You’ve probably been stuck going to see some mushy movie with your girlfriend or wife at some point in your life and invariably there is a scene where a guy hushes a girl looks her in the eyes and tells her not to ask some unanswerable question she was about to ask. It is pretty much text book, right? Well consider me that guy and consider you the person who is about to ask me why someone would install a dual quad 401ci Buick Nailhead into a 1965 Cub Cadet tractor, backwards, with straight stack exhaust. I have not the faintest idea but I love it all the same. Will it be a puller? Will it be a car show cruiser freak? Will it do burnouts? Have 10 people already been killed on it? None of these are questions I have answers to and neither did Todd Staege who sent me an email with the video link and a single word. Crazy.
The little Buick that I speak leads me into confusion. The video is described as a 401ci Nailhead in the video description but the 401 was never sold with dual quads. The 425 was available with dual quads and rated at 360hp and like a gazillion lb/ft of torque. So this may be a 425 or perhaps it is a 401 with a 425 intake on it. Suffice it to say that whatever power this engine is making will be more than sufficient to motivate a flipping garden tractor chassis. The other thing that is interesting is that this engine is mounted backwards. The front of the engine faces the steering wheel! Your eye may catch it because mine did but as the guy with the camera walks around the tractor it seems like there is a big hydraulic pump on the “front” of the engine (actually the rear but you get what I am saying) so maybe this is a hydrostatic drive job?
The is like a real life drivable Zinger and that’s all you need to know. We want a ride!
the pre-1981 Cub Cadets come with the engine “backwards” in the frame. The ground drive is driven from the flywheel side, or “front” of the engine, and the accessories such as a mower deck are driven of the PTO side of the engine. The belt from the back makes a 90 degree turn via a mule drive down to the deck. So this engine orientation is correct.
I fooled with early Cub Cadets for a while, way back when. This appears to be a wide frame model which would have a hydrostatic drive, note the chrome lever to the left of the steering wheel. . The engine had to be mounted this way to turn the pump the correct direction.