I never learn...

[RCW]

I love me some NAPA, when I did the 1938 Farmall F14 they had pistons, rings, bearings and an overhaul gasket kit overnight.

Try that with the kiddies at Advance Auto sometime...

Paul -

first thing I would say is please document your project here. Honestly, I won't look at the other site.

Second, I was was looking for strut retaining clips for the wife's car all around town yesterday.....

At Advance, the kid pointed to the racks of body panel clips and push rivets. Took him 8 seconds to point at them.

At NAPA, the counter man searched for 20 minutes on the computer. We both then spent 15 minutes going through the shelves and racks. He knew what I was looking for. They just didn't have it.... wasn't for lack of trying.

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[PHPaul]

Twisted off my first bolt this morning. Under the seat pan on top of the transmission, so it's pretty easy to get at. Got a easy-out kit with left-hand drills and drilled it, hit it with the torch and it's soaking in weasel piss. Probably have to heat-cycle it a couple more times before trying to back it out.

Carb and gas tank are off. Line from tank to carb was plugged solid with varnish, sediment bowl likewise. In fact, varnish has glued the bowl to the valve, still soaking that to try to get it apart. Lot of dried gas/varnish in the bottom of the tank.

Carb wasn't horrible, but the rubber tit on the inlet valve disintegrated and the main gasket is crumbly dry so I'll be ordering a kit for that. New oil filter, plugs, points and condenser installed.

Drained the final drives, right one good, left one about half water. I'll probably dub around the rest of the day finishing up the various tasks I have soaking and then block the crawler up and try track pin pushing idea the original owner told me about and see if I can get the tracks off.

 

[CaveCreekRay]

PH,

Do tracks have a "master link" or can they all be driven out?

 

[PHPaul]

PH,

Do tracks have a "master link" or can they all be driven out?

Yes, there is (at least on this machine) a master pin that theoretically can be driven out. Pretty sure the rest of the pins have to be pressed out.

 

[PHPaul]

First image is using a comealong to pull the track around to a convenient spot to press out the master pin.

Second is a shot of the master pin.

Gotta make up a rig to use a bottle jack to press the pins out. Good project for tomorrow.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

sure hope it was a really,really good deal ( like take it away and here's $100 for gas...)
i passed on it's twin couple years back( before the BX23S), running(more or less,well less than more...), $1000. I looked up what guys were asking for some of the parts, yikes... I 'lost' 25K by not buying it...
oh well...

 

[RCW]

sure hope it was a really, really good deal ( like take it away and here's $100 for gas.

Jay -- I think I can speak for Paul, just a little bit.

Some of these old tractors are just kinda cool to work on. They're simple, and more-or-less easy to work on (except for dead mice in the air filter).

Many parts can be found at NAPA like Paul said before, and often pretty cheap.

For something like Paul's 420 "winter project;" no rush, no pressure, and the thing is small enough to fit in a garage bay easy.

For many, these old farts are either therapeutic, a family heritage, or just plain entertainment.

Financially, few of them make sense to tinker with. Recently I saw a beautiful 1939 JD B Row Crop sell at Mecum for $1,200. Probably had $300 worth of primer and paint, not including labor.

Paul's 420 Crawler is kinda special. Probably not many made, and don't see many survivors, but they're out there. Heck, even a JD 420 Standard is a pretty collectible tractor. Not a bad project to take on and flip for the next winter project.

Honestly, a tractor of this vintage is probably less apt to hurt the wallet as much as a '60-'70's vintage tractor.

My tractor is a '53 MM, and while it isn't worth much, it's priceless to me due to heritage.

I guess that's why I asked Paul to document his project here. I don't follow many other web sites, and I'm very interested and intrigued by these types of projects, regardless of the tractor's color.

Short story long, they're just fun. As one of my favorite TV shows is called - some of us have "Classic Tractor Fever"!

 

[m.t.hands]

neat project, keep us updated w/pics

 

[SidecarFlip]

Very nice. I'll read along and enjoy as well.

 

[PHPaul]

RCW covered it pretty well. As I stated in the original post, I KNOW it doesn't make any sense financially, but neither does a $50,000 bass boat or playing the Lotto.

To some extent this one was a "deal" as there are very few survivors that don't have serious (and seriously expensive) undercarriage issues. If you find one, the owner usually knows it and charges accordingly. Of course some of that line of thinking is rationalization too.

The UC on this on is certainly worn, but should be serviceable for homeowner use. Intact, un-cracked final drives alone are worth what I paid for the crawler.

 

[RCW]

RCW covered it pretty well..

Paul - glad you didn’t take exception to my comments.

I don’t put words in anyone’s mouth, but in this instance thought I had a pretty good idea....[emoji3]

Best of luck with your project!...as an aside, Classic Tractor Fever on right now is all about crawler tractors.



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[bearbait]

Great project Paul, thanks for sharing.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

well, she's officially a 'project' ,well under way. My luck would be those 'master pins' would BOTH be exactly dead center,on the floor so I'd get a real good 'upper body exercise'. Please keep posting progresspix, I admire anyone that can 'stick to it'.
Also, take LOTS of pictures when taking 'stuff' off....later, come Spring, ONE picture might just show HOW the widget was connected to the thingamabob and save you endless hours of scratching your head ,mumbling...I know I took it off, I was here, wasn't I ?, I'm , a, sure or , um...... sigh...

 

[PHPaul]

Redesigned one half of my pin pressing jig to be more rigid plus pulled my head out of my...uh...back pocket and heated the HEAD of the pin where it keys into the link. Still took a couple of hours of jacking, whacking and heating but I got them both out and the tracks off.

Next step is to pull the final drives.

More pix and details here.

 

[dlsmith]

Your master pin press was just what I was going to suggest, except a lot heavier. We had one years ago for pressing master pins out of tracks on International TD-18s, a TD-20 and a TD24. We used a piece of 3" square bar with a hole for the pin to pass on the inside and another 3" bar on the outside. Both were drilled for 1" threaded rod and we had a 20 ton porta-power to press them out. Even with the porta-power we almost always had to apply a lot of heat to the pin bosses to get them out.
I don't really miss those days that much.

 

[PHPaul]

Your master pin press was just what I was going to suggest, except a lot heavier.

Yeah, if I need to do this again, I have a MUCH heavier piece of plate (3/4 inch) for the back. I'd have used it this time, but it's too wide to fit between the grousers and the rock guards. Ripping it narrower was more work than I wanted to do. Not really set up to work with steel that thick.

 

[PHPaul]

Another update: Got the engine started!

https://youtu.be/jk--XsIW0hs

 

[bearbait]

Great work my friend but at the pace your going you'll have to find another project to get you through the winter.

 

[PHPaul]

Great work my friend but at the pace your going you'll have to find another project to get you through the winter.

Possibly, but I haven't even started on the final drives/clutches/transmission removal. I got an idea that'll slow me down a tad...

 

[CaveCreekRay]

So that's a gas motor! I thought diesels were common back then but, I guess not. Any idea what the hp of that little mill is? Congratulations!