I had always wanted a nice red 782, but I couldn't afford one. However, my Dad picked this one up nice and cheap while I was at school in Daytona during the fall of 2007. The KT-17 Series II that was in it was stuck. It turned out that someone had rebuilt the engine, but was careless during reassembly, causing the camshaft to break and destroy the case and most of the internals of the engine. I replaced the engine with the M18 that used to be in my 582, and I've used it that way ever since. I still have yet to put together another M18 I have for it.
Over winter break '08/'09, I rebuilt the hydraulic lift control valve to hopefully fix a very large leak. I've still got a bad seal or two in the rearend, but I'll get to those when I put the loader on this thing. I have also added independent rear brakes similar to those found on the 982, 1914, 1572, 1772, 1872, 2072, etc. to make it easier to get the tractor un-stuck when plowing or blowing snow. REAL tractors have independent brakes. The full story on this addition is in the "projects" section.
Here are a few pictures of the tractor...
This picture is from Winter 2009/2010 and shows the 782 in its current state. I have painted the split brakes and nosepiece red to match the rest of the tractor. The QA-36A has been eating belts, so I'll be using a blade on it in the winter until I get that fixed, or until I get a 450 blower for the 1872.