1979 Case 444 repower - tons of pictures

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We are repowering our 1979 Case 444. It came with a Kohler 14 horsepower single that is plum wore out. It was supposedly rebuilt circa late 1980s. This tractor is equipped with a 3-point hitch. It runs a tiller, plow, and mower via the 3-point. We also have a snowblower that mounts to the front. This mower has been worked into the dirt, brought back to life and then worked back into the dirt. It has never had what some would call an easy life. Maintenance? None. Oil? You add it when you add gas. Air filter, yep it has an air filter. Catch my drift? My Grandfather and Father never exactly maintained it. If it started, that was all that mattered.

This mowed grass with a belly mower for years and years and years. The 3-point was then added and the attachments were acquired. At one point we had a 222, 444, 446 and 448. We are down to the 222 and 444. The 446 and 448 had even harder lives and were sent to the great lawn mower heaven probably 7-8 years ago. They were from the early 70s and had been used, abused, put away wet and then abused some more.

In terms of the alleged rebuild, the number plate on the Kohler indicates it is either a 77 or 78 motor. The number on the motor is a series or two earlier than the tractor. I suspect it wasn't rebuilt but simply replaced.

We are repowering it with a 18 horsepower B&S Vanguard twin. We ordered a repower kit from a place in Wisconsin that you can easily find via google, I don't want to get in trouble for posting the link.

The engine had been steadily losing power for the past few years and in late 2012 suffered a catastrophic misfire, backfire, hiccup, IT WENT BANG, and never returned from the flat line and subsequent code blue. Check out the pictures after we removed the head. It is missing a piece from the piston and the intake valve was just barely sealing. We didn't get the feeler gauge out but it was clearly not seating 100%. You could spin the engine freely by hand and it required minimal extra effort to spin it through the compression stroke.

It sat in the back of the shop as a project until we found the place in Wisconsin (Ehh...) that sells the repower kits. We finally got around to doing it this winter. The motor will be here later this week and I will finish documenting the heart transplant and rebirth of the Case 444. FYI this thing is 6 years older than me and will probably out live me. It just can't be killed. Ahh, the good ol' days of lawn tractors that last a lifetime.

TRACTOR WITHOUT THE HOOD
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HYDRAULIC FLUID COOLER, FAN & MANUAL CLUTCH REMOVED
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SHROUD AND EXHAUST REMOVED
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KOHLER IS READY TO BE REMOVED
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ENGINE REMOVED
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BARE FRAME
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HEADED TO THE SCRAP PILE
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WELL THERE IS THE PROBLEM!!!
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MORE WAVES THAN THE OCEAN!!!
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Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
Yeah... does the place in Wisconsin sell seats too?


LOL


....+1 though, nice pics cant wait for the updates.
laugh.gif
 
Awesome work 04SE!

I owned a 1979 model year Case 220 for a few years. Totally rebuilt the 38" mowing deck and had to have a buddy do some weld-work magic on the deck shell for me. The later generation Ingersolls have Vanguard V-twins on them, but they're spun around the other way, with the flywheel towards the operator as opposed to the other way with the older models. With the oldies, your feet stay nice and warm since the engine blows hot air at you LOL.

The Case/Ingersoll HyDrive system is as heavy-duty as it gets. I just hated it for my mowing needs at the time. I had just under 2acres of very hilly yard. My 220 didn't have a run-away valve on the hydraulics, so down hill was exciting at times. Yeah, the "retard" (yes, that's what it's called) feature on the motion control lever does work somewhat, if you don't mind skidding and grinding noises. This system was way too herky-jerky for my mowing/maneuvering needs at the time. I kept it as a yard tug for awhile, then sold'er to a good home.

 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: bubbatime
That engine looks easily rebuildable. I home it doesn't end up in the scrap pile as you say.


Agreed. You could probably sell it as-is on CL or eBay. It's an all iron Kohler K-series.
 
UPDATE

The new motor should be here either tomorrow or Saturday, pictures will follow. We pulled most of the hydraulic lines off to get replacements since we are already in there and they were weeping. We will also be replacing the fuel line for good measure.

Yes.... It is getting a new seat. We might actually just refinish the current seat, they apparently make kits for it.

We are replacing the factory amp meter with an hourmeter to track oil changes and overall usage.

After the repower I will get pictures of the snow blower in action, assuming we get more snow soon.

The Kohler really is a boat anchor. The cylinder wall is severely scarred, pictures aren't doing it justice. However, a local lawn mower shop told us that for him to source just a clean K321A block was $$$$$. So I will look into selling/trading the motor, thanks for the heads up.

It seems B&S recommends a synthetic 5w30 but I think the new Vanguard will be getting Rotella 10w30.
 
UPDATE

The motor finally arrived. FedEx was delayed from the weather and holiday season. We de-greased and pressure washed the tractor on our heat wave day of almost 60* last week. After opening the box and sorting through the parts it quickly became apparent that much more customization was needed than we initially expected. No biggie, we have a shop. I will do my best to explain the bumps we had in the road to help those that may stumble upon this via google in the future as they attempt the same task while pulling their hair out.

B&S Vanguard 18HP
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De-greasing and pressure washing
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Freshly cleaned tractor
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Cutting the crank

Yes, you just spent $2,500 on a repower kit and you are cutting the crankshaft down. This took some deep breaths and careful measuring. We cut our shaft to 1 3/8". This left us with plenty of shaft BUT 1 5/8" would be ideal, take careful note of this if you are reading this and doing this very same task!! We used a simple 1" bushing purchased from the local farm store as a guide and a 12" 24 tooth hack saw. It took a few minutes of careful cutting but it was very easy to do. We used a die grinder to even the shaft face up and emery cloth to clean the burrs up. The shaft MUST be cut in order to make room for the lovejoy connectors to fit within the hydraulic pump housing and allow the housing to bolt to the new motor.

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Finished cutting

Congratulations, you just devalued your $2,500 kit to $0. It must be used on a Case 44X series machine now. Don't plan on using it on another machine that needs the full 3" shaft.

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Test fitting the lovejoy connectors & pump

Take a close look at the photos above from when we opened the motor box up. You will notice a steel CNC cut ring on the back of the motor with 4 bolts holding it in place. This is an adapter ring to mount the pump housing to the bolt pattern of the new motor. I failed to document this step (SORRY!) but you simply use the ring as a template on the pump to drill 4 new holes, pretty self explanatory.

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Pump mounted to motor

The old meets the new. Again, I failed to document this very well but the ring is now mounted between the motor and pump. The housing has a lip on it that hides the ring from the camera. You can see the old mounting holes versus the placement of the new ones where the bolts are obviously now located.

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Test fitting new mounting plate

More on this later, it took some additional customizing. All 4 mounting holes on the upper portion had to be opened up with a uni-bit to allow for wiggle room and to square the motor up on the mount. The 4 mounting holes that mount it to the frame required the same thing. We also had to open up the holes on the motor to fit the bolts in. I mean like 0.00001" on the motor, nothing major at all. We also cut a relief to clear the hydraulic cylinder as a precaution, it was close, very close. This will be shown later in the next update.

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Mock up

This kit is sold as not requiring the hood to be cut. Unfortunately, we don't see how that is possible. We will have to cut relief cuts for the valve covers. Oh well, no biggie, just didn't want a hacked up looking tractor. This new engine barely and I mean BARELY fits. We just do have enough clearance for the belt up front to drive the snow blower. The fan shroud has been cut down and will also be shown on the next update. They should have included a shoehorn with this kit. It looks roomy now, just wait until I show it all assembled.

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Looks good 04!

I wish you luck with the custom exhaust and whatnot. Like I say, the later model Ingersolls with Vanguards have the lovejoy on the flywheel side:

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It's going to get a little toasty at the controls having the exhaust and engine heat blasting at you.
 
The tractor is back up and running. I must apologize to those actually following this thread. We were in a rush this past weekend to finish it as we were expecting the winter storm that hit and we needed it up and running to run the 48" front mount snow blower. In our rush to finish, I did not have time to stop and photo-document everything. However, I will do my best to describe the final stages and will provide pictures of the finished tractor soon.

As mentioned previously the engine mounting plate had to be modified. We cut a relief above the hydraulic cylinder to prevent it from potentially contacting the plate.

The hydraulic fluid reservoir now sits about 1/3" above its mounting tabs inside the housing area. It is a result of the engine now sitting higher. As a result, the battery is now sitting higher and will contact the hood when it is in the OEM position. Obviously this is a serious issue. Even worse, with the hydraulic fluid reservoir sitting higher, the hour meter won't fit into the factory ammeter hole. HUGE bummer there. Currently working out a solution for this as the tank pushes the gauge upward out of the hole if you try to have the gauge in with the tank.

Also, since the engine is now sitting an 1/3" or so higher our main hydraulic line that runs from the pump to the 3-point valve on the back took some serious finagling to reconnect. Our new line was the same length as the old one. Big mistake, it could have been 1/2" longer, at least. We had to reroute the hose under the tractor.

The exhaust was already ready to go when we got the engine. I don't know if the place we purchased it from did the work or if it is OEM to B&S. I will post pictures later.

The wiring on the engine is a little bass ackwards in my opinion. The guy that sells the kits wires a relay up to the magneto ground wires and the carburetor fuel shut off mechanism. Obviously when the magnetos are pulled to ground the engine dies, no biggie there. The carburetor needs 12V+ to allow fuel into the engine. So, the way the relay is wired, when you provide the relay with 12V+, it ungrounds the magnetos allowing them to fire and opens the fuel mechanism in the carburetor allowing it to function. Removing 12V+ pulls the magnetos to ground and kills the fuel mechanism in the carburetor. The only problem with this was that short of wiring up a series of relays which we didn't have time for, we simply removed the ignition switch and installed an ignition toggle switch to provide 12V+ to the relay, a push button start to control the starter solenoid and then the toggle switch for the electric PTO. Now, I am sure there might have been a better way, but this was the quickest & easiest based on the limited time and parts we had in our shop. The whole mess is further complicated because when you provide 12V+ to the relay it also provides 12V+ to the PTO switch. I plan on putting the relay and PTO switch on their own, dedicated circuit.

The fuel line is not routed permanently right now but it comes up the right side of the tractor like normal and then comes across right on top of the PTO pump housing and then comes out on the left side and up to the fuel pump.

The new throttle/choke cables provided are routed in front of and them over the exhaust bracket/shield and to their respective locations.

The wiring looks pretty bad right now as the harness provided was about 5 feet too long and I didn't want to trim and fix things until I get some nice connectors to build my own.

The engine also is longer/deeper and as such extends farther forward on the frame. We had to cut the fan housing down to allow room for the electric PTO and then we had to put spacers under it as well. Another problem was that now the fan hit the hydraulic fluid cooler. So we put spacers between the fan housing and the hydraulic fluid cooler. We thought we had plenty of clearance until we test fired the motor, now we need a new fan. I doubt we need the fan this time of year. We are hunting for a replacement now.

The hood will not be fitting back onto the tractor without additional modifications. The kit is advertised as not requiring the hood to be cut. Not exactly sure how that is possible. We plan on raising the hood up an inch or so and seeing if that provides clearance.

The engine runs amazingly smooth and has tons and tons of power on tap. It fired up pretty quick on the first test fire and has not hesitated to start since. A little bit of choke and it fires instantly. The ease of starting it is by itself alone worth the price paid to repower this tractor. That old Kohler was becoming a bear to start over the past few years before it committed suicide.

Overall, we are pleased with the repower but didn't realize we had bitten off so much when we first started. The kit does not come with instructions. Just a 1-800 number for the guy that designed it. He was VERY helpful for the two questions we had and answered his phone late at night both times and was VERY happy to be helping us. I would only recommend doing this if you have the time, patience and a semi-well equipped garage/shop. We repowered the tractor because we priced new(er) models with new attachments to match what we have and it was going to cost us 8-10 times what we paid to repower it. Do NOT be in a hurry to do this, we were and it bit us in the rear.

The difference while blowing snow on Sunday and Monday was beyond night and day. The thing never backed down and we never used full throttle. The throttle never exceeded maybe 75% and it was plenty of power for the huge drifts we had.

Also, since this is BITOG, current fill is Travellers synthetic 5w30 from my stash. B&S recommends 5w30 year round. I will probably run synthetic 10w30 during the warm months and 5w30 while blowing snow. Then again, I might just keep with the Travellers synthetic 5w30 and run a few UOAs. Filters will be WIX.
 
Hi 04SE,

I wish I had found this forum sooner, I may have been able to help you make the job easier. I'm almost finished with a 1976 Case 444 repowered with a B&S Vanguard 23hp from Jim's Tractor. The mounting plate supplied with your 18hp likely wasn't needed. The dimensions of the 23hp & 18hp are almost identical. Without the supplied mounting plate on the '76 the hydraulic pump sits at the right height and no other mods were needed other than raising the front of the hood.

I've posted pics Here for anyone interested.
 
I'm curious how your mower will work when it gets into the high temps. Here's why:
About 10 years ago, I was doing mechanic work at a place that had about 30 forklifts to maintain. One night, they had a 13 inch rain that literally flooded our shop. The boss bought a brand new water pump to clear out all the flooded water and that pump had the exact engine in it that you are using in your repower. The temps were in the triple digits at that time and when we started using that pump, it would run for about 15 minutes and stall. It took a little detective work to find that the engine was actually having vapor lock. When the gas tank was in place it would vapor lock because there wasn't enough air flow around the carb. My solution was to remove the gas tank, run the engine with the gas tank removed and feed the carb with about 20 feet of fuel line hose. After that, it would run continuously as long as we kept refueling it.
So with the underhood temps in your lawn mower getting fairly high, I'm just curious how hot it be before (or if) it vapor locks. My local gas station now sells alcohol-free gas which was not available 10 years ago and that might stop the vapor lock.
Keep us informed. If it has problems stalling when it gets hot and it won't restart, you might also now know why it is doing it.
 
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