Toro bought Wheel Horse in 1986, but the Toro name didn't appear on the products until 1990. The old Wheel Horse plant in South Bend, IN was sold early on, I don't know the exact year but in the late 80's I believe. I think the story on the Classic is simply that Toro has been hugely successful with ZTR's (which Wheel Horse actually had in the 80's, by the way) while their traditional lawn and garden tractor sales have been slipping. They are also losing traditional consumer oriented dealers, as many of the ZTR sales seem to be from commercial oriented dealers who may have never even heard of a Wheel Horse tractor. So I guess the bottom line is they have made a business decision to just about kill off all their traditional lawn and garden tractors. While I can't agree with the decision, it's not mine to make, and I have to say a big "Thanks!" to Toro for keeping the traditional Wheel Horse alive for as long as they have. I will add that Toro has a long tradition of making all sorts of turf care related products, and they seem to have always adjusted and altered their product mix to the demands in the market they sought to serve. Perhaps because their specialty early on was in the commercial side, many people do not realize this company goes back to before 1920. Turf care has always been their business, not agriculture, and I think Toro was a bit uncomfortable with even touching into agriculture with their garden tractors. Why else would they have designed the otherwise very capable 5xi series with no provisions for a rear pto, no added hydraulics, and no 3-point hitch? Various ag type attachments that WH had offered were also dropped. There's no question that modern design l&g tractors have more engineering in them today. Engineers are good at figuring out the least material that will perform the intended function, and safety factors today are obviously not the round 2 or 3 times like they used to be. So today's l&g transaxle, for instance, is built to a relatively tight tolerance for HP and torque, and is expected to handle the loads for "X" number of cycles. It's kind of like "battery science" - if a Sears battery claims a "4 year" life, by golly that's usually pretty close to what you'll get out of it. On the other hand, the Wheel Horse uni-drive was designed in the days when iron was cheap, things weren't supposed to break, and owners of garden tractors expected them to not only mow grass, but to really be more of a small tractor and not just a lawn mower they could ride on. The first tractors to use the modern style, 2-piece cast housing WH uni-drive transaxle were the 5.5HP 551 and the 7HP 701 in 1961. While the design had changes and revisions over the years, most major dimensions did not change, and the fact that some of the later 6-speed transaxles are handling 50+ HP in competitive pullers is a sure sign that they were built to last a lifetime in the intended application. Todays thin-wall close-fit aluminum castings and powdered metal gears may be very cost efficient and are probably well suited for most of today's purchasers, but they are nothing like the old cast iron gearboxes that Wheel Horse, Cub Cadet, Bolens, Peerless, and others used to make. I can't do much about today's realities in terms of lawn tractor purchasers, economies of scale (the box store "make 'em cheap and sell millions" syndrome), and manufacturing economics, but I'll sure do what I can to preserve the remaining thousands and thousands of Wheel Horses that are out there! Ed

Thanks for all the info guys! I took the deck off again and it did look like the lift bar was bent to the left side. I should have realized this from how hard it was to get the washer and pin on the lift rod after putting the deck on. I opened up the dash to get access to the lift parts and the i-hook was bent and the trunion was bent downward with the pin just barely holding it in place. I decided to order new lift chain/i-hook and trunion. Hopefuly this will help me get the left to go higher up. Then I will try and adjust the deck again. I thought the front of the deck was supposed to be higher than the back? Also, I thought it was suspended from the ground in the front and resting on the wheels in the back? I think this is how my dads deck works anyway. Thanks again for all the help! Eyball

Happy New Year! Looking for some help from you veteran WH owners: I'm in the middle of a full frame-off restoration of the '89 312-8 I inherited. These machines are so well put together that most of my work will be paint, wiring and replacing some worn out bushings, etc. Question for you or any other WH owner out there: on the rear wheel mounting flanges there are two set-screws that hold each flange to the axle. The head of the bolt is square, then there is a hex nut between that and the flange casting. Is this a lock nut or is it welded on to the flange as part of the attachment? Before I go putting too much torque on these things and breaking something I'm trying to figure out how they're hitched together! I've got some play in one of the flanges I'd like to eliminate - maybe replace the woodruff key? Thoughts/tips/pointers, please?

Eric, While it is true the belt cover would have the model number, there should be a tag with the model ID number somewhere on the unit. In any case, if the engine is original you can tell the first two digits of the model number from that 75X = 7 HP electric start.