Tractor Stories

Today I cleaned off the valve access cover and the side of the engine where the cover was. It took me two hours to get that old gasket material off. There was also some squeeze tube gasket material along with the cork. I used a stiff wire brush, sharp pry bar and a dental pick to get it off, then primed and painted the cover. The tappets are adjusted by using two small wrenches. The #1 spark plug is removed and the engine cranked (I have a Ford crank) until compression is felt, then the pointed on the left side of the engine is aligned with the notch on the fly wheel. At first I did not follow that plan exactly and the valves were open at #1 cylinder so I could not get the .013 feeler gauge in place. After a while I figured it out and found most of the tappets were close to where they should be. I tweaked a few. One of the nice things about these old Cubs is the firing order is cast into the engine – 1-3-4-2. The engine is revolved half a turn following the first cylinder. I just fo...

The paint is dry on the battery box and tool box so I reassembled them to the tractor. The tool box was easy, just one bolt which I greased well. The battery box was almost easy. Since the ground wire from the battery attaches to the side of the battery box, I used a Dremel tool to remove the paint around the bolt holes in the box. A different bit was used to clean and polish the lock washers. One of them fell and is still hiding so a flat washer was drafted to replace it. Dielectric grease was applied to the bolts and washers before putting them through the bottom of the battery box into the tractor. Next the ground cable was removed and cleaned along with its bolt and nut. It will go on once the paint dries which I sprayed where the cable had been after masking the hole itself so a good contact could be made. The ohm meter was attached to the edge of the ground cable bolt hole and then to a bare place on a bolt elsewhere at the rear of the tractor. The reading tells me there is a p...

  Today I used my sand blaster for the first time. Yesterday I removed the battery box and broke off two bolts in the process. Since I had some 3/8-16 bolts, I cut off the ends of two and made replacement bolts. Getting the old bolts out was a challenge so I used a 3/8 drill bit to enlarge the holes so The bolts would move freely through the riser blocks and not get stuck again.   As soon as I started sand blasting I realized a full face mask was necessary as well as a breathing mask. A NIOSH 95 mask works just fine for this fine sand. The full face mask protected my face, and I placed my glasses at a safe distance so they did not get scratched. The sand blaster works pretty well. Perhaps with aluminum oxide instead of fine sand, the rust would have come off faster. Still, I got it done. I even brushed the rust from the platform and back of the tractor then painted it red.   Once the parts were blasted, I wiped off the dust, primed with a rust inhibitor (excep...

 

I removed both the tool box and the battery box from the Cub today. My air wrench removed the head from two of the four bolts. I actually got them off the tractor and removed one of the broken off bolts. I am soaking the other with penetrating oil before putting it in a vice and seeing whether I can get it off without too much more trouble. They each broke off in a flat steel riser so I could turn that off the tractor body. J I am getting ready to sand blast for the first time. That could be interesting. I have a breathing mask to wear and will wear leather gloves too. No sense in cutting myself to ribbons with the sand blaster gun. Air compressor is working just fine today. Of course it is hot here in Central Texas so I am perspiring profusely.   Tractor Boy

The Cub: Nearly done!!! I could probably reinstall the steering wheel any time now. Today I bought a set of proper spark plugs ( Champion D-21) and gapped them .024 which is close enough (I have seen anywhere from .023 to .025) It is time to build a platform for the auxiliary fuel tank I got used today so I can test the Cub without installing the hood. I will make the platform of wood and mount it to the location where the hydraulic system should go. I need a shut off valve for the fuel and a means to attach to the carburetor. Not a difficult task to complete. The commutator on the starter as well as the generator need cleaning, I am sure. The valve gap needs to be measured and adjusted if needed. The points want to be examined. I have replacement points and rotor. I can buy a six volt battery from Car Quest. It will just fit and is a 650 CCA power house. It means getting a different ground wire and grounding to a different location than inside the battery box althoug...

The wiring harness of the ’49 Cub is now replaced along with two other wires. One of them went from the GEN terminal of the Cutout Relay to the A terminal of the generator, while the other went from the distributor to one side of the coil. The first was too thin, about 20 gauge so I replaced it with ten gauge wire. The second was old and also seemed thin so I replaced it too with a bit thicker wire. When I put on the ends to the wire, I do what I learned from my father which is to solder the connection in addition to crimping it.   The wiring diagram in the owner’s manual did not match what was actually on my tractor. It seems the old Cub has a Cutout Relay instead of a Voltage Regulator and all my standard sources displayed the VR. Once again the Farmall Cub Gurus of www.yesterdaystractor.com helped tremendously. The best help was to a site set up by Farmall Bob which had diagrams of the electrical system of old Farmalls. One was exactly what I had in front of m...