Bad news for Wally…

Posted on October 10, 2012 by littletractorguy

Well, bad news and more bad news….

I was lying awake the other night reviewing what I did for Bror’s engine, and after reading about a different engine teardown, it occurred to me,,,  I didn’t wash out Wally’s cylinder after honing, before putting him together!!    DOH!!!!  So, I’ve checked in with some small engine guys, and its looking like I better open him up again…  Although the damage may already be done…

So, I was gonna fire Wally into the garage today and start a teardown, but Mother Nature had other ideas…. I think my outside tractor-working days are over for this year…. Once the snow starts stayin on the ground, its only a matter of time… So, instead, I decided to cut my losses, get Ernie going this morning, pull Wally’s engine (in the freezing wet) and at least haul IT into the garage, then huddle Wally and Cranky up for warmth,

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Tuck them into their nice warm blanky,

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and put them to bed for the winter.

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Note to self for future reference, take the shelter top off BEFORE it snows! Had to come in to dry off…

So this afternoon is a trip out for longer carriage bolts for Ernie’s wheel weights, then bashing the rust off of the chains from Bror, and going hard to prep LittleTractor and Ernie for winter….

If its a balmy winter, I may try to dig into Wally’s engine to see what damage I’ve done… According to the book, doing a compression test is difficult because of the ACR in the K181… I’d love to do one, so I can see what’s going on… So, suggestions are welcome….

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Aaannd, we’re OFF!

Posted on October 7, 2012 by littletractorguy

Whoo hoo!!! Bit of nice weather this afternoon, so I went out and dropped Wally’s gear oil out (it was pretty dark but NO water, and the plug magnet had a fair schwack of metal shavings on it, not good), spent 20 minutes pumping new oil in (I’m assuming you stop when it starts running out the fill hole). Fired Wally up, let him warm up until I could run the throttle up to full speed (what’s up with THAT? He stalls out if I advance the throttle unless he’s warm… and still coughs a bit even after he’s warm). Shut him down, hopped on (because I don’t think there’s any way I can “hop on” while he’s running, not without grinding some serious gearage), fired him up, pushed in the clutch, dropped him into 1st aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnndddd…..

Off we crawled!

Hurray Hurray! Tried reverse, 2nd and 3rd (didn’t try 4th, because my back yard’s not that big and I don’t have the nerve), most importantly I tried the brake… Which works! Hurray!

Downside is, I don’t think the variator’s doing anything….

No pics or movie because I was there by myself so nobody to hold the camera….

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More work tonight… In the dark… and cold..

Posted on October 3, 2012 by littletractorguy
So, thanks again to the good graces of LTGal, I was able to go out and do some work after supper tonight…. And a lovely supper of Alton Brown’s deep fried buttermilk chicken (adapted for oven) it was!So, took my Kohler carb kit and installed it on Wally’s carb

Then took Ernie’s coil and condenser (because I know they work)n and on a whim, took a look at Cranky’s points (Cranky had a REALLY nice wire going from his points to the coil… When I looked at the points tonight, they’re pretty much brand new!)… Took the points, the coil and the carb out, set up the work light (because its dark by 7 pm here now)… Dropped the new points on, redid my static timing, dropped the coil and condenser on, put Wally’s carb on, cleaned up the end on the fuel line, tightened the screw on the bottom of the carb so it wasn’t damp with gas…

Rolled Wally out and turned the key and -POOF- White smoke out of the air intake on the carb! CRUD! A few putt-putt-putts, more white smoke… A bit of running, white smoke puffing out of the exhaust port threads… Tightened the muffler up a bit (in case I need more back pressure or something geeky like that )…

Several more tries with little more success, and I got frustrated and turned off the fuel valve in preparation to come in….

However….

Just before coming in, I thought I’d try it one more time… Closed the choke, turned the key….

And got this….
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Static Timing + Carb Swapping = ITS ALIVE! Well, sort of….

Posted on September 30, 2012 by littletractorguy

Thanks to a totally serendipitous PM from another forum member, I learned about the static timing options for Kohlers… In the tech manual for the 110, they talk about gapping the points to .020, then taking your timing light and shooting it at the timing hole and adjusting your points so that the S or SP mark appears in the timing hole… Well, I don’t have a timing light, I didn’t have a sniff what the timing hole was, and I didn’t have a CLUE what the heck they were talking about this “S” and “SP” and “T” mark… AND you have to have the engine running well to be able to do that at all… Then this morning I foundsome info about static timing, so I thought I’d check into it… So first of all, what the heck is this timing hole??? Well, on a K181, I guess THIS is it:

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And an S and a T? HUH? Well, out came my flashlight, and sure enough, rotating the crankshaft and looking in the timing hole I see first this,

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then this,

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So, disconnect the points from the coil, hook my VOM up pos to the points wire and neg to the frame, then see where they break (ie, open)….

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Turns out my points on Wally were breaking right at T, Top Dead Centre… According to both the tech manual and the PDF, they should break at S, or 20 degrees before TDC (IIRC from my four-cycle theory, this is so that there’s time for the spark to ignite the mix thoroughly before the piston reaches TDC, so you get maximum force achieved by the expanding gasses for the downstroke… Because the piston is coming up fast enough that if ignition happened right at TDC, you wouldn’t get as much power because full expansion takes a bit of time and by the time that would happen, the flywheel would have taken the piston into the downstroke… Sound right? Or is it that you want some extra compression of the mix just as ignition happens? Or both?)… So adjusted the points so that they break JUST as the S centres on the timing hole…

Then ran and got Wally’s carb and dropped it back on, strapped everything back in, hooked up fuel line, added a bit more gas (because, as it turned out, PART of my problems later yesterday was that there wasn’t enough gas in the tank to push any through the fuel line… Gravity feed! Gotta love it!), open the fuel valve then CRUD there’s gas leaking again! Stupid me, didn’t do up the bolt on the bottom of the carb bowl tightly! CLOSE fuel valve, mop up gas, tighten bolt, turn key…. No ignition! DOH, forgot spark plug cable! Turn key again, Wally fires up, but will only run at low throttle! As soon as I try to speed up, Wally stalls! DOH! So back to the drawing board on THAT carb…

So, since Ernie’s fuel system is down anyway, AND he’s got a promising career as a municipal mosquito fogger in his near future, lets steal HIS carb! Off comes Ernie’s carb (dropping more gas on the floor of the garage, but NONE in my eyes this time!), and I strap it on to Wally, and…..
THIS is what we have!

So, based on that, oh fellow tractor-fanatics, what’s my next step?

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… And I STILL smell like gas

Posted on September 30, 2012 by littletractorguy
So after an afternoon of working on Wally, I figured I’d better spend some time seeing about getting Ernie running… so this morning I ran out and bought a cheap brand new utility battery so I could treat Ernie right… So, put that battery in this morning, then went and worked on Wally… Came back to Ernie shortly before supper, after I’d run Wally’s battery out…What I figured was that I should clean out Ernie’s sediment bowl, because I could see a lot of varnish in the bottom of it…

BIG mistake…

NOW i know why Deere has discontinued parts on those puppies… So I pulled it off and opened it up… The gasket at the top was pretty crunchy… But I cleaned it out anyway and put it back together. Hooked everything back together, went to turn over Ernie… No start!

Oh wait! It would help if I opened the fuel shutoff valve! Reach over and open it, watch as the fuel flows in, go to turn the key – HEY! Why is there gas dripping out of the sediment bowl?!? Stupid gasket! Shut the fuel shutoff off, pull the bowl, drip gas everywhere! Notice that there is still fuel dripping out of the top of the sediment bowl – CRUD! The shutoff doesn’t actually, um, shut off! The next bunch of time I spend getting covered in gas, discovering that NONE of my sediment bowls (except for the one on Wally) actually hold gas without leaking, trying to figure out how to get the rest of the gas out of the leaking sediment bowl… My bright idea was to, once I’d gotten the LEAST leaky sediment bowl onto it (the top and gasket from Bror, whose valve didn’t leak, the screen from Ernie) fire up Ernie and see if I could run the gas out of the line and bowl… Hopefully keeping ahead of the SLIGHTLY dripping sediment bowl… So, choke up, throttle up, turn the key, and Ernie caught right away…. And became one great big mosquito fogger! After 30 seconds, even with the big door open, the garage was so smoky I could barely see across it! I had thought Wally smoked! Well, he ain’t got NOTHING on Ernie! DOH! So I shut Ernie down, and set about taking off the sediment bowl, and trying to carefully drain all the gas out of the tank into a handy container… But while trying to maneuver the container under the loosening sediment bowl, I caught things wrong and upset the container, spilling gas all over my face…. Sudden rush inside to do major eyeball rinse!

Okay, so, that put an end to my tractoring for the evening… an hour of showering and soaping later, I still smell like gas…

Soooo…. Now I’ve got problems… Wally still doesn’t run yet…, Ernie smokes terribly… All my fuel systems are buggered…

I figure, despite the attractive vintageness of the sediment bowl, I’m going to be purchasing at least two of the replacement shutoff valves from Deere come Monday, and plumbing in a standard fuel filter. But what to do about the not running Wally and the smoking Ernie? Perhaps I should swap Ernie’s carb over on to Wally to see what happens to Wally… At least then I could get a long enough run to see if Wally’s engine is alright…
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Started Wally…. Sort of….

Posted on September 30, 2012 by littletractorguy
So, thanks to the good graces of Littletractorgal and Kidlet #2, who amidst prepping for a birthday party for Kidlet #1 and helping take care of Littletractorbabe still allowed me some tractor time, I was able to get out to the back yard, gap the spark plug, set the point gap, drop some gas into the tank… then I took the time to pull the air cleaner off because it occurred to me that I would need to adjust the idle and high speed jets, and I can’t do that with the air cleaner on…. Then I turned the key and voila!Well, except for THIS little problem…

So I pulled off the carb and checked the float… No liquid inside of it, and when I put it into a pan of water and held it underwater, no bubbles and…

it floats… So, checked and set the tang, which I think was not quite right to hold the valve shut. IIRC, the float is supposed to be parallel to the bowl when its holding that valve shut…

So I strapped it back on, opened the fuel valve, and waited. When it didn’t appear to leak, I tried again.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get Wally to run consistently… For a while, he would run with full choke on, so I pulled the carb AGAIN and cleaned all the passages with carb cleaner… Still no luck. Followed the instructions in the tech manual about setting the high speed and the idle jet, still no consistent run….Tried until I ran the battery down…

So, here’s the question… Is it a carb issue? Should I perhaps swap Ernie’s carb onto Wally? When he DID run, he smoked a bit, but other than that, ran alright… However, didn’t ever seem to really get going… Maybe I’m not getting enough gas INTO the carb, maybe I over-adjusted the tang and its holding the valve shut before the bowl is full enough… When I pulled the carb for the third time, however, there was a fair bit of fuel in the bowl… Once I ran the battery down, however, I decided to focus a bit more on Ernie….
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…. and don’t forget Ernie!

Posted on September 19, 2012 by littletractorguy

Well, he’s gotten kinda short shrift, him being the first ANTIQUE tractor I have, AND the closest of the bunch to being a drive-able machine… So, with the permission of LTGal, I arranged to do a little something for Ernie to make him feel not-so-left-out… Spent the past couple days dropping the oil out of him, dropping the gear oil out, oiling him up and lubing him so he’s almost ready to drive… All of that work was in preparation for THIS!

I spent the whole late evening figuring out how to put this #42 blade on! Its a bit of a puzzler without a manual, but I figure I got it! So first, the mount…

Initially I figured it would need a draft rod to go across the mount, so I picked up a piece of 1/2″ threaded rod…

However, turns out that was not the case… I DID however, need some 3/8″ fine threaded rod to make the lift rod out of… Thanks to rhenning’s post in 2011 on MTF, I was able to get the length, and figure out that I could steal two clevis’ off Cranky to save myself some big bux on a lift rod…

I’m pretty sure I got the lift link oriented right…

and here’s the frame and the mount with the top arms attached…

I’m just not totally sure about the braces… Here’s the left-hand one, which I THINK I’ve got mounted right…

But the right one has that little curve in it, so that it can clear the mule drive on the tractor I’m assuming… But the only way I could get it to fit was to bolt it to the INSIDE of the mount…

So then I threw the gosh-darned heavy blade onto my skidoo dolly and rolled it over to the mount…

got the bottom mount points hooked up,

then flipped the blade up and did up the top arms, and voila!

But boy I’ll tell ya, I’m sure glad Cranky gave up his helper spring, ‘cuz holy cow that blade is heavy! Even WITH the helper spring! Next up is getting carriage bolts for the wheel weights, mounting them up, bashing the rust off the chains and putting them on, possibly filling the tires with windshield washer fluid, and taking Ernie for a spin… Oh, and finding a slightly smaller clevis pin and hairpin clip for the lift rod, as I have a bolt in there right now… Oh, and 2 2″x1/2″ bolts for the brace mount points…

The only thing that worries me, as I practice getting on and off Ernie, wow he’s a monster of a machine compared to LittleTractor! I hope I can manage him! Well, slow and careful until I get the feel of him, I guess!

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No Vroom Vroom…. yet.

Posted on September 9, 2012 by littletractorguy

Well, folks, no “Vroom-vroom” to report today… Not even a “click-whirrrrrrr”… Just a “click”… Well, not even that…

Bolted out of bed at 7:00 this morning, had my coffee and checked the forum, ate a bit of breakfast, then LTBabe woke up so I got HER dressed and eating, made LTGal her morning coffee then headed out to get to work on Wally. Had to segue into some garage cleaning because I had misplaced a piece of the throttle linkage for Wally. Back out and I put the PTO-side guard on, then went to set up the throttle linkage, then took the guide off, because you can’t get the little fiddly bits of linkage in place with that guard on. After some partial disassembly, I got the throttle and choke linkages set up… Like so!

Its been really nice having Ernie handy so that I could run over and check what things are SUPPOSED to look like. That was really helpful for getting all the tins back on in the right places. Hooked up the generator, got the starter pulley on to the flywheel, put the PTO-side guard back on, decided I wasn’t going to put the PTO safety switch back on just yet because it occurred to me I’m going to need to pull the guard off AGAIN when I finally get around to putting the hydro pump on… And I’ll probably need to unbolt the whole engine again when I go to put the belt from the PTO to the mule drive on… DOH! Oh well, I focussed back on getting things hooked up… Got to the point where I had dropped a litre of oil in and was ready to drop the spark plug on… DOH, gotta go buy more oil, ‘cuz 2.5 pints (or whatever it calls for in the tech manual) is MORE than 1 litre. Oil level was only up to half way between add and full on the stick. I’d feel better with more… AND I needed a new spark plug…

So off to Canadian Tire… Well, they DID have the spark plug, but I wanted to stay with straight 30Weight oil for the first runup of Wally, and they didn’t have that. So back at home and I continue doing a few –

DOH – our day got interrupted at noon by a trip to the Medical Clinic for stitches! Fortunately, NOT for ME (whew!)… Unfortunately, for Littletractorgal! Her cleanup project in the hallway had spiraled out of control, it went from just cleaning up the greasy hand prints on the door trim to scraping the paint off because cleaning it started removing the paint to pulling the trim off because the paint was so bad it needed to be stripped to banging the nails out of the trim pieces to DOH! Slicing her finger open on what was probably a chunk of lead-based paint… So, LTBabe and I rushed her to the Medical Clinic, then picked her up after about an hour, then grabbed lunch at A&W, stopped at Home Depot to get NEW trim rather than continuing to use the TRIM OF DEATH AND MAYHEM, drop LTBabe off at the grandparents for a while, then back home and setting up the tables in he garage for painting and firing up the chop saw for cutting trim then

BACK to regularly scheduled tractors at about 3:00… Pulled the helper spring off Ernie (DANG I’m impressed with it! I’ll have to take some more pictures of it) then decided if I was REALLY going to get Wally going, I’d need a touch more 30wt oil and some 1/4″ carriage bolts and wingnuts for the battery terminals (I live in fear of having to try to get the socket wrench onto the positive terminal to get things disconnected if somehow something goes wrong and I wind up letting out the magic smoke or causing a tractor-bbq…). Sure, I should be able to get that at the CO-OP… Well, no. Can you believe it, they’re outta wing nuts! How can somebody be OUT of wing nuts? And 600 mils (about a pint, I guess) of 30wt oil is 6.99… Um, I don’t THINK so, Tim. Over to Princess Auto, well they’ve got 30wt oil b y the litre for 4.99, PLUS the ever-elusive gear oil, so I stock up… Plus some air tool oil, cuz I was out of light oil… But THEY don’t carry carriage bolts… So over to Peavy Mart, and I pick up 6 1/4″ by 1″ carriage bolts and some wing nuts by 4:55 pm, I’m the LAST person through the till… Rush home, hook up the generator light, connect the battery, make sure LTGal is handy with the phone for 911 if all heck breaks loose, then as the tech manual says, briefly connect the battery terminal of the regulator to the Armature post of the generator to polarize it proper- Did I get it on there? Nothing happened… Check my connection… nothing… NADA…. My battery is dead! 

By this time, its time to go pick up LTBabe from the grandparents, have supper, finish the trim, do the dishes, put the kid to bed, clean the kitchen, prep the carrots we got from Grandma, put the kid to bed AGAIN and here I sit typing this at nearly 11:00 pm… And still no running Wally…

Oh well, I made LOTS of progress.

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More progress on Wally today…

Posted on September 8, 2012 by littletractorguy

Well, not a lot of pictures, ’cause I’ve been going hard…. Broke out the big torque wrench this morning and torqued the flywheel nut on to 75 lbs as per spec, without breaking any fins off the flywheel.Cleaned off Wally’s carb, checked the jets, got carb and air cleaner put back on. Air cleaner was pretty hideously dirty, shook the element as clean as I could. I’ll have to look at buying a new one. Stole a whole bunch of electrical parts off Cranky. Whoever had him before me, it looks like they put in a whole, brand new electrical harness into him, INCLUDING the piece of wiring that goes down to the neutral start switch… Although (despite the neutral start switch being THERE on Cranky) that chunk of wire was tucked up behind the dashboard with a jumper between the connectors and some duct tape wrapped around it… It also looks like whoever had Cranky sprang for a new ignition switch, there was BARELY ANY corrosion on the terminals AND the plastic was still white. Checked it with the multimeter, it functions 100%. So… That went into Wally as well. Wally already had the PTO safety switch, although it was not hooked up. So I swapped that over to the guard piece that I was stealing from Cranky to replace the one Wally’s PO had done surgery on to accommodate his home-made generator mount repair… So eventually, Wally will have both safety switches back in operation… For now, I’m leaving them disconnected while I test the engine. I’ll HAVE to remember that when I go to do a turnover test, as I don’t want Wally lurching everywhere and smashing my shelter! 

ALSO put Cranky’s nice generator mount into Wally. So, I’ve got ALL the electrical connected, just have to strap the engine tins on so I can hook the generator back up to the starter pulley, find a litre of 30wt oil to drop into him, then I’ll do an electrical system test to see if he turns over… Once I find the little arm piece from the throttle linkage and get the choke linkage hooked up, drop the fuel tank back on and hook’er all up, maybe I can have Wally running by tomorrow.. 

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Battle scars and a post-mortem

Posted on August 26, 2012 by littletractorguy

So, some updates on Cranky… including details of my FIRST injury sustained during the work on Cranky!

(Guess I gotta take down that “4 injury-free days” sign!  )

So, this actually happened YESTERDAY…. It looks MUCH better today than it did shortly after the incident….

I had finished up pulling Cranky’s PTO clutch off, and went to close the socket set… Well, there was some long grass there that got caught in the tool box and I went to pull it out, and discovered it was… .SAW GRASS!!! YEOUCH!!!!! DANGIT #$@#$@#$@#@$@ That STINGS! Bugger bled for 20 minutes!

But I’m feeling much better now!

On to the Cranky post-mortem…. After supper, I had some time and decided I’d pull open Cranky’s crank case (after banging the PTO pulley off because I need it for Wally… You’re a pal, Cranky!)…

I think the pictures speak for themselves….

(I’d say, Cranky’s ring end-gap is a LITTLE excessive)…

So… New new plan… Let see if, in September I can afford a set of .010 over rings for Wally’s engine and get him to go nicely… THEN if he goes nicely, his engine swaps into Ernie and I do Ernie’s rings… And Cranky, well… He’s been a good sport about all this….

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