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

Just for a minute, let me get back to the question of endplay.... With 1/4 inch of endplay of the wheels on the axles, it seems that every time one turns from right to left or back again, the chassis of the mower will literally slide a quarter inch one way or the other before any 'turning' can occur. That cannot be good and only contribute to a less firm feeling in the steering. Would the sintered brass bushings work better with more endplay? I don't think so, because the bushings are really designed to 'grease' rotary motion, not lateral motion along the axle. It seems, to me, that the bushings would wear more with a lot of endplay. Removing ALL of the endplay cannot be good thing. If there is no endplay there will be no room for thermal expansion. The wheels certainly get warm with the load and rotary motion. Add to that heating from the nearby hot engine and muffler exhaust and there is probably a measurable expansion of the wheel assembly and therefore less endplay with use. So, for now, I have settled on a small amount of endplay (about 1/32 inch when cold).

You can also consider a semi-recessed sink that protrudes a bit from the counter. Mine is made to be accessed by a wheelchair, so comes out further than a lot of them do. You can find lots of semi-recessed sinks from European manufacturers like Duravit and Nameeks. Mine is from Sbordoni and my counter is 16” deep. But you don’t even need to do that. There are hundreds of 18” deep vanities out there these days. Many are “console“ style like this one: But there are plenty of floating vanities and regular vanities available that are only 18” deep. SignatureHardware.com has a bunch. Or go to the for sale part of Houzz, or to QualityBath.com, Build.com, or any bathroom site and adjust the search parameters to 18” deep and the width you want to see what is available. You absolutely do not need a wall-mounted faucet. As for how much space you need for clearance around the sink and faucet, it all depends on who is doing the countertop. If you are having a local stone company do the top, ask their rules. I tried to work with a couple of the companies near me befor buying my sink and just gave up. Sales people often have set numbers for where it “should“ go and cannot answer questions for non-standard sizes. I tried writing very specific questions to the actual stone cutters to help me figure out which sink to buy and got nowhere. No one would answer at the place that had my quartz. That is how I ended up with a walnut counter. My carpenter is a genius and I knew he could cut those angles for me. You may find it easiest to buy a vanity with the top included. I did not have that option because I needed to wheel a chair underneath my vanity.

Just bought the Kitchen Aid pump-style salad spinner at Costco and I love it. I find the segments useful for cleaning just enough fresh veggies for a salad for two in one operation. It does a great job spinning the lettuce dry and I've had no difficulty with the spinning process. I guess it helps to be sure the inner bowl is set properly on the protrusion at the bottom of the outer bowl. I like the fact that I can store leftover salad in the outer bowl. It came with a cover for the pump hole so the top is well closed for refrigeration. I've been looking for a good salad spinner for long time and previously purchased an OXO collapsible salad spinner for its compactness but it did a terrible job drying the lettuce so I returned it. At long last, I have a salad spinner that does the job and then some.