Old Tractor, Twin City.

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I had a farmer try to sell me some wheels like that as fire rings, I almost picked them up because they were so cool
 
The motors of these old tractors had sleeves in them, luckily. [see picture one.] We had to rob a couple of the ones out of the really old tractor to rebuild the 1927 one, as one was scored really grossly, and one had deep rust pits at the ring line. The crankshaft had no counterweights on the '27 motor, so we used the weighted '22 crank. There were shims under the rod caps, so we just tightened the bearings up a wee bit, added new piston rings out of Boston, honed the chosen liners, and put her together. I had taken the head to a machine shop, and they manufactured some new valves, seats and guides, [Caterpillar valves, small block Chevy guides and homemade seats]. Anyhow, the head went back on and worked nicely.
When we put the pulley on, --- a very simple task, we had a problem, [picture two]. When we got the tractor running, the pulley seemed to whine. with the pulley off there was no noise, [picture 3]. We deciphered that some small misalignment inside on the pulley shaft, telegraphed out the pulley shaft and the pulley acted like a bell, amplifying the vibration. I made a sound deadener out of plywood to stop the sound, or at least soften it. I have not tested this weird solution. The big wooden washer is just inside the spokes on the pulley.
Oh, I almost forgot, about the radiator cap I have been bragging about. [pictures 4 & 5].
 

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Now for the hotrodding section. The first picture is showing the wooden noise baffle that I made for the belt pulley. I hope it works. All you purists will be cringing by now.
There were little oilers that dripped oil onto the rocker arms 'in the day', on this tractor. They were all lost so I collected these glass ones, [picture 2]. The 1922 motor had run a long time with no oiling at the top end so everything was worn out up there. We opted to make pressure oilers, with restrictions in each brass 'T'. While we were at it we built positive ventilation, [picture 3]. So now, the glass oilers are fake, but staying on there for good looks. Cringe on you purists!
I guess I should have told about that Zenith Carburetor in this 'hotrodding' section because it is a little bit newer style carb than what was on there. pic 4 is a Kingston carb and pic 5 is the Zenith.
 

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I can be quite cocky, poking my finger in you purists' eyes, for two reasons; one, you all live so far away from the hub of civilization [northern Alberta], and two, we're on a ratrod forum so I'm betting there are dang few purist reading this.
So anyway, my tractor story is not in any timely sequence, so far.
My two friends, Darren and Jack built the basic tractor and promised it would go to the field an plow all day, and I believe them. [pic 1] is one of the first start-ups. We had quite a pup motor to start the Twin City. It was an Allis-Chalmers combine motor. In [pic 2] you see the rad of the A-C.
Back in time some more, here is looking down into the bottom rad tank. [pic 3]. That pipe across there is a thin wall crank tunnel. It's been in a rust inducing environment for ninety some years, so it leaked a bit and had to be fixed.
 

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How do you start it without a "slave"?

Thirty-some years ago, I attended an event with my "Grandfather". (Frank and my Grandmother "remarried" as they were both widowed.) Frank was a wealth of information and talked my ear off when we got to the antique tractors...

Anyhow, what sticks in my mind, was a fella with a handful of shotgun shell "starters"... he slid a shell into a tube, secured it properly and touched it off. I understood that was not a redneck invention of the owner's design. Can you shed some light on the subject, Mac?

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Your Grandfather did not lead you down the garden path. The Field-Marshall tractor started with a shotgun shell.
Most of the early John Deeres started by turning the exposed flywheel by hand. Many of the JD diesels had a cute little gas motor [slave] that took the place of an electric starter.
Many other tractors had a crank that, when pushed back into teeth on the front of the crankshaft, could turn the motor over. My Twin City has a crank. I'll get a picture tomorrow.

There was a plate missing on the top of one of the rear-ends, maybe for sixty years. [picture 1, where the red plastic cap is]. Lots of stuff went in there, but the worst was water. This water built up until it was able to break the rear-end housing at the bottom, by freezing and expanding. This is the first housing that I have ever heard of broken. Anyhow, we took every thing off the housing that was easy and turned the tractor up-side-down, ground out the ten inch crack, and welded it up. [picture 2]. [picture 3] is the right cast-iron cap, with gasket, so leak proof.
 

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I have seen pony starting engines on old (40s) cat bulldozers, I like your AC pony too. [cl

are there tractor snobs? because I was wondering who would even know you had used the 22 crank in the 27 block? are there guys that will know?
 
Joe, the two motors that I was robbing were 1922 and 1927 for date of manufacture. I should have put an apostrophe in front of the 22 and 27. I only mentioned the two crankshafts because the older one seemed to have more modern engineering, [counterweights]. There are very few old tractor snobs and none of them will ever know which crank I used.

Guys, Mrs. Mac has been at the computer trying to drag a small video over but has finally given up, as I did this afternoon. Sorry. No videos. :mad:
 
The "Shot gun shell" starts are pretty cool.
If any of you have ever seen the "Flight of the Phoenix" with Jimmy Stewart ,they use Flare gun shells to start their make shift plane at the end of the movie .
[P [P [P
Torchie
 
oh sorry, I got you were talking about 1922 and 1927, I was only making note of your "cringe on purists!" comments about the oilers and other fixes, wondering if there was any "cognoscenti" who would point out the "not original" bits. like that group of pebble beach guys who pick apart ferraris saying stuff like "a trico wiper blade on a 68 330! INDEED!"
 

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