A Massey-Harris 33.

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MercuryMac

Builder Junky!
Joined
Jan 18, 2013
Messages
4,919
Location
Northern Alberta, Canada.
I feel I'm getting further and further behind on my project list. Maybe I should quit getting more cool things. ------ I can quit any time I want to, honest.
Remember last year about this time, I told you that some friends phoned and asked if I had a project going that they could help with, well, the same guys phoned again this year, with the same request. I lied to them last year and said "yes, I'll be bring it in tomorrow", and then scrambled around looking for a suitable project. This year was a carbon copy of last year. Those guys keep their noses to the grindstone, but it forces me to keep moving along too.
I had started building a 33 Massey-Harris a while ago, so I took the motor in to them to finish rebuilding.
The tractor was partly dismantled and partly missing, so I got a good deal on it. My sandblasting buddy came out one day and blasted two tractors for me, this Massey-Harris and you'll see in one picture there is also my daughter's Minneapolis-Moline U. Not pictured is a whole yard full of tin, hoods, fenders, aircleaners, grilles, and miscellaneous weird stuff to be sandblasted.
 

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The Minneapolis-Moline U came out really nice, when it was painted. It always was a good tractor and it still is. She started a haying operation when she was in 4-H and needed a tractor.
 

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Anyhow I took the motor, [a Chrysler 23 inch flathead six with 230 cu. in.] in to my building friends. The first picture is the poor old motor dumped out. I had the motor stripped down pretty good, so now I have been taking the extra stuff in to them. When I get it back it's going to be running. The carburetor was rebuilt a while ago and now I'm getting the intake and exhaust manifolds ready to mount. This has not been going quickly, as there are eight bolts rusted permanently in there and mostly broken off also. There is a five inch crack and a two inch one to weld up. The second picture is the intake with me putting in a Heli-coil because I was too rough taking one broken bolt out. pic three is the intake in primer.
 

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Thank you guys.
Harvest Gold, Dutch, Harvest Gold, not just orange.
Kenny, this 33 will look just like your dads tractor just a wee bit smaller.
OI, I've had tractors for a long time but I didn't have time to build them when I was farming and trucking together and fixing all of my own stuff.

Here's my daughter, Chanelle, plowing with her Minneapolis, and a way in the back of the line right at the horizon, that tall old guy on a Massey Ferguson 95, is her Dad. #2 Crimping Timothy hay.
 

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sorry , let me re-frase...

I love the Harvest gold.... looks a bit like orange, but I love it anyway. Cool name for a tractor color too [cl

I really miss that swing seat on my tractor. (not that it`s big enough to accomodate it) One thing I did notice tho, Your daughter`s leg seems to be scary close to that pto shaft when sitting sideways :eek:[S
 
Mac. Yours will look nicer. My dad painted his with a brush. It looks great for a brush job. But would have looked better sprayed. He did a few that way. One he did was a Massey Harris Pony. A lot smaller. He had a couple of Allis Chalmers and a few Farmalls.
 
Kenny, I hope to spray this tractor. I agree that spraying paint looks a way better.
Dutch, That's the old way with PTOs. There is a tin sleeve over the PTO shaft that runs on plastic bushings. The safety sleeve just stops turning when it get in contact with anything.
 
I welded up the biggish crack in the exhaust manifold with partial success. Near the end I started chasing new cracks.
I painted the intake and then mounted them together.
 

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It's my job to get the secondary things ready for the motor. I thought to get a bellhousing ready to go. For Chrysler flatheads there are at least five different bellhousings, a marine one, a tractor one, a combine one, a car one and a truck one, and I needed a tractor one. #1 pic is a tractor bell on a longer flathead, the motor I'm rebuilding is out of a combine.
Not much progress happened today. I took the dust pan off the bottom. On pre-1962 Chryslers you have to take the flywheel off before you take the bellhousing off. Before you take the flywheel off you have to take the pressure plate off. Before you take the pressure plate off you should take the clutch cross-shaft out. Before you take the pressure plate off you should find out if you can turn the motor over, so you can get at the other half of the bolts. So I have quite a few jobs partly done and now I'm going to have to take this motor apart and break it free so I can get it turning over. :confused::(
 

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Sounds almost like the order is in the reverse of most. Leave it to Chiseler[ddd, I mean Chrysler. It a good thing you are experienced at this. Good luck.[P[P
 
I have some good news. Last night I was talking to an old friend who is a tractor guy. He is also an old Chrysler guy, [had a few Hemi's in big trucks and has a sweet '41 Plymouth coupe]. He told me a bellhousing removal trick that probably will work. The reason you have to take the flywheel off, is there are mounting pins from the engine block to the front side of the bellhousing, inwards from the circumference. Well, if you drive those pins back out of the engine block, you can lift the bell straight up off the flywheel. Then I can get the pressure plate off, but I think the flywheel bolts go in from the front, maybe, so I might still have to get the motor freed up. The picture shows the front of a pre-'62 V-8 bellhousing, but you can see why I can't take it off straight back like newer bells.
 

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I have some good news. Last night I was talking to an old friend who is a tractor guy. He is also an old Chrysler guy, [had a few Hemi's in big trucks and has a sweet '41 Plymouth coupe]. He told me a bellhousing removal trick that probably will work. The reason you have to take the flywheel off, is there are mounting pins from the engine block to the front side of the bellhousing, inwards from the circumference. Well, if you drive those pins back out of the engine block, you can lift the bell straight up off the flywheel. Then I can get the pressure plate off, but I think the flywheel bolts go in from the front, maybe, so I might still have to get the motor freed up. The picture shows the front of a pre-'62 V-8 bellhousing, but you can see why I can't take it off straight back like newer bells.

Interesting[S
 
Well, it turns out that you can't quite hammer the alignment dowels right out on this unit. I got them about 7/8 of the way and then they stopped dead. Even with the bolts out of the bellhousing and it pushed back 3/16" the dowels didn't quite come out of the engine block. 'Close' is only good in horseshoes and hand-grenades. It doesn't get an old Chrysler bellhousing off. Grumbling, I took the head off the motor and trimmed down a block to start beating pistons down. I finally broke that block and made another. The second block did get the crank to turn a little more than a quarter inch. When #2 block broke, I gave up.
Stress pressure makes me think better sometimes. I put a cutting blade on my angle grinder and reached in between the engine block and the bellhousing and cut the dowels off in less than a minute, then lifted the bellhousing straight up. It was easy to take the pressure plate off after that. In one picture I circled the cut off alignment dowels.
I also made an exhaust outlet gasket.
 

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