The forgotten Bolens 1253

[Lubener]

My forgotten Bolens which my grandmother purchased in 1972, sat in a barn, slowly sinking in the ground for nearly 15 years after a screw loosened from the carburator throttle blade and beat the piston into submission on the iron Tecumseh engine. About four years ago I decided to bring it back to life. The cylinder had prior been bored .020 over and luckily it was in good shape. I had to replace the (piston, rings .020 over), rod, head and gaskets along with a couple used tires. The valves survived but had the exhaust valve guide replaced at a machine shop because it was sloppy.

I have the mower, tiller and dirt plow attachments but just do garden tilling with it now. When I was cleaning out the barn, I just couldn't scrap my Grandmother's Bolens and made a good winter project back in 2015. It will always be "Grandma's Bolens".

 

[Brian123]

Awesome for what you did, good luck going forward.

 

[Bebop367]

Neighbor has old Bolens Tractor from 1970's.
It little larger and still going.....
Got to be tough machines

 

[FT92]

nice to see it up and running again...just can't beat that old iron...I have a large frame 1886 (1972 vintage ) , just push snow or dirt/gravel with it now but still runs and does what I need it to do,,,

 

[joekingcorvette]

That looks like a very heavy duty rig. Nice to see you gave it another chance at survival.

 

[maxdustington]

Originally Posted by Lubener
I have the mower, tiller and dirt plow attachments but just do garden tilling with it now. When I was cleaning out the barn, I just couldn't scrap my Grandmother's Bolens and made a good winter project back in 2015. It will always be "Grandma's Bolens".
Accoutrements and intact original paint? You had to! Not bad for fifteen years sitting in the mud, that's usually a death sentence.

There's some nice old tractors on this board. That Cub Cadet that was posted recently was MINT!

 

[TriMoto]

They are great tractors.

 

[The motor guy]

Interesting failure. How often does that happen?

 

[jeepman3071]

Originally Posted by motor_oil_madman
Interesting failure. How often does that happen?


I've seen it a total of 3 times over 14 years of working on stuff. 1 Briggs and 2 Kohlers. Usually the screws for the throttle plate have a dab of blue loctite on them to keep them from coming out, but if someone removes the screws for some reason or the factory forgets to apply the loctite they can loosen and get sucked in through the intake. It usually damages the piston and scratches up the cylinder walls pretty good. I had one where I removed the cylinder head and the screw was still stuck in the piston. That one still ran but lacked power and smoked like a train.

 

[Lubener]

Originally Posted by jeepman3071
Originally Posted by motor_oil_madman
Interesting failure. How often does that happen?


I've seen it a total of 3 times over 14 years of working on stuff. 1 Briggs and 2 Kohlers. Usually the screws for the throttle plate have a dab of blue loctite on them to keep them from coming out, but if someone removes the screws for some reason or the factory forgets to apply the loctite they can loosen and get sucked in through the intake. It usually damages the piston and scratches up the cylinder walls pretty good. I had one where I removed the cylinder head and the screw was still stuck in the piston. That one still ran but lacked power and smoked like a train.

Actually, the carb was never touched other than removing it years ago when the engine was originally rebuilt about 25 years ago.