Australian in Nova Scotia with a 1450

[JamesB4500]

Hi there.

I'm originally from Australia. I moved to Newfoundland in 2008, and in 2012, I relocated to the Acadian Shore region of rural Nova Scotia. We live in a 100+ year old 6 bedroom farm house on 10 acres.

My wife is interested in getting some fruit and vegetable gardens established, so almost a year ago, she decided that we needed a tiller and bought a used Troy-Bilt Horse. Once I'd fixed the questionable repairs the previous owner had made to the Horse, it was quite usable, but my wife found it was difficult for her to handle. She looked at a Craftsman branded tiller that Sears had in their catalog and which she planned to attach to our Cat 0 three point hitch equipped 1985 vintage MTD built Craftsman garden tractor. I quickly came to the conclusion that there was no way it was going to work.

My solution was to do it properly. I decided to buy a non-running 1977 Club Cadet 1450 that came with a box full of removed bits from the engine bay, a 44C deck, QA-42A Snow Thrower, and a 1A Tiller (with 2 unused and boxed tine extender kits). The Cub Cadet and all the accessories was less than 1/3 what the new Sears tiller was going to cost, so I had a pretty decent leeway in what I could afford to spend on parts to get the 1450 running before it wasn't a cost effective option. In the mean time, she would have to use the Horse to do the tilling.

Other projects got in the way over the Summer, and by the time I was ready to work on the 1450, it was Winter, and the only useable undercover workspace I had available was unheated and open to the elements. Now that Spring is here (and it's been a late Spring this year), I'm starting the process of stripping down the motor to identify the source of the loud knock that caused the previous owner to decide to park the 1450 for a few years and then sell it.

I'm less interested in doing a full restoration of the 1450 as I am in ending up with a reliable unit that will allow us to get some useful work out of the tiller and snow thrower (and should mean we can sell our 30" Craftsman snow blower and Troy-Bilt Horse tiller). I know I'll be hunting for parts as stuff like the lift kit that the tiller needs was missing from the pieces we got, but that's no big deal.

[Jlaws]

James , welcome to the group .
Nice tag line , did you steal that from Red/Green ? .....
Duct tape is an acceptable repair around here , along with baling wire .

A 1450 work horse with plenty of options ....Nice !
A tiller is one option that I've never owned that I'm looking and a must for anyone putting in a garden .
I've owned a few rarer cub cadet attachments than a tiller , but there just doesn't seem to be many in this area for sale .

I tried to MapQuest your location but it can't find it , must be a small town .

[JamesB4500]

Can't remember where I found the signature line. It was certainly a long time ago. I was using it for a number of years before I left Australia.

Corberrie is located almost exactly half way between Digby and Yarmouth, right on Highway 340. The nearest town is probably Weymouth, about 20km away at the northern end of Highway 340. Corberrie isn't a town, it's a community. At the centre is a now disused Catholic Church, and everything else in the community is either a house or a farm building, with the houses either still sitting on a farm property, or on a little pocket of land that was at one time sliced off a farm property.

[wdeturck]

Welcome James or do you prefer Jim? I seen you were from NS when I signed you up. A couple weeks ago we had a new member from New Zealand and I think we had a couple of Aussies over the years.

I think we can get that 1450 up and running. When looking for parts check out viewforum.php?f=16 especially Rich Patton and Ray Weaver who I know personally. Be sure to use the viewforum.php?f=10 section as we have a lot of lurkers who hoard hard to find parts. Read this whole thread viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5758#unread

We love Pictures

[JamesB4500]

I was Jim at work, but I prefer James.

I'll start a new topic detailing my 1450 and the repair progress. Most likely the first Cub Cadet specific parts I'll be looking for will be the isolation mounts for the Kohler K321AQS engine cradle and maybe a new flexible rubber section for the motor to driveshaft joint.

[JamesB4500]

Rebuild topic started in "Cub Cadets and Shooting the Breeze".