PHOTO ALBUM

This is where I will be putting photos of upgrades and activities until I get them more organized.

A BEFORE PICTURE

You might notice that one front tire sticks out more than the other and to make matters worse, one rear tire is almost 2-inches wider and filled with liquid.

This REALLY offended my sense of symmetry and balance! Good thing I didn't do anything too crazy before I discovered only one rear tire was filled. Flipping over in a turn would have ruined my day for sure!

COOLANT RECOVERY

A coolant recovery tank. This is a small plastic jug with a screw-on lid. A sheet metal bracket is captured between the jug and the lid. Drill a 1/4" hole in the top for the line from the radiator, and mounted using the existing holes in the battery tray. This almost worked, but the jug was too small to contain the amount of fluid pushed out, so when the radiator sucked fluid back in it sucked the jug dry. This would work if there was some place to put a larger recovery tank. Oh well.

SOME IMPLEMENTS

The bush hog in the background cost me $200. It needed a lot of cleaning up. There was about 20-feet of nylon twine tangled around the blades. That was a real challenge to remove since it had been melted and fused into a solid mass of plastic goo.

BUSH HOG

SUMP SLUDGE, YUCK!

My lift started acting up. I changed all the fluids when I got the tractor, so I knew it had good fluid in it. After checking everything else, then doing a little exploratory surgery, I found this mess. There is about an inch of gook in the bottom of the sump. This is where the pump gets it's supply of fluid. It is hard to believe it worked at all! At this point I decided it was easier to pull the PTO shaft and drop the pump, so I could really give it a good cleaning. That was all it needed.

SNOW PLOW?

My first snow plow was my 21-HP Craftsman lawn tractor.

It actually worked better than I thought it would, even with the wet snow we get in VA. Our driveway is over 700 feet long, so it took about 3 hours to clear 8" of snow. I wouldn't want to try this in Montana!

BETTER SNOW PLOW

The Craftsman was officially retired from winter chores. I may eventually decide to get a set of tire chains, but this works much better than the little Craftsman mower!

The scraper/snow blade I made from some scrap aluminum and steel. It can be set to five positions; two right, two left, and straight, or I can turn it around and push.It's very light duty, but had already scraped our 750 foot gravel drive when this picture was taken.

DILLON DOG

Dillon Dog is no longer with us. He was part Husky, so he really liked cold weather.

BACK HOE

Here is the tractor with the backhoe attached. More photos,descriptions,and plans for the backhoe are on theBackhoe Page.

TILLER

This is a Howard Rotavator Tiller that I got for the right price, FREE! The tines are original and still have paint on them. Somebody got this and must have found out that the 8N is geared too high to use it. Looks like it had very low hours before it was parked and left to rust. Since I have the Sherman transmission in my tractor, it may give me enough optional gear combinations that I can get this to work. It looks like a few brackets are missing.

The only way this tiller will work is to slowly lower it in the ground, raise it, move foreward, lower it again, etc. No combination of gears and PTO speed would work well in the packed clay, roots, and rocks we have. It threatened to shake every nut bolt and screw loose. I eventually found someone willing to take it off my hands. Good Riddance.

MY SECOND "NEW" TRACTOR!!

This is my 1952-8N. I have added a page showing step-by-step photos and descriptions to better document my repair procedure. You can find them HERE.

Gravel Work

We had 18 Tons of gravel delivered. The ground was too wet for the truck to spread it all the way down the hill, so we were left with about 8 tons in a big pile.

I was a little worried, but started dragging the pile down. Once I got my blade to go over the top, it was easy.

That homemade snow blade is really not strong or heavy enough for this kind of work, but it did ok after I added a length of steel tubing, and a couple lead bars to help keep it on the ground. This is the first time I can say that spreading gravel was actually FUN!

Sharon had some fun too!

MY THIRD "NEW" TRACTOR!!

19 October 2009

This is a 1946-2N and it came with implements. I had been thinking about getting one of the older dark gray tractors. Didn't need it, just wanted it. Then this one appeared with a "FOR SALE" sign less than 4 miles from home.

The engine was recently rebuilt, and there are many new parts including steering linkage, starter, and governor.

The shifter for the overdrive is on the RIGHT side.

Blade

Cultivator

Plow

Cutter

All of the implements were included in the deal, plus a couple of disc plows that I picked up later.

Now we start on the Repair Process.

Got to use my hoist beam for the first time. Removing the hood was much easier this way, and less likely to scratch something putting it back on.

Straightening a grill in my shop press.

SNOW DEC 2009

This was the total from Friday to around mid-day on Saturday, with a little sleet to pack it down. Then we got another 4-6 inches before the sun finally appeared on Sunday.

This is the first time I have wished for loaded tires or wheel weights. This snow was heavy, deep, and with all the rain we have had, there was little traction available, even when I got the tires down to gravel.

Scraping whatever it would pull forward, raising the blade, driving past the pile, then pushing it to the side in reverse, seemed like the best technique since the stuff simply would not flow along the blade and off the edge. GRRR But still fun in a wet, snowy, twisted way.

At least I had plenty of hot coffee handy in my trusty cup-holder. Didn't kick it off once this time. I must be getting used to it being there.

This is one tired 8N. I put it to bed with the battery maintainer plugged in, and will need to do some maintenance on the rear wheel bearings soon.

Driveway is passable, but not very wide. I should have gotten pictures of what the snow plow left at the end of the drive Sunday Morning.

Dillon Dog thoroughly enjoyed the snow.