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i built this out of my scrap pile over christmass parts included, mayfield merlin bonnet+dash/ electrac front+rear axles/ wheelhorse rear wheels/old fergi seat+steering wheel/mudgaurds 40gal oil drum

Hello all. Just thought I'd post a few pics of my latest project. I picked up a 1974 Case 444 Garden Tractor. This is a large garden tractor. It has a hydraulic 3 point hitch, with a hydraulic PTO. I got it with a hydraulic tiller, snow/dirt blade, mower deck, and a very rusty Brinly plow. The starter generator isn't working, so I dropped it off at my local rebuild place to be fixed. The Kohler K321 will need rebuilding, as the previous owner said it smoked, and leaks alot. First, I'm going to get it running so I can check how everything works. I will replace those rotted rear hydraulic hoses before using the hydraulics! I've been wanting a GT with a full 3 point for awhile, so I'm really going to enjoy this project. Here are a few pics from the 9 hour drive yesterday, to pick it up. There is a couple pics of it next to my 222 as well. Matt

I was just looking at the Environmental Agency's "flood risk" map and decided to have a close look at my area.. And was shocked to see these strange patterns in the field! A close up!! I wonder how they got there!!!!!!!

Looks like a great project and compliments your other Case, good find !!

That's a great machine Matt, the size of the rear tires give it a GT-14 sort of feel I like the full hydraulics and 3 point. It has all you could need on a small tractor

heres a bolens 750 that i added a fork lift too i had to lengthen it to stop the front wheels coming of the ground it worked ok it would lift three adults without problems

Scary how the years roll by Gareth, I can't believe its three years since we took the Tarpen display there...

Thanx for asking Paul , my family are ok , thats them in the bottom picture looking over the Levels . Thview from the top of the hill shows only half of the flooding & in most areas it is around waist deep , i was good to see the Ryal Marines helping out , sadly there are people still out in the middle of the floods looking after animals etc . while we were there the royal marines rescued a family & 3 dogs 4 cats

When I got the trailer the spare wheel was held on with just one bolt, so I made up a wheel carrier out of some scrap metal, and used some locking wheel bolts that I had on a ford XR3i I once had, then I will bolt it down to the cross member and weld the nuts to the bolts..

Thanks Matt, I think it was partly the size of the rear tyres that attracted me to the GT, and partly the size of the GT over all.. A real mini tractor size.. Don't worry, my 6x6 will be making more of an appearance here at MOM I think your thinking may be right Andy I really should try and make contact with Mr Hemmingway and find out if he could give me a bit more history of my GT. Yes I vaguely remember you also have a "Celebrity Horse". I can't remember which celebrity though, but as you may of noticed I'm not that good at remembering celebs And so the GT story continues.... With winter rapidly closing in I thought it would be a good idea to get my snowplow which was custom built to fit my Wheel Horse 312-8, fitted to the GT As it turned out the GT was so different from the 312-8 that it became clear that it would be easier to make a new A-Frame to fit the GT rather than modify the existing A-Frame to fit.. The existing A-Frame would not give me enough "lift" and it was too short for the blade to turn full angle each way without it hitting the tyres. In the end I gave up with trying to fit the snowplow to the GT, somehow with the weather as it has been I don't think there will be any snow to plow this winter! So instead I treated the GT to a "closer to original" size engine pulley. I bought this pulley knowing it was 5mm oversize hoping I could turn it down on the lathe.. Unfortunately when I went to try and turn it down to size I found that I could turn the extra 5mm off, but I couldn't widen the groove! As 5mm oversize isn't too much I fitted the pulley anyway.. This is when I found out the GT's belt guard wouldn't quite fit due to the size off the pulley! Rather than cut and shut the GT's belt guard I made my own..... From an Ironing board no less It was about this time the GT's 16hp engine started playing up.. It's never really ran 100%, bogging a little under load and a little smoke.. Only now it would bog down with no load.. And produce lot's of smoke! After lot's a faffing about including pulling the carb apart to check for anything nasty going on.. In the end it turned out the 16hp engine had the wrong main needle in it! The right needle being the same part number as the main needle in the original 14hp's engine.. Which was handy as I had one This stopped the smoke, swapping the spark plug with the one from my 312's engine got the GT's 16hp engine running sweetly once again

its good to be with folk with liberated views your totally right nigel i think it came under the umbrella of mend and make do . so if it didn't fit and you needed it to you would take it to the smithy and he made it fit. I guess we have evolved though as most of us have a welder and a have a go attitude.

With the original engine pulley being very firmly stuck on the original engine I had to find another pulley.. The closest I had was on a very dead Kohler KT-17 engine.. Slightly smaller in size but not by much. This pulley was also firmly stuck on the crankshaft but as the engine was already dead (dead in a busted con rod that punched three holes in the engine case kind of way) I had no problems being a little less gentle with it Pulley off. The exhaust that came with the engine needed a little tweak to make it fit.. I've no idea what the exhaust originally came from, but I think it looks good. The original pulley on the trans was found to be very loose due to wear and a badly done bodge with a previous owner, so it was replaced with a pulley of the correct size from a Raider 10 with the added bonus of a built in cooling fan. Quite often you will see GT-14's with non original fuel tanks where heat from the exhaust has melted the plastic tank away! I didn't want this to happen to my fuel tank so I made this ally heat shield.. Very well it works too My Wheel Horse 312-8 was used for many years as a my main work horse, fitted with big and wide rear tyres and a home made roll bar. But this year it has been put on gentler grass cutting duties only. so the roll bar was removed and bolted onto the GT I think the grin on Pete's face says it all As well as being the star of a few videos (see my YouTube channel link at the bottom of my posts) the GT has been put to work moving logs.. And moving pallets. That will do for now, more of the GT story coming later.

Thank you stormin . This is how I got it.. And after.

So, with Ian's blessing... I present to you a few of my "edits" you may, or may not have seen over on RedSquare, the international Wheelhorse forum.