More tractor repair


Tom King

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A hand tool workshop is no good at all without a fireplace.

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That little building had four restrooms in it in the 1960's.  It's actually quite famous.   You may have heard of the brick ___ house.

 The first few years the lake was here, that point was a picnic area, with swimming in the cove to the left.  Sometime after that, it was gutted, and just used as storage.  I'm going to convert it back into restrooms for renting the point for weddings, and such.

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I ended up fixing that fuel return line leak without having to buy anything, and without much time, or trouble.   Someone had changed the fitting into the tank, at some point.  The compression sleeve was too well seated into the line to allow it to move at all.  The end of the line was bottoming out in the changed fitting on the tank, and not allowing the compression sleeve to seat.   I took the fitting out of the tank, drilled the hole a little deeper, so the line could go in plenty far enough for the compression sleeve to seat, put a dab of grease on sleeve, seat, and nut, tightened it reasonably tight, and no more leak.

I doubt newer tractors use compression sleeves.  Back in the '70's, and into the 80's, supply lines to sinks in houses were done with metal tubing, and compression sleeves too, so I've already had plenty of experience with that type of plumbing.

I had cleaned the whole tractor so thoroughly, so I could see any leaks, that I'm going to go ahead, and paint it.  I won't take a lot of pains, but I did order the paint today.  It won't be too hard keeping it clean after using it for a few days, before I get the chance to paint it.

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Tom, did you ever try the “hot wrench” when you’ve got seized fasteners? A small MAP gas torch can work wonders if you don’t have oxy-acetylene. If you heat up the part surrounding the bolt, and not the bolt itself, the bolt hole gets bigger and looser, and if you can quickly give it a turn while it is in that condition, before heat transfers into the bolt and makes it swell up, you’ll be saying: “Aha!” Then you can put a squirt of Liquid Wrench on it and it will wick in and prevent re-seizing. Another trick I learned working for the airline (Canadian Pacific) is to make the first nudge in the tightening direction. Fasteners will often break free going tighter first, just a nudge, then they’ll back out. I believe this is because all the microscopic projections of the metal are laying over in the direction they last went, like a cat’s fur, and the  threads will slip easier starting off in that direction.

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CIMG2397.thumb.JPG.2030b2df0229b5858f06d32ea0520746.JPGCIMG2398.thumb.JPG.44e924c0d292fb495ec67a85ff1957a8.JPGIMG_2200.thumb.JPG.00156db6bf5fd38d38ef90e7be760ba4.JPGYes, a MAP gas torch was used a number of times.  The very best tool for getting out wrung off fasteners, that worked on this job, was left handed drill bits.  I used them in sizes from very small for 1/4" bolts holding sheet metal on, to much larger ones for broken 5/8", and 3/4" Grade 8 bolts that held the front end loader on.  They will all of a sudden get to some critical stage, and the broken bolt just spins itself right out.  For the larger bolts, I kept going up in size of bits until one worked.  I was tempted to blow the big ones out with the Oxy/Acetylene torch, but had never done that in cast iron, and I absolutely didn't want to end up damaging the engine block.

Once I got the loader mount brackets all fixed, and back on the tractor, I made a splitting stand that bolts to the loader brackets.  The stand they sell for this tractor requires you to take those brackets off.  If I ever have to split it again, I can even leave the loader on.

I really don't think heat helped much anywhere.  Several thousand pounds of cast iron makes a pretty good heat sink, so even with the MAP torch, it mostly just soaked the heat up.  I lost count of how many wrung off fasteners, or screwed up threaded holes I fixed.  Not included in this thread was the first job of rethreading the holes that held the front end loader on.  I ended up buying a magnetic drill press for that job.  One hole went up to 1", and another to 7/8".  I needed to see if I could fix those, before bothering with fixing the rest of this tractor.  The 1/2" hole today was a piece of cake.  There is not one place on the tractor that does not have a working bolt where there was one originally.  A number of them are larger, but all torqued to proper oiled torque.

Today, to get the right footrest on, I had to end up drilling out a 3/8" bolt hole, that had been buggered up, and upsized it to 1/2".  This past Saturday, when I worked it for a day, I just rested my right foot on the brake control box, and reverser control box, but didn't want to keep doing that because there is a dangerous amount of space open right beside the right rear wheel, and tire.  The trouble with the hole today was that it was close inside the brake pedals.  I had my Wife come, and hold down the brake pedals, while I drilled out the hole, and rethreaded it.

I got the hood on it this afternoon, since all the leaks had been fixed, and was starting to put the loader back on it.  I got some bolts in both side brackets, and went to lift the bucket, to put it back in the shop, and a hydraulic fitting broke.  I just left it there today, and will get back to it tomorrow.  It's getting close.

I've run around in countless circles on this job.  I'd buy some tool that I thought would do what I needed, it wouldn't, and then I'd get something else.  There was much time spent waiting for stuff to get here, then I'd get to a point I needed something else, and wait for that to get here.  Prior to this isolation, I also only had time to work on it when the weather was comfortable, And I had the time, right then, to put in it.  It could not have been done if we did not have this old building to leave it sitting in, over all that time.

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That looks like a fancy porta power with that rack and pinion setup. I like it!
i love m’y MAP torch, but lately it’s only seen use for the little branding iron I use to sign my better woodworking projects (see, this is still a woodworking site :) ). 
I’ve  used acetylene on cast iron and you’re absolutely correct, it’s a fabulous heat sink. And when it’s not massive, you have to be careful about cracks. 
Sometimes a shot of something really cold inside the (left handed bit) hole can shock tight threads loose... Hard to get liquid nitrogen in there though :) sometimes a spray bottle with water might help. 

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I have a 100 gallon fuel tank, with 12v pump, that I haven't used for close to 20 years.  I decided to check it out this morning, and it was almost empty, and surprisingly clean inside.  I put 5 gallons of old kerosene in it, with some Diesel Clean, ran that through, and changed the filter.  I soldered all the connections, and changed the alligator clips to a nice 12v plug, that I have a mate to on the tractor batteries.

I filled it with offroad diesel for $1.44/9.  It'll probably be cheaper tomorrow, but I needed it today.  I decided after using 5 gallon jugs for a few days, that they were too much trouble.  I was lucky that this thing is still serviceable.

Street legal, for the truck, was 1.94.

 

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What's the implement on the back for? It looks like a a device used to punch mulch in the ground after seeding. It's good to hear you are getting good deals on fuel. I drove past the station this weekend and noted that On road diesel was $2.59 here. Not sure why it hasn't come down much.

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It looked like the right loader boom lift cylinder had developed a leak.  It could have either been leaking on the seal around the shaft, or out of the fitting to the hose.  Both were wet with oil.  I tied an old T-shirt around both, and ran it to see which wet the t-shirt.  From the tractor, I could see that the t-shirt was dry, but there was oil getting on the cylinder barrel.

I walked around that side, to see if I could figure out what was going  on.

The t-shirt I had tied around the cylinder was dry, but this is the one I was wearing.  Oil droplets were hitting my sunglasses, and then I saw the problem.

 

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