thought it might be worth putting here. Thanks for looking at my work-in progress!

Hey all builds are neat builds! What trans does it have? I didn’t see

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. It’s a shaft driven peerless 2526 hydro, 2 speed, with a spin-on filter. 4 lug hubs even! For an MTD this sure is a land yacht

So... bit of work today and a bit of a problem... this had a 41” belt on it and that died yesterday. I suspect it was loose because it was squealing when I hit a drift.




The wire is sticking out and you can see rubber lining. (Used to be an aramid belt.) I just tried a 40 and that was too tight, and the OEM belt is 41 1/2. Does anyone know where I can find one? This uses a mechanical tensioning clutch. Sorry if I made a mistake... I’m typing this on my phone in the garage. Thanks for any help and for reading this!

Edit: should I buy another 41” and use a bigger idler?

Try Car Quest or O'Reilly.

Or you could do a bigger idler and a 41 like you said.

Thanks Murraymountain! Good suggestion on going to an auto parts store, I hadn’t considered that    I did some more research and I found that the OEM belt size is...drumroll...41 inches.    Stupid error on my part for not doing research. I suppose all I need to do is just get a new belt and call it good. Welp, measure twice and cut once, as the craftsmen say.

On a side note (this is probably a stupid question but I am in need of advice) I put a picture of the pto brake up in my above post. The shoe has a large chunk missing from it and it looks like it was wearing on the belt. I don’t know why this is and clearly I assembled something incorrectly. New brake shoes are $25 for a piece the size of my toe. Can I run the snowblower safely without a brake, or is this like taking the guard off of an angle grinder? I obviously won’t have anything to do with it if it is dangerous, but as it was I could turn the pulley over with the brake applied fairly easily. Thoughts?

Oh, before I forget: In reference to George Jones, I named my rig “White Lightning.” No other updates as of late.

Hey Rustbucket, That's a cool tractor. I get my belts from Vbelts4less.com.
I hope that helps,
Ken

Thanks Ken! I’ll check it out! I’m very happy with the old girl, she’s a beast! Your Craftsman is a really nice machine too, I can’t wait to see yours goes! 


On a side note I thought I would show you guys some more old pictures. 
I moved the headlights outboard. They are the original GE4411 sealed beams and they still work. I used a set of 4 1/2” motorcycle fog light housings I bought off of Amazon. They are thin and would dent easy but have a nice chrome and work well. I bought a spare pair of sealed beams recently to keep some spares. I stuck with halogens because the kickback from the snowblower melts off which is nice. I put some LEDs on the rear fenders to give some more brightness and I can just dust them off with a glove. This is just the halogens in the top photo.

I repainted everything behind the dash and the battery tray. Many of the welds were still solid but very rusty so some rust oleum was applied to help with that.

This is just how big this rig is. That is a 50 inch deck (scrapped it because the blade shrouds were crumbling) and the bed is a 3/4 ton Chevy. We had to lift it out with a tractor bucket to clear the fender wells. The hydro even has its own dipstick, filter and drain plug! It does moan some though and there are small air bubbles in it- you fill it through the dipstick and I couldn’t fit a funnel so I used an oil can. Will the air bubbles cause damage? It isn’t ridiculously loud but it can barely be heard at full throttle.

Edit: apparently air bubbles are very bad for the hydro and that is why the loud whining is a problem. It will get a fluid change this weekend.

Well you should be able to purge it. I'd just do that once or twice (it has to be done if you change fluids) and see what happens.

Oh boy.... I had a nasty surprise today. I bent the impeller shaft on the blower. So I now have a $250 paperweight on the front of my tractor and the shed is blocked with a 2 1/2 foot snow drift. Needless to say, I've been steaming like a locomotive.  

In other news, I checked the hydro oil and there wasn't any air bubbles... I cracked the top of the dipstick a while ago and I think that is the culprit now.

wow sweet build it reminds me of my bolens qt16, my bolens is a 18 hp vertical briggs oppy. I was gonna use it for an all around work tractor but my friends made me make it into a pulling tractor. My bolens is heavy built all shaft drive, hydro lift, three point, and it came with an 48 inch deck and a rear mounted three point tiller.

Nice Bolens! Got a thread for it?

not yet, I am thinking about making one though

Got a new 41” belt in today, the blower should be up and running by Sunday. Also... The blower gearbox is wobbling from the impeller shaft about 1/8”. Should I be concerned? 

New belt is on! (Exchanged the 40, plan to use the other one coming as a spare) 

Boy, that was a lot of work. I dragged the charger out to the shed ran the extension cord, and the starter stud was smoking. I tried to tighten it, and like a moron, I got burned. In a split second my polyester glove had melted and I burned my finger again.  It works good! Took the old girl out (-2 windchill it’s cold and windy here.) 28” drift and she plowed right on through.

This was a welcome upgrade. We’ll have that new gun earn its keep here. 
I’m Going to keep the older craftsman around for the smaller bolts and use the new 231 for lugs and chassis stuff. The craftsman is a good gun but I wanted something that would be future proof for the inevitable seized bolt.

Nice.

So you mean the input shaft moves where it goes to the blower? Is it just a bushing or some kinda bearing there you think? I suppose it could be better but could be worse too. Maybe it had some play from the factory.

mr.modified wrote:

Nice.

So you mean the input shaft moves where it goes to the blower? Is it just a bushing or some kinda bearing there you think? I suppose it could be better but could be worse too. Maybe it had some play from the factory.

Good call on the bushings, they are plastic and don’t last long. I hadn’t considered that, thank you for the suggestion! I’ll take a look at that tomorrow. 

PS- that simplicity of yours is truly amazing!

Nice gun! I love my matco half inch drive. It’s just a rebranded IR, dunno the model off the top of my head. Got a student discount on a snap on MG325 as well so I got one of those as my 3/8 gun. For mower stuff I like my Milwaukee fuel m18 stuff though.

Thread jack over lol

Went out and blew out again today and a question for the cold weather folks. Are block heaters worth it for these small engines? With 10-30 the old girl hates anything below 20 and anything below 10 the battery says phooey. Next November she gets 5w-30 which hopefully won’t resemble molasses. Lesson learned! 

The impact gun is great!  I've had an IR just like it for years, and it will crack stuff loose better than the newer, fancier ones can.  All that abuse, and it just keeps on keepin' on!

mh434 wrote:

The impact gun is great!  I've had an IR just like it for years, and it will crack stuff loose better than the newer, fancier ones can.  All that abuse, and it just keeps on keepin' on!

Old school for the win! 

Another question for the GT guys: 


So this tractor takes a 15” rim and its a down right pain to try and find tires for it. I found a set of these turfs for $200
and another set of r4s for 150. 
From what I have been told turfs are better in snow but the turf savers I have on it now are useless on gravel without chains and they slide on blacktop with chains. Thoughts?

if it's got 15s i'd find a set of truck snow tires for it, no need for big fancy tires, just something like these should work fine if you have the room for them under your fenders, they're just under 28in tall https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-New-Haida-Puma-HD818-LT-215-75R15-Load-D-8-Ply-MT-M-T-Mud-Tires/333799620069?fits=Aspect+Ratio%3A75%7CSection+Width%3A215%7CRim+Diameter%3A15&hash=item4db801fde5:g:28wAAOSwcMlf8tww

darkside0914 wrote:

if it's got 15s i'd find a set of truck snow tires for it, no need for big fancy tires, just something like these should work fine if you have the room for them under your fenders, they're just under 28in tall  https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-New-Haida-Puma-HD818-LT-215-75R15-Load-D-8-Ply-MT-M-T-Mud-Tires/333799620069?fits=Aspect+Ratio%3A75%7CSection+Width%3A215%7CRim+Diameter%3A15&hash=item4db801fde5:g:28wAAOSwcMlf8tww

Great idea! I will look into this further, I think that will solve my problems.

Also I got some work done on the front fenders today. I am using 3/8-16 grade 8 bolts (overkill lol)
The fenders are about 18” long and are made from 16 ga cold rolled. The paint was a rattle bomb that went bad (did not degrease properly) and they will be redone along with the hood and I think I will be much happier with the HVLP.


This is the paint I will be using come spring time. I haven’t used a spray gun before (was given an older craftsman siphon feed) but I will practice on some implements first.