Car tires gone...

For my final foray out into the virus infested world I went to the tire shop in town and had new front tires mounted.  Several days ago I brought them in and had the old and flat car tires that were on there dismounted.  Then I spent a few hours with a wire cup on the angle grinder to clean all the rust off the rims so they could be primed and painted.  Turned out pretty well and the tractor looks a whole lot better with proper front tires.

The new tires on freshly painted rims

Much better!

Miracles do happen ........ it runs!

Dad came out again yesterday and helped out with the last parts of the reassembly.  I was glad to have the help especially getting the front end attached - it was a heavy beast.  After a couple tries we got that attached and then worked on installing the radiator which turned out to be a bigger challenge.  It wasn't so much the radiator itself but the fan shroud was the problem.  A few tries and a few more choice words and it finally came together.

Engine assembly complete with one side rail attached

Using the boom pole and another tractor to hoist the pedestal into place

The radiator finally installed

After everything was installed we hooked up the battery and tried to fire it up.  First try didn't go well.  Cleaned up some connections and she fired up.   The field is still pretty wet so today I took it out for a spin down the road.  Still needs a bit of fine tuning but all in all not too bad.

Reassembly

The parts are were back from the machine shop last week and reassembly is proceeding at full tilt.  I found a machine shop, DG Machine, that I was comfortable with and the machinists and owner seemed like straight shooters.  When I toured the shop I saw they were working on an old two cylinder John Deere head so that helped with my decision.  I had them turn the crankshaft (took off 10 thousands), press and fit new bushings in the connecting rods, and rework the head.  On the head they milled the surface, replaced the valves, springs and guides and put new seats in for the exhaust valves.  It looked like all the work was done well.

Then it was time to start putting everything back together.  Dad came by a couple times to lend a hand which was great.  Here's a couple pics of the process:

Engine block on the stand ready to be assembled

Dad working on the clutch before we connect the block to the rest of the tractor

Head on and ready to be torqued down

 Overall the reassembly went well but I did have one oops.  I attached on the front cover that goes over the gears in the above picture as well as the distributor and the governor (with gaskets and gasket seal) and was preparing to put the crank pulley on.  To keep all the various parts and bolts organized they were placed in separate containers.  So I grab the container for the crank pulley parts and notice this 3 inch bowl shaped washer - oh no, where the hell does that go?  Inside the cover !?!  Sure enough everything had to come back off so the "oil flinger" could be installed.  If that's the biggest problem we have I think we're doing good.

Tomorrow will be the ultimate test.  Today I was able to get everything else installed (oil pump, oil pan, generator, manifold, carb, etc).  Tomorrow Dad is coming by again to give a hand reattaching the front wheel pedestal and finishing the reassembly.  Then we'll try and fire her up and see if she runs or try and figure out what we screwed up.  Hoping for the prior.

Snapped this today.  We have a couple chickens that refuse to stay in their pen and of course Morgan is fascinated by them. 

The girls just hanging out