Terrapro Build

[TheKid]

Control Lighting Upgrade

When I was going thru TP1 as I was checking to see what and what didn't work. I noticed a light burnt out on the PTO indicator on the indicator display. I was going to order some bulbs for it so I took it apart to check the wiring and verified a bad bulb. Bulb was bad. The bulbs happen to be a T10 bulb that is very common and come in a variety of wattages.

When breaking into the enclosure it looked like the bulbs where too high a wattage because the plastic dividers between the lights where warped. Just grab a 25 watt light bulb after it's been on a while and you'll see what I mean.

I got to thinking . What about LED's? I did a few Google searches and found some T10's on eBay at a cheap price coming from China. (takes for ever to be shipped). They finally arrived and plugged them in. Be sure to order 12vdc LED's. They where quite bright but didn't know if they would be bright enough since they where a single LED.

So I did a comparison. First picture is incandescent. Second is LED. You be the judge. LED's appears to be twice as bright. They seemed to be kind of erratic staying on. No problem. A simple adjustment to the contact wires and they stated on even with hard banging on the housing.

I got the idea because I did the same thing in my pickup truck. This is a simple mod and a reliable upgrade.

Here is the control panel


Lit by regular incandescent bulbs


You can see the spacers sorta melted from the bulbs



Another shot of the melted plastic



Regular bulbs vs LED in size. Not much difference.



LED's installed.



You can see that they are brighter less the heat.



They make LED direct replacement bulbs for just about every application.
I used white LED's. They do come on colors.

I'm going to do the same for Terrapro II.

 

[alex456123]

me like. nice mod!

 

[lbjamm]

Looks great!

 

[TheKid]

Recovering your own seat

Sometimes suttle mods can add up in cost quickly. When I bought this Terrrapro I set a budget as to how much I'd spend on it if I ever wanted to sell it for a small profit.

Appearance is important in a good restoration. One of the short commings pointed out to me from the beginning before buying TP1 was the seat. There where two nice holes in it. When I pressed down real hard a but of moisture came out. That's not good. I decided it needed a new cover quick before mold or rot set in on the foam underneath.

I watched a lot of U-tube videos and read quite a few articles on simple upholstery work. I already had some left over high quality vinyl from a hot rod project. I already had a small and large air compressor.

I stripped off the old vinyl with a screwdriver and a pair of needle nose pliers.
I thought.. dang, those guys used a lot of staples.

After stripping the old vinyl off. My suspicions was right. The foam was wet underneath. No serious damage yet but it wouldn't take long before that foam would have been damaged beyond reuses. So I removed the padding which just laid on top the nylon seat frame. I waited a few days for the padding to completely dry. Now it was time to try my hand at upholstery. First timer.

I had a couple of arrow guns. One was a hand stapler and one was an electric.

I'm using arrow T50 staples which are fairly short so I need good penetration to hold the vinyl. I started with the hand stapler. It wouldn't hardly scratch the hard nylon frame. So I moved up to the impact electric. This ought to do it. Nope. The staples where only going halfway in. I thought this **** it tough.

So I watched what the guys on Utube where using. They used a pneumatic air stapler. I scored one on eBay for around 25 bucks. Later found them cheaper at Harbour Freight.

I priced having the seat done at a local upholstery shop and it was going to cost about $85 dollars and a two week wait.

So I moved forward. Things you will need.

Compressor.



Compressor hose, fittings.



Air stapler. Doesn't have to be an expensive one. HF has a 90 return policy if it doesn't work.:tup:



Removing the cover to get an estimate on how much material you'll need. it doesn't have to be exact but give yourself plenty to work it.






The bottom of the seat has a safety switch built in. I left it in place and only removed the latching arm which was in the way. Pay close attention to how that spring fits back together. Pictures is good idea.



I've drawn on the finished seat to illustrate how you need to stretch the vinyl as you are stapling it down. it is real important to get the valley at the crotch of the seat stretched and tacked down before doing the length. It will make sense once you get going.



Here we go. Stretching and nailing down at the crotch, then working down the sides. the ends and corners are last.





As I make my way around the seat I make sure there are no puckers at the corners and give the whole inside a second round of staples just like they did it from the factory. Took a razor blade and trimmed the excess vinyl to dress it up. Reattached the seat latch.







Now you see the finished product. The color is left to your imagination to reflect your custom look. This demonstration is to show how easy it is and save yourself a bunch of bucks without changing insurance companies..:haha:







Comments welcome. -kid

 

[lbjamm]

Nice tutorial. Should be stickied.

 

[TheKid]

If the mod wants to stickie it I will separate it from this thread. I did post a link to this one from the one that is currently stickied that the majority of the pictures have dead links. If I had a sewing machine, I could make seams with an Italian double stitch just like the store bought covers. Thanks for the comment.

 

[Gen1Pat]

I love recovering seats!!! I sit down to a movie with a 6 pack and my electric staple gun and go to town!!

 

[drknight77]

I love the LED work, Blinding lights FTW :slayer:

Nice work kid

 

[Beastmode17]

Nice job on the seat, And those 194 LEDs look sweet, The quad looks mint.

 

[TheKid]

I love recovering seats!!! I sit down to a movie with a 6 pack and my electric staple gun and go to town!!

I have two electric staple guns and neither would penetrate the nylon seat frame. So I went with an air driven type. Uses little air and is adjustable in hammer strength. The Wife is already after me to recover some chair seats. :iagree:

 

[TheKid]

Control panel modifacation fix

Remember the mod I did on changing the regular bulbs to LED's. They work great except for one of them. The Terrapro is a unique creature. It has an air cooled engine for when you drop down to granny and your RPM's are high for the PTO the fan keeps the head cool. There is a sensor that monitors the engine temperature. That high temp is displayed on the control panel.

Unpon startup the TEMP light goes thru a self check to make sure that light works since overheating could cause one to lose the engine. There's three circuits that control that light. One is a thermal switch relay mounted just in front of the CDI. two there is the sensor that screws into the cooling shroud that will short under high temps. There there is a small TEMP lamp checker that actually test the lamp then shortly goes out.

In my case the lamp TEMP was staying on all the time. I figured I pulled something loose while working on the wiring during the rebuild.

Sometimes problems or should I say solutions stare you square between the eyes and you still don't see it. Fortunately I have the factory service manual which is quite complete. Turns out, when I put the LED's in. The TEMP checker takes a certain amount of milliamp to bleed down and the lamp shut off in a normal cycle. I'll probably add a resistor to the LED as in the same basis some use load resistors to make LED taillights work with existing flasher circuits in cars and trucks.

Here's a pic of the bulb checker. I tested with both incandescent bulb and LED. It would only work with the incandescent without a load resistor.



Since I was digging around looking for that illusive TEMP checker I found a hose floating around with a fitting on the end. It was stopped up. Cleaned it out and found it was a differential crankcase vent and hose.



Here's bonus on TPII I recently found. All Terrapros came with a toolkit. Which included a special tool to adjust the PTO and the clutch. Most are always thrown away. Very rare to see one still mounted in it's holder :tup:

 

[buckbrother]

Good evening, Awesome Terra Pro,,,I just rebuilt my fm48 mower deck same as yours, I saw you have the Deck manual....I can't remember how to route the drive belt for the blades......I would really appreciate it if you could forward that info to me my grass is getting kind of [email protected]