Thought about an old tractor

FancyG said:
Painted and swapped the loader over from an 8N in poor condition.

This tractor had the Sherman under-drive and I added a power-steering conversion.

Ready for another 70 years of work. View attachment 95160
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That looks even more nose-heavy than the 430 Case my grandpa had with a loader bucket on it...you couldn’t back uphill, because the shift in CG would take weight off the back tires, even without anything in the bucket.
 
I just love engine hoists. I think it's the one tool I end up using more than I ever thought I would. Bought one for a boat project thinking it was a "use it once or twice" tool. We use that thing all of the time for moving stuff around, lifting up tractors/mowers for maintenance, etc. I think we even used it once to hold up a section of decking while we installed a new support post/bracing, lol.
 
Well, I purchased a tractor as well... haven't gotten it back to the property yet, but that's one of today's goals!
 
When you go to put it back together, a bolt each side off the bell with the head cut off helps a lot to line things up and act like rails to slide the tractor back together. Also, if you are nearly there and it gets hung, there's a good chance the clutch/propeller shaft splines aren't lining up. Don't force it. Take the pressure off, put the tractor in neutral, engage the pto and turn the shaft by hand till you feel things slide into place.
 
One other thought. There's a plate on the trans below the propeller shaft. Check the bolt torque on that sucker. I had that plate come loose on me and cause one heck of a mess. In hindsight, I wish I had replaced them with drilled head bolts so I could have safetied them.
 
My new old tractor
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And next to the old guard.
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Here’s the current state of her.... all the tin was off anyway might as well go for it. Still not sure how to tackle the rear wheels but I have a sort-of plan in the making...

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Looks good, you sure didn't waste any time tearing into things. If I had half that motivation, I wouldn't have 3 in the barn that all need some sort of work.

Out of curiosity, what kind of paint setup did you run?
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
Looks good, you sure didn't waste any time tearing into things. If I had half that motivation, I wouldn't have 3 in the barn that all need some sort of work.

Out of curiosity, what kind of paint setup did you run?
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Nothing special, just generic farm store tractor paint mixed with reducer and hardener. Sprayed with a harbor freight HVLP gun.

If I was going for show quality I’d do something more elaborate but I’m just trying to pretty it up a little.
 
Being born and raised a city boy, never really got into tractors, old or new.

Now with my little John Deere, and seeing how useful it is, I’m starting to notice the oldie goldies.

This beauty was recently bought by some cousins of Karen’s. It apparently had belonged to their grandfather, and they later saw it in a parade and made an offer.

51111928806_7a3ebcda43_c.jpg


It was here in E TN and being transported out west where they live when we saw it. It apparently starts on gas, then switches over to diesel. Pretty cool!
 
Nice tractors. Be careful with the little kids on them. I know a guy who was mowing on a pretty good sized tractor with a young one on his lap, something happened and the kid almost lost his foot. Both are scarred for life. Please be careful.
 
My uncle told me about his Ford 9N. To save money, the farmers would start on a little gas, then run it on whatever they could get. Usually home filtered used motor oil. That way their fuel cost was close to zero for subsistence farmers that farmed for extra sustenance and money from hay, but had jobs in town for most of their income.

That is a gorgeous tractor. I'd love to run around on that, if only I had any flat land!


FastEddieB said:
Being born and raised a city boy, never really got into tractors, old or new.

Now with my little John Deere, and seeing how useful it is, I’m starting to notice the oldie goldies.

This beauty was recently bought by some cousins of Karen’s. It apparently had belonged to their grandfather, and they later saw it in a parade and made an offer.

51111928806_7a3ebcda43_c.jpg


It was here in E TN and being transported out west where they live when we saw it. It apparently starts on gas, then switches over to diesel. Pretty cool!
Click to expand...
 
PaulS said:
Nice tractors. Be careful with the little kids on them. I know a guy who was mowing on a pretty good sized tractor with a young one on his lap, something happened and the kid almost lost his foot. Both are scarred for life. Please be careful.
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Yeah, the older tractors didn't have much (if any) in the way of guards or an operator platform. If you fell off the seat you could very well end up under the tractor. Even worse, the live PTO and geared transmissions pretty much ensured that the tractor would keep on truckin without you in the seat. Modern tractors have pretty much eliminated the risk of falling under the tractor unless you really manage to muck it up. Hydrostatic transmissions being the most popular today man that the tractor will come to a stop shortly after the pedal is released (unless on cruise control).

Sent from my SM-N976U using Tapatalk
 
SoonerAviator said:
Hydrostatic transmissions being the most popular today man that the tractor will come to a stop shortly after the pedal is released (unless on cruise control).
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And the PTOs nowadays will get killed if the weight switch on the seat isn’t closed. I have to deliberately set the parking brake and press a button to allow PTO operation if not in the seat on the new one.

The old Ford if the clutch was out and the PTO lever was engaged, it was spinning. Safety was up to you to turn it off...

Habits built on the Ford will likely continue, automatic stop or none, for me. Honestly I’m not even completely comfortable leaving a tractor running at all when not on it. Starters just aren’t that expensive.
 
FastEddieB said:
Being born and raised a city boy, never really got into tractors, old or new.

Now with my little John Deere, and seeing how useful it is, I’m starting to notice the oldie goldies.

This beauty was recently bought by some cousins of Karen’s. It apparently had belonged to their grandfather, and they later saw it in a parade and made an offer.

51111928806_7a3ebcda43_c.jpg


It was here in E TN and being transported out west where they live when we saw it. It apparently starts on gas, then switches over to diesel. Pretty cool!
Click to expand...

I had never heard of the 'gas start - cutover to diesel' before until one of the Youtube channels I follow started doing a rebuild on one. It's pretty interesting. He takes it down to bare block and just recently started piecing it back together.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-1mGLAjHPWy0BL-MO6MrSr-mQFPJzT33
 
SoonerAviator said:
I didn't know anything about the gas pony motors used to start a diesel until @Ted and his bulldozer, lol.
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Well, there are the pony motors but there are some gas/diesel engines that actually do start on gasoline, run on gasoline for a while, and then switch over to diesels. That's different from the pony motor where you have a gas engine that is separate and a starter for the diesel.
 
FastEddieB said:
Being born and raised a city boy, never really got into tractors, old or new.

Now with my little John Deere, and seeing how useful it is, I’m starting to notice the oldie goldies.

This beauty was recently bought by some cousins of Karen’s. It apparently had belonged to their grandfather, and they later saw it in a parade and made an offer.

51111928806_7a3ebcda43_c.jpg


It was here in E TN and being transported out west where they live when we saw it. It apparently starts on gas, then switches over to diesel. Pretty cool!
Click to expand...


MDs are neat tractors. There's a farm youtuber who is in the process of restoring one, if you're interested, the channel is called Just a Few Acres Farm.

I finally ordered the parts I "think" I need to fix my TO-30, at least short term, without tearing the motor apart. I really really hope its just the valve cover gasket that's been leaking...
 
Your Massey Ferguson is looking great, Cowman!
 
Finally got all the sheet metal reassembled. Next day that it's dry and I have the time I'm going to take it out to mow the pasture. A little worried about that, it almost looks too nice to take out and use now but I don't believe in owning museum pieces.

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Very clean! I agree on not making it a museum piece. Girl was made to work!

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Byooteeful!

is that a Chrysler over there to the side?
 
I spent the better part of the afternoon & evening pulling the cylinder head on my Ferguson TO-30. I had a hunch the head gasket was going/gone, so I thought I'd run it a bit last week to see what was up. No more than 10 minutes of loaded running and the coolant was milkshake. Head gasket time...

Pulled the head today, boy was that a chore. It clearly hadn't been off this motor in a very long time. A couple of the head studs just didn't want to let the head go, a few hours of penetrating oil and they finally, finally came off. But it was way too much effort to get off.
 
As a retired farmer I still have 10 tractors around the farm. Ranging from 10 hp to 280 hp. My first and favorite tractor bought and still have was a Model F IHC Cub. It has a belly mount 4.5' sickle mower, row crop cultivator , a 1 bottom plow , and a 4' blade used for pushing grain in flat storage into a loading auger. Mowed a lot of hay with that rig back in the 70's . Also did yard and garden work with it.
Hydrostat Kubota with loader , 4' rota tiller , 5' trail mower mostly used now for farm upkeep. Other tractors kept as dedicated bush hog , back hoe , large ground roller pulling tractor for runway maintenance and road work. Some day my non farming kids will have one heck of a Auction sale . :)
 
My brother has an old Massey-Ferguson 50 from my Dad that looks sort of like what you started with, Cowman. How did you go about prepping the engine/transmission area and sheet metal for painting? Sandblast or beadblast or how? Also wondering if you used beadblast whether or not that would rough things up enough for the paint to have something to "bite" to? I would really like to see him rehab my Dad's tractor like you did. Thanks in advance for any help.
 
somorris said:
My brother has an old Massey-Ferguson 50 from my Dad that looks sort of like what you started with, Cowman. How did you go about prepping the engine/transmission area and sheet metal for painting? Sandblast or beadblast or how? Also wondering if you used beadblast whether or not that would rough things up enough for the paint to have something to "bite" to? I would really like to see him rehab my Dad's tractor like you did. Thanks in advance for any help.
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Well if you were doing a full on restoration you'd probably want to strip everything down, hammer out every dent, etc. I didn't do all that as this will be a working tractor that I don't want to be too perfect to use.

What I did was wire brush/sand all loose rust off the sheet metal, then scuff all of it with 220grit sandpaper(180 would work too, I just had a lot of 220). The rusty areas were painted with rust oleum rust reformer and after that dried I shot all of it with farm store MF red paint mixed with harder and reducer using a harbor freight HVLP gun.

The frame color on these older MF tractors is called "Flint grey metallic" and it is NOT the same as the farm store MF gray paint. Nothing wrong with that stuff but it will be a darker gray and not have the metallic look. Flint grey metallic is available online and at at MF dealers, shouldn't be terribly expensive. For that part of the tractor I spent a lot of time cleaning with a pressure washer, de-greaser, wire brushes, and scotch-brite pads. Then I capped off/taped off stuff like fuel inlets, glass fuel bowls, etc. Shot with the same HF HVLP gun.

Tractor paint is pretty forgiving stuff, you can get decent results with this (relatively) low amount of prep. Plan on giving it lots of cure time- it will be dry to the touch between a few hours to overnight but it doesn't really set up and get to full hardness for weeks and will still scratch/scuff off easily- especially the red for some reason. A respirator is highly recommended when painting this way, they're not expensive and when you see the amount of red paint collected on the filter that didn't end up your lungs you'll be thankful.

If you're wanting a show tractor don't do it like I did... blast the frame, strip/sand the sheet metal. That said, this really didn't turn out all that bad and for a working tractor it's really pretty.
 
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Thanks for the information, Cowman! I wasn't thinking about a show tractor either. It wouldn't be fair to the tractor :). I really appreciate your help!
 
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