Tractor Repair Gratification

I was talking to our local JD Guru about our latest tractor project and how pleased I was with the way it turned out. He said that he never did drugs or drank but there was nothing like the feeling He got when had a tractor scattered all over the shop then put it back together and it ran and operated like it should. What project or repair you are most proud of?
Ron

A couple of projects from back when all I had to work with was ambition.
I was able to get an old feed mixer wagon out of a scrap row. The augers were busted, but the floor had already been replaced. I salvaged an upper auger, and turned it into a small grain buggy. With scales, no less!
Around the same time I went to narrow rows. I found a FL330 AC corn head in excellent condition, cheap. Because it didn't clear a wide enough path to get a Gleaner F through, nobody wanted it. I cut the throat out of an old high profile E two row head, and welded it into the throat of the FL330. The drives were the biggest challenge. I ran that head on an early E for a few years, then ran it on a K2 for a while also.

MY best to date has to be the heated cab I put on my ford 640 loader tractor for pushing and or blowing snow.

I grew up operating tractors but Dad handled all the repairs, and being a bone-head kid I never learned anything about fixing them---or anything else mechanical. Consequently, my little victories are going to sound like small stuff to all the gurus here.

I inherited Dad's 52 8N. Lift got to where it wouldn't work, so consulting the repair manual I removed the lift pump, cleaned about two gallons of goo out of the sump (I think that was the pump's main problem), kitted the pump and re-installed it. Worked great.

Victory No. 2: sludge from the gas tank kept clogging the filters. I removed the tank and took it to a shop to be boiled out and coated. Decided that while I had it apart I'd sand and repaint the hood. Did so, and it looked so good I did the wheels and fenders. Sanded everything to bare metal, primed and painted. Cleaned and re-painted all the red stuff.

Victory No. 3: Transmission oil was leaking from the lower lift arm lug. I removed the axle trumpet and tightened the lug, replaced trumpet.

As I said, most of you guys could have done this upside down with your left hand. To me it was big stuff.

I restored an MF 65 tractor for Massey Ferguson. It is presently in the showroom at their tractor plant in France.....Talk about selling snow to Eskimos!
............Sam

How about a car restoration, I had to use my 53 Jubilee to put my grandfathers only car , a 1927 Pontiac , into my garage were I spent a number of years restoring it, Now it runs and looks great, Grandfather died in 1952, I am older than he was when he died at age 72, That is my great restoration accomplishment.

WoooooooWWWWW!! FINE looking.

I've seen that one before Sam love it! I had a guy call this week, heard I know my way around a 65, he's bringing it buy for a clutch and brakes. I've drank a lot and done near every drug known to man, these tractors are my drug now. Nice to see that people in the neighborhood would want to trust me with their machine. First hire out job, I got this!

Can you post a picture of the Pontiac?

First, last, and only, never do it again, back in the early seventies I bought an old John Deere B with a stuck piston. Tore it completely apart and replaced anything that looked worn. Changed it from magneto to electric. Didn't figure it would run when I got done. Put some gas in it, rotated the flywheel a couple of times, turned the key on and held my breath. Started to give the flywheel a mighty crank and didn't even get it turned six inches and it took off running. Put over seven thousand dollars worth of new parts in it, put three hundred and fifty hours on it in ten years and sold it at my sale for fifteen hundred dollars.

I have done a bunch, but the best was after steam cleaning about 1000 tractors working for a IH dealer in Annapolis the foreman let me overhaul a cub. .40 over pistons, had the crank underturned,ect. I was so proud when finished I didn't want to take it back. I was about 18 years old.

I have spent almost my entire adult life fixing iron of some sort but the most rewarding in my book has been the preservation of my Dads John Deere BR. It broke a piston in 1972 and my brother and I started into fixing it. My brother was 17, I was 11. The project was worked on and off for a number of years with the off segment becoming more prolonged. Jobs, school, marriage all worked against the possible completion of the work.One important step took place in the early 1980's when the tractor made it inside! No more outdoor shop. When it was announced that the International Plowing Match would be held in our Municipality, I made that a goal to have the BR there. It made it there, completed, and Dad drove it. This was in 2002.
To this day it ranks as my most meaningful mechanical undertaking.

I have built 5 or 6 cars. This is the one I am most proud of. Took the longest too. Built the chassis, turned the steering column on my lathe, milled all the mounts, fabbed/welded suspension, etc. Hand built wiring harness, plumbing. Friend painted it, I was the gopher. Traded him for a 10 point roll cage and tube chassis I put in his car.

Still have the car. 1995.

Some day I will do a tractor. But first I am thinking of putting a twin turbo setup on this motor from my neighbors pulling tractor.
Something tells me I will build a pulling tractor... I need horsepower!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rick

I have been tearing things apart to see how they worked most of my life. My grandparents babysat me as a little kid and at about age 4 I dicided to find out how skelton key door lock worked. Each day for about 2 weeks my gramps came home from work and put that it back together with me watching. It didn't take too long for him to get very upset that it was apart yet again. The day I finally got it put together by myself I left it on his bench. When he got home he went down to fix it once again and there it sat in one piece. He really didn't belive I had done it so I took it apart and reassembled it in front of him to prove I had indeed done it.
Fast forward 44 years... bought this 170+ yr old house and guess what didn't work LOL And yes it now works as it should, we just don't use it as main lock.

Tractor related is more like JerryS. Its all the little things that most you folks did at least a hundred times over the years. Getting 2N to run again after stuffing it into snowback as it shut down last Friday was BIG for me.
Finding the air leak in FEL was a major confidence builder.
I didn't grow up in a farming family and I know I ask less than smart questions but in time I really do learn.
I'm a recovering drunk of 23+ years, this tractor is my drug of choice now!

To many to pick one.

Loading dock at Albert City Threshermens was my baby.

Cockshutt 40propane up till now was my favoritist tractor restoration. I think it will be tied soon by the Hart Parr that is in the shop.

Many small to medium jobs also.

jt

I bought this to fix up and sell 8 years ago to help pay for my youngest's college. Seeings how he graduated 4 years ago, it will probably be his one day.