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I've got a lot of time on my hands right now recovering from eye re-construction surgery and this question keeps rattling around in my head. It is my understanding that the early "O"s had a tighter spacing rim to hub slots. My fingers don't really fit thru vs later rim slots fingers slip thru pretty easily. Does anybody know when they changed over from "early" to later ? I don't usually worry about the "correct police" but I'm wondering on this issue.
Yes, my wife is typing for me so I'm guessing her spelling is much better than mine
Thanks Jim and Char

Jim , I don't know when the change was made , but the early O's did have the smaller opening . Would this happen to be a 3XXX cub you got from a cub nut in northern Ky. a while back
When I got that O , it was a package deal with two other Originals and the previous owner I got them from had switched some of the parts and tires . Did your O have the smaller opening on both rear rims ??
If not I probably still got its mate on one of these other O's that are still here .

Hey Jess,
Yep, the question started here because Jim saw some photos in Cadet Connection Spring 2014 were Martin Miller of NY had two early "O"s that clearly show the narrow slots, yet other photos he has seen seem to show some narrow and some wider slots on supposed 1st year "O"s in other books or whatever. Well he remembered jockeying wheels around at your place to get a pair of the narrow slots for the 3XXX unit. Then Josh one of our sons was here this weekend (the one that was with Jim at your place) and he agreed that wheels had been swapped around and he also was sure Dad had the proper set. Well then Jim remembers dropping something in the grass that he never found, but figured he was going to get poison ivy for sure pawing around in the weeds. Then Josh said he remembered you showing them the curved rim bead on front rims as well, and he thought at least one of the swaps was for a front rim...Well this precipitated more discussion and ends up we went out to the storage trailer to see what was what. Josh says looks like dad blasted and painted the fronts with new tires and just Rust-stopped the rears and put the 50yr old really hard rubber tires from the Mott on the back of it to get it to roll in the trailer. and YES ! the rears are the correct narrow slots. The other one he apparently just patched tubes or whatever so it rolled, it has the wider slots in back but it is a 62 anyway. Both have the correct "O" front rims. Having not been there it sounds like you all had an enjoyable day fooling with and loading etc.

Anyway that brings us back to Jim's first question: Does anybody know when the narrow slots gave way to the wider slots?

PS. Jess, Jim wants me to send a PM to you something about a"skeeter fogger" ?

Jim - Feel better, prayers for a speedy recovery!

Not sure anyone knows that info.... its certainly only very early originals.... and im not even 100 percent sure it was all early ones. I bought an original from the original owner several years back ... serial number 828 and it did not come with narrow rims. The owner insisted they were the original rims. I later bought serial number 801 and it came with very rotted out narrow rims. The difference however was one tractor came with goodyear tires and one came with firestone. I am beginning to think it was only one manufacturer selling cub those rims. I have also seen other tractors with higher serial numbers than 828 with narrow rims.

Further thinking also leads me to believe that Cub Cadet may not have run the rule of first in first out....and i doubt they rotated there tires. So its possible they got down to 10 tires and a new shipment came in and thus the 10 got burried for the next 500 tractors till... who knows when they got used....

Just all random thoughts... i have no idea how they operated.

dave

Dave , what your saying may be true . I've got a low 4 digit 2656 that has one wide slot and one narrow slot rim .
I got the Original from a guy that only had that one cub , so I don't think its rims weren't switched with another cub . Also it still had the original dry rotted Goodyear Lawn and Garden tires on it and the patina of the paint and amount of rust on both rims match .

I plan on restoring it eventually , but I don't have another narrow slot rim , so I may put wide slots on it because little stuff like mismatched rear rims drives me crazy even though 99% of the people wouldn't even notice the difference .....

I have noticed that there wasn't any narrow slots on any of the later Originals I presently own , I've got seven Originals right now and the higher serial ones 24XXX , 37XXX , 58XXX and 59XXX are all wide slot.


I've also noticed that there is no serial number pattern when it comes to Goodyear or Firestone tires , as I've seen both on early and later serial number Originals .
I've owned somewhere around a dozen Originals over the years and have notice that there is no pattern on which tires were used .

Just some random observations about wheels;
Some of the rims I have seen have date codes stamped into them. That may help figure things out. I've never had any from an Original though.
A lot of the wheels I have seen are stamped "EWC" for Electric Wheel Co. I think EWC was swallowed up by Titan or Firestone or one of the other big tire/wheel companies. Firestone and Goodyear both made rims at one time, but I doubt any of the Cub Cadet wheels came from the manufacturer with tires mounted. I know I have seen rims with an IH part # rubber stamped on the rim where it was covered up by the tire.