LTGal was out and about in town the other day, and snapped this pic of one of the buildings in our downtown warehouse district… This building is a warehouse that WAS until some months ago NOT accessible to the public at all, as it sat in the middle of a old rail yard… Urban renewal, the rail yard was relocated, a road was extended through the area, and suddenly this became visible… Obviously, judging by the name, this was one of the first buildings in town…
Here’s a bit more information about what’s theoretically happening with this building… Apparently, it was gifted to the U of S by the City in 2010, with thoughts of it becoming the new U of S School of Architecture.
As far as I know, it isn’t actually the University’s School of Architecture YET… And judging by the budget cuts our University is in the middle of, I’m suspecting that it isn’t happening….
Another picture, much earlier….
(Considering I work for the University, boy, I’d sure like to have an office there!)
Well, at long last, the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Went out to take my summer tires outta the car, wound up in the garage, and the call of the tractor was JUST TOO STRONG! And I even had a camera with me!
Sorry, its not very good quality… And its a bit dark out. But it was SUCH a beautiful, windless night, and only -9 C, or 15.8 on the foreignheit scale! I couldn’t resist!
Those folks who said the pan seats are actually pretty comfy are RIGHT! My butt did get a bit cold tho!
And you know, I’m not sure if I should be worried about the knock I hear. I’m at maybe 2/3 of WOT all the time I’d guess, because of the throttle linkage, and it seems fairly loud. Can’t tell if that’s the infamous “Kohler Knock” or not. Or maybe the gen belt guard vibrating… or something…
Oh, and, it seems to take a couple minutes after first starting him before I can pop Wally up beyond half-throttle. If I do so, he conks out on me, even with choke on. But then things seem to warm up and he’s fine. Is this normal? I DID do a carb readjust, maybe I’m still just wrong on that.
Did I mention how much I LOVE the hydro lift? Oh man! Maybe I can take one of my spare hydro pumps (I’ve got two spares) and have someone strap it on to Little!
Well, my replacement idler sheave came in today (the one to replace the one I stole off of Bror’s hydro pump mount because Wally’s had failed…). And I thought I should quickly post a couple pix of it… The first just because I’d never seen a tag like this on any JD parts before…
So THIS puppy…
is OFFICIALLY a “Vintage Part”! I asked the parts guy about that when I picked it up, because I had commented about how I didn’t understand the availability of some REALLY OLD JD parts like this… He said, well, JD’s got a great big warehouse down in Regina filled with, well, vintage parts… and when they sell out, they’re done. So, two things crossed my mind… First, wow, its a good thing for me that this part doesn’t fail too much… Second, NOW I know where I want to go to for a field trip the next time I’m in Regina!
When I mentioned that last point to the parts guy, he said, “You know, you’re the ONLY person I’ve ever sold parts for one of these old tractors to! You must have, like, one of the last ones in existence!”
I’m sorry, as nice as that feeling would be, but
(I really ought to bring an MTF business card into this kid!)
I DID take the time to put the PTO clutch on, just for the heck of it… I was cleaning up and found it and the belt lying in one of the bins, so I figured why not!
And I’d like to send a HUGE “Thankyou!” out to KWDAILY and Grnspt110 on MTF for their fantastic ideas last fall for putting on the wheel weights, which took it from a 45 minute job with lots of cussing and grunting to 10 minutes of easy application!
Figured I couldn’t go another winter without safety lighting so….
Then I did the chains on Wally…
I like to lay them out first to get all the crosslinks sorted out, then jack, deflate the tires a bit, then wrap, then hook, then re-inflate. I DID learn something important tonight tho…
I can’t run the 1000 watt heater, the 250 watt work light, the overheads and then run down the garage door…. Things go dark awful quick! Oh, and, I can’t run the 1000 watt heater, the 250 watt work light, the overheads, then have the compressor cut in… Strangely enough, everything goes dark THEN too!
And figured what the heck, while I’ve got the empty garage, I’ll do the summer to winter conversion for LittleTractor. I took a few minutes while rolling the blower around to check his shear bolt…
and make sure that the auger was still freed up with the bolt removed.
Looks like it. Well, then I figured I should get the tractors arranged in some way that LTGal can park in the garage, and the tractors aren’t in her way. This required some significant moving around of stuff, but here’s the “New Arrangement”!
Well, I’m a little behind on posting tractor-y updates, so I figured I should let people know what’s been happening…
When last I posted, Bror was moving under his own power, things were looking up, I was assembling all the parts to get the engine tins back on Bror, I was looking at the top of the engine to figure out how the hydro pump would mount, when I saw THIS:
Uh oh! So, I went for the socket wrench and started to pull the bolts off to see what was going on… The first one, immediately atop of the oil patch, came off in my fingers! It wasn’t tight at ALL! Uh oh.
When I pulled the head off, I found some even more scary things…
So I went back to the folks on MTF, got some information from them about checking to see if my valves leak (because I could see oil paths from the exhaust valve. Apparently, you can tell if your valves leak by rotating your engine to TDC (Top Dead Center) so both valves are closed, then putting your air gun from your compressor into either the exhaust port or intake port with a rag to try to ensure some degree of air-tightness. When you let loose with the air gun, if there’s bubbles, you have leaky valves… And that’s a problem. So I tried this…
Uh oh. And they BOTH do it. Checked my valve clearances (where the bottom of the valve stems meet the tappets that the cam shaft pushes up) and they were alright. So, there’s a problem with either my valve seats or the valves. So, I broke out my valve spring compressor and pulled the valve keepers out so I could examine the seats and the undersides of the valves. While I was doing THAT, I noticed that my exhaust valve on Bror had what I considered a LOT of side to side play. Hoo boy…
So, that was decision time… What to do? Well, I had Wally’s engine all buttoned up by then, so I decided to change horses, (er, Deeres) midstream so to speak.
I dropped Wally’s transaxle out of him and installed the neutral start switch I’d prepared for him. This is the safety switch that keeps you from starting your Deere if the transaxle is in gear…
With that done, I put the transaxle back IN, which is a big job, especially if you don’t get everything lined up right to hook the linkages up.
It only took me two tries to get it set up right. Dropped the wheels on…
flipped Wally around and cleaned his variator pulley up..
put new belts on him
Then went to go hook up the transaxle idler tension spring and found out that I’d messed up where I’d left the hook for it, I had to take the wheels off, drop the transaxle again, and flip the hook forward so I could connect the spring.
Finally got the engine dropped in
Took a break for Thanksgiving Long Weekend, then came back
mounted the hydraulic pump mount on top of the engine, thanks to one of the fantastic MTF members (QAFarms) for making me some spacers to replace the ones that had failed on Wally initially…
LAST weekend, LTGal let me spend a SIGNIFICANT amount of time out in the garage working on Wally, and I…
got my PointSaver installed (its a piece that replaces the old fashioned condensor in the ignition system, and provides a timing light to assist in setting up the ignition timing), added oil and was ready for an ignition test…
(This was Saturday morning at about 2 am).
Saturday afternoon I was back out working on Wally…
Later Saturday afternoon, I did a lot of adjusting, got the hydro pump mounted and hooked up and ready…
Whoo hoo! Got a pressie in the mail today! My generator rebuild kits!
So, one of two things I need to have to get things squared away for Bror! I REALLY wasn’t expecting it THIS soon,because it took from the 24th to yesterday to get from Mercersburg Pennsylvania to Montreal (about 600 miles)… So I was figuring another few days from Montreal to here… Nope, got into Montreal yesterday at about 1:30 pm, and was delivered to my door by 12:36 today (nearly 1900 miles!)… That’s a pretty impressive increase in speed once across the border! Approximately 3.5 miles an hour on the US side, versus approximately 85 miles an hour on the Canadian side!
However, now things have to slow down again, as its “Meet the Teacher” night for LTBabe… no time for tractors tonight!
Well, the adventures in electrolysis continue… This week, I’ve been branching out into helping friends… One of whom had a rusty sewer drain grate she wanted to do something with… Here’s some before shots…
When I first put it in and put the charger to it, it was only taking maybe a quarter amp, and I couldn’t figure out why. So apart came everything, cleaned it all up again and made sure my connections were good. Still barely any draw, so I added more washing soda… No change. Hmmmm. Finally it occurred to me, I wasn’t getting a good ground! Hit the top edge of the grate with the bench grinder to clean a spot to put my alligator clip ground on and, suddenly, I’m getting:
About midway through
The slag on the electrode
After another couple days in the tank, some scraping with the wire brush, several hits with the drill brush and the dremel tool..
Got it painted up with some Tremclad rust paint, did a second coat today… Couldn’t find my black, so we went with Glossy Key Lime Green… Have NO idea where we got this can FROM or WHY, but hopefully my friend won’t have to redo her whole laundry room based on her “accent sewer grate”!
Got out tonight to do the alignment on the brake, clutch and variator! Is a neat process, actually!
Disconnecting the variator linkage
Disconnecting the brake linkage
turn the engine over and pull the variator back to stop 3, then measure the distance between the bottom of the footrest and the clutch pedal… If its NOT 1/2 inch, adjust THIS guy until it is
Then adjust the linkage inside the access hatch… Make sure you pus it up so it rides at the top of the slot, then adjust the clevis until you can put the pin back in..
Reconnect the brake rod, turn the engine over and pull the variator back to notch 7 (slow speed).
Then adjust the brake rod’s clevis until the brake is ONLY applied after you get past this point!
Tres cool! Had trouble with frozen up clevises of course, as this has not been done in who knows HOW long, but everything freed up… Then I had trouble getting the clutch/brake down into the brake sector… EVENTUALLY I got it in there, I’m figuring it was bunged up with crud and working the pedal got it out. So I now have everything set so the brake works and I assume the variator and the clutch work… It was too late tonight by the time I was done to fire Bror up and take him for a drive… That and all the cranking I’ve been doing ran his battery down… Charger’s on, maybe tomorrow or Friday I can take him out and see how he shifts! I’m just happy I can get the brake pedal all the way down. Need to lube up the zerks I found while I was under there!
I think I need to read up on the transaxle adjustments…
It doesn’t go into gear all that hot either. Have to have it all the way back to the last stop on the variator to get the transaxle to come to a stop for shifting, otherwise I grind the gears.
That and the clutch pedal seems to take an inordinately long amount of time to come back up…
Here’s another, with less squealing and grinding….
Front of the Delco-Remy 12v negative-ground generator
Back of the Delco-Remy 12v negative-ground generator
Getting the generator pulley off. Wrench is a 15/16″. Vice Grips make a handy substitute for a strap wrench. Tricky bit was getting the little half-circle keyway out, it was really jammed in. Wound up using a drift on the back end to pop the front end up enough so that I could pop it out with a cold chisel and hammer..
Wow, there sure IS a lot of soot and crud in there!
Finally got the rear mount popped off, the shaft was REALLY pushed onto the bearing. Grease is all dried up in the grease cup.
Think it could use some new brushes. And definitely a cleanup.
Steel wool to clean the corrosion off the rotor?
Need a major cleanup inside the coils there…
Next step is to get in touch with the guy who sells the rebuild kits for these generators and get myself a set of brushes and springs and bearings…
Tres cool! Had trouble with frozen up clevises of course, as this has not been done in who knows HOW long, but everything freed up… Then I had trouble getting the clutch/brake down into the brake sector… EVENTUALLY I got it in there, I’m figuring it was bunged up with crud and working the pedal got it out. So I now have everything set so the brake works and I assume the variator and the clutch work… It was too late tonight by the time I was done to fire Bror up and take him for a drive… That and all the cranking I’ve been doing ran his battery down… Charger’s on, maybe tomorrow or Friday I can take him out and see how he shifts! I’m just happy I can get the brake pedal all the way down. Need to lube up the zerks I found while I was under there!
