Chuck, That looks amazing. Just out of curiosity, what kind of paint did you use? There is a partial decal visible in a couple of Jason's photos. One is straight on, and you might be able to use that as a guide for painting on your decal. There is also a decal visible in one of my photos. In case you want to add some accessories to your Merry Tiller, there is a company called Maxim that makes tillers very similar to the Merry Tillers, and I think there is a good chance that some or all of Maxim's accessories might fit a Merry Tiller. I emailed them a couple of years ago, and they seemed willing to make a set of their Till Hoes to fit my Merry Tiller. They were going to add transmission seal protection cups in the style of the Merry Tiller tines. So they seemed to be pretty knowledgeable about Merry Tillers. (I guess they should, because they are making something very similar). I was going to use the Till Hoes as traction for my homemade dozer blade, since I can't find the wide finger tine sets anymore. Maybe I should re-open my line of communication with Maxim. Several of their tillers have clutch latches, and some come with optional tractor tires for plowing. But apparently none have adjustable handles. I might bring that subject up with Maxim. Incidentally, Maxim used to have an amazing machine called a "Plow Hoss", which is now discontinued. But, just for jollies, I am linking to an old picture of a Plow Hoss here. It's sort of like a high-wheeled cultivator on steroids. (I could grow better corn than that.) MM

John, You are quite fortunate to find a tractor with a three-point hitch and PTO on it. The three-point is a very desirable option. Too bad about the hood not being original because your tractor came with headlamps that had glass lenses in them and those are highly sought after because they are not available any longer. I would guess that this donor hood has a bump out on the front left side because Power Red hoods were used after the muffler was put under the hood and the bump out was there for the tailpipe to exit. Case HIGHLY recommended the optional weight kit for the front of the tractors whenever using the tiller. If you are handy, you can make your own front weight. There are several ways to go about it. Making use of old cast iron barbell weights is one way. You can either buy an old mule bracket from a parted out mowing deck (same bracket that clips your deck onto the front of the tractor) off of e-bay for a few bucks and then weld a piece of the barbell rod onto it (re-inforce it) so you can slide the weights on and use the barbell retainer to hold them in place. The Case front weight used four of the stock cast iron wheel weights (30 lbs each) for a total of 120 pounds on the front. Case also recommended using tire chains if you do not have Ag bar tread rubber on the rear. And lastly, there was an optional Speed Control Valve (SCV) that mounted on the right side of the dash tower and it gave finite control over the forward speed of the tractor while tilling. Hi Range is used mostly for travelling and very light work. Lo Range is the one you should be in for most work. Since you likely have no service history on this tractor, you would be well advised to do the following. - change the oil in the trans-axle. There is a drain plug for this purpose and a fill plug in the middle of your PTO to put oil back in. Keep your eyes open for signs of water in the oil. It should look like oil when it comes out, not some greyish slime. If you get greyish slime, then allow it all to drain out and put the drain plug back in. Put three quarts of diesel fuel into the transaxle and drive the tractor around for a half hour or so before draining all of that out. You may have to repeat that a second time to get all the crap out. Once you're satisfied that it's clean in there, then fill the trans-axle until oil starts coming back out the fill plug. Use any decent quality 20W50 MOTOR OIL. - next, you need to change out the hydraulic fluid. Since you have a PTO, the easiest way to do this is to remove the quick coupler from the hose that is attached to the PTO valve. Stick that hose into a clean five gallon bucket. Remove the spark plugs from the engine. Push the PTO valve to one of the positions other than the middle one. Use the ignition key to spin the engine over to see if oil is spurting out of the hose. If it isn't, then stop. Pull the PTO handle to the opposite extreme and spin the engine again. You should now be getting oil from that hose. Keep spinning until the oil flow stops. Put the coupler back on the hose. Refill the reservoir under the hood (red tank) with the same decent quality 20W50 MOTOR OIL. Do not use any other type of oil in the hydraulic system other than 20W50 or 15W40 motor oil. Put the spark plugs back in, start the engine and drive it around. Check the oil level. It should be 1 1/2" below the top of the tank. Lastly, change the engine oil after allowing the engine to reach operating temp. In above freezing conditions, use ONLY straight 30 weight oil. Do not use any multi-grades. Change your oil EVERY 25 hours of use. You can buy an inexpensive hourmeter to help you keep track. Places such as Harbor Freight have them. Just find a good ground for the negative lead and run the other wire to the Positive lead on the ignition coil. Find a spot under the hood to mount the meter. Always check your engine oil before using the tractor. Do not allow the level to drop below the low oil line on the stick. Change the hydraulic oil every second year. It's cheap insurance to protect an expensive pump and an even more expensive drive motor. If you have not found a source to buy the Operator's Manual, then post here. You need to put a grease gun to this tractor and the manual shows you where.

All; I am currently in the process of evaluating interior drainage waterproofing companies and I wanted to share my experiences so far. I am not expert in the field but from reading and talking to people over the past couple of years I have learned a couple of things concerning basements that have water problems. (a) first check to see where the water is coming from. Check your gutters, liters, e.t.c and make sure that they are clean. If your gutters are fine make sure that you have extenders at the bottom of your liters to push the water far away from the foundation of your house. If your gutters need replacing replace them. If you have water coming from around your windows putting in a interior drainage system is not going to solve your water problem. (b) the best kind of waterproofing is from the OUTSIDE NOT from the INSIDE. You want to prevent the water from coming into your house. WHERE PRACTICAL dig arond the foundation of your house and seal from the outside. All interior drainage systems do is route the water into your basement them back out via the sump pump. Inside drainage systems are practical when your house sits on a high water table (as in my case)or is below sea level. With interior drainage systems you are more prone to termites and radon gas getting into your home. Since I will be going with an interior drainage system I plan on monitoring the radon levels in my home. (c) Where practical check you walls for leaks. Seal all cracks with hydrolic cement or something similar. Below are the companies that I have met with over the years and my notes on each company. Most of them are bad and one is good. ValueDry - definitely one of the more expensive waterproofing companies. The first time I met with them was in 2008 for both homes. The reps were very informative and polite. When I called again this year (2010) the sales manager said that I could email him some questions since they had come out to see my primary home in NY already. He emailed me back a quote (still expensive) and told me that I had three days to consider (most of the other companies give you 30 days). When I emailed him back a few days later with another question he told me that since the three days has passed the "special price" that I had received was no longer any good! NOTE: turns out company is not licensed in the county of NY where I live. Sounds like the company didn't really want my business. American A-1 - my first time interviewing them. Read allot of good reviews about them on web. Checked references and the references were good. Had a good product at a decent price. Salesman was nice but was probably new on the job and not very knowledgeable. Tried to "con" me into buying stuff that I didn't really need. Really did not know his stuff. Tried to telll me that he had to drill a hole in my foundation BEFORE he could quote me a price and BEFORE we signed a contract. Guys who know their stuff will be able to look at the foundation near the floor and tell you what kind of foundation you have. I told him he could not just drill my floor BEFORE we agree on terms. So the deal was off. NOTE: turns out that American A-1 is under a company is not licensed to do work in the county of NY where I live. They told me that they were. American Dry Basement Systems - definitely has some of the most rude salesmen of all the companies that I have ecountered. My first experience with them was in 2008 in my home in NY. This guy was busy "bragging" about how great the company is but didn't want to leave us any references OR literature. He thought that since he lived in the area that it would be an easy sell. I tried to ask him questions and basically his answers did not make any sense. When I tried to point this out to him he talked all over me. Salesman didn't seem to knowledgeable when I asked him certain questions. Since I didn't have any work done in the basement in 2008 and I called them again in 2010 and thought I would give them a second chance. This time I got a guy that got rude with me over the phone. ADBM, if you are reading this you definitely need to send your guys back to school to learn how to talk to people. NOTE: ADBM is not licensed to do work in county of NY where I live. They told me they were. Vulcan - "The bigboys on the block" that have been around for years. So, since you have been around since 1949 why do you only offer only a 10 year guarantee when the other companies that have not been around as long as you offer 25 years or more? Price came in way less than the other competitors. Is it because your company offers a different kind of conduit for the water (polyethylene) which cost less is not as strong as PVC pipes? Salesman was also prone to bragging. Could not give me an answer why they only guarantee for 10 years. Also, why are you not a member of the National Association of WaterProofers and Structural Repair Contractors. I couldn't get a straight answer on this either. Salesman didn't seem too knowledgeable. Most states require a dedicated line for the sump pump. Salesman who claims to have been in the game for a long time did not know this! Mid-Atlantic - met with them back in 2003. Salesman was very nice but when he saw that we had a finished basement (one part is a office, the other part is a living room area. we also have a tiled floor) the look on his face was "man, is your basement going to get jacked up by the time that we get done with it". He was very honest in telling us that the area would really get messed up with the jack hammering and everything else that had to be done. I believe he quoted me a price of $12,000 back then to do two walls. Good thing I didn't have it done then! Why? (a) that was during the housing boom when prices for everything concerning a home was much more expensive so quotes for waterproofing was also more expensive back then also (b) if I only had two walls done I would have had to call them back to do the other two walls years later because now my entire basement floods in comparison to just one section of the basement. 1st Quality Basements Systems - meet with this salesman about my home in NJ back in 2007 or 2008. Very courteous and professional. I believe he quoted me a price that I thought was too high for me to pay for an investment property that I was already loosing money on (might have been $7000). Ended up just putting a sump pump in the basement. Still have a water problem just not as bad. If I ever do have to waterproof this house I would find this person's business card and contact him. This company is part of Basement Systems Inc which the below company is also a part of. They are totally independent of each other. Basement Systems of New York - very good experience so far. The salesman was very knowledgeable. I met with them a few days ago concerning my home in NY. The salesman broke everything down to me in simple terms that I could understand (now I know the difference between monolithic and two slab foundations). Waiting to hear back from them on a quote. If the numbers add up I will go with this company. Note: all of the companies that were not licensed in the part of NY where I lived wanted to charge me MORE MONEY to do the job than companies that were licensed in NY. That seems real backwards to me. If anything, they should charge me LESS!!! I read a a good article on the Bob Vila website about basement leaks. It is attached below. It is definitely recommeded reading for anyone who wants to understand basement leaks. Feel free to email me with any questions at max4ever69@gmail.com Best, Max

just a point of reference for anyone reading this post that is considering a pump upgrade to their existing floor system pool. As repair guy indicated, the Intelliflo VS or any other variable speed pump out there that has multiple speeds will work just fine to satisfy the periodic higher flows for the floor system (about 2 hours on average) and then the rest of the filter on time can be spent on low speed savings lots of money over a 1 speed pump. I think repair guy meant the Intelliflo VF is not a good choice for a floor system. I agree, and still struggle with the value of VF on any application. VF will increase speed and therefore system pressure to maintain a set gpm rate. This defeats the purpose of having a variable speed pump because this increases power consumption without the homeowner knowing it. All while a simple filter clean or fixing some other system problem goes undetected because the system continues to operate just fine even though there is a problem. There a probably applications out there where VF is ideal and I certainly would like to hear about them! Another lower cost option for those wishing to upgrade their floor system pump is a 2 speed. This will satisfy the high flow needs of the floor system and the rest of the pump on time is in low speed savings lots of money over a 1 speed. Personally, I have the exact combo that repair guy stated above, a Jandy 2HP 2 speed with a Jandy 460 cartridge. My filter pressure at high speed is 20 psi and the multiport valve pressure is 18 psi. This is accomplished with 2.5" piping and sweep 90's instead of hard 90's in the plumbing circuit. At low speed, the filter pressure is around 4 psi and the multiport valve still operates providing circulation and chlorination via SWG to the pool floor. This setup is working just fine and saves lots of money over a 1 speed pump setup. Also, keep in mind, with the higher flows required for floor systems, the variable speed pump will not be as efficient as a 2 speed pump running at high speed for the floor cleaning cycle. This is due to the inverter on the variable speed pump and the impeller not tuned for the higher flows, resulting in lower efficiency at the higher speeds for the variable speed pumps. Also, for those looking to upgrade to a more energy efficient system, Jandy has a new versa-plumb system available now that connects all the equipment above the ground with an engineered system that provides optimimum hydraulics. This takes all the guess work out of designing the plumbing for optimum efficiency. I wish this system was available when I built our pool.....it would have saved me a lot of homework and convincing the pool company why I needed the larger pipes and sweep 90's !!! I do not work for Jandy, even though it may sound like it. I just have a passion for saving energy due to the industry I work in. When products come along with claims of saving energy, I do a lot of homework on these products to find out the technology behind their claims. In the case of the versa-plumb system....their claims are backed by solid hydraulic principles which will save money year over year with good plumbing design allowing the pump to work easier. I am not endorsing this product, but only point this out to those who want to either plumb their own system or offer a suggestion to their pool builder or plumber on the proper way to plumb a pool pump system for efficient operation. Hope this helps!