I don't know, Harry, I kind of like Brian's "bug-eyed" look. It adds punch to his "Nightmare" 1250.
For anyone interested in my Wide Frame Quiet Kit project, there have been some developments recently. If you don't recall, I purchased a muffler from Cub Cadet Specialties that I hoped to attach to my Model 149 Wide Frame tractor. It turned out that I needed a "special" hanger to use the muffler. In fact, the optional Noise Suppression Kit for the Wide Frame tractors seems to have been modeled on the larger muffler which came standard on the Model 169 which appeared late in that series; or the 169's muffler, hanger, and air cleaner were modeled on the kit. Either way, the complete, optional, kit is pictured below:
What I tried to re-create was the muffler bracket/shroud/baffle or whatever you want to call it: the part that holds the end of the muffler NOT attached to the engine's exhaust port and that simultaneously keeps the user's hands from coming into direct contact with the hot muffler.
A very kind and generous forum member who may yet identify himself offered me the muffler hanger/baffle/shroud from his 169 as a pattern for my project. Even though there are slight differences between the part found in the Noise Suppression Kit and the 169 part, namely the "slotted" hole for one of the cylinder head bolts, it seems like the 169 part is interchangeable with the Wide Frame Noise Suppression Kit part.
The challenge was to come up with the dimensions of the flat pattern on which the finished piece was based. The project stalled when (1) I found work an hour away based on a seven day work week, (2) I couldn't find a source of suitable material (14 Gauge metal), (3) the tooling required to create the piece was not in my possession, and last, but not least, (4) the skill required to fabricate the piece was also something I did not possess. In fact, most of my previous posting was an attempt to remove the last obstacle first.
The product of prior discussion was a flat pattern as depicted below:
In the end, because of time constraints we wound up Redneck Engineering the part.
Even though there is a shear and metal brake on the premises of my current employment, they are locked up and the key could not be found on our shift. So my stalwart buddy cut the part out with a 4" grinder and he bent it by hand with a jig made of flat bar and washers welded to the surface of the work bench in our shop.
The first product was close, but the bends weren't really sharp (14 gauge stainless steel is pretty hard to bend by hand, it seemed nearly as heavy as the flat bar!). I remarked that it would be difficult to mark where the holes needed to be unless the new part followed the contours of the original part more or less exactly. Whereupon, my buddy whipped out one of his favorite tools --a hammer.
He got it pretty darned close. If you look closely you can see the front down-turn wasn't as crisp as the original, the grinder failed to track true at the front-most part of the angle cut, the rear portion was just a little bit long (maybe 1/8") and the front down-turn just a little bit short (about the same 1/8").
But we were able to mark the location of the holes for future reference.
The hammer left its mark. So the part certainly isn't for purists, and I would expect the correct police to note that IH did not manufacture stainless steel muffler baffles-shrouds. However, it WILL allow me to mount my CC Specialties muffler and see if the machine is any quieter. It also proves, to me at least, that the flat-pattern dimensions that I came up with are correct, or at least close enough that if standard manufacturing processes were used, that is, a shear and brake, on 14 ga carbon steel, the result would likely NOT be noticed by the Correct Police and could serve quite well in a rehabilitation or modification project. The purist seeking a true restoration would need the original part complete with documentation to prove that it came originally from International Harvester. But restoration wasn't the goal of my project; I was mainly about having fun with my tractor and learning new stuff.
