[Farmall] The 22-36 Saga continues

[Bob Currie]

Lane,
Excellent account. I felt like I was right there with you during the entire 
drill. It is one that I have gladly done many times with some of the old 
stuff that has arrived in my shop. Not always with the same results, but 
great fun never the less. I'm especially proud of you for using the word 
"cranked" in your story, and the not the words "towed around the yard".. 
cause as most of us know, real tractors are painted gray, and don't have a 
battery :) The dyno stuff was very interesting. I don't have any of that 
kind of equipment, but I would have liked to looked over your shoulder 
during the tests..Our good friend Karl Olmstead has a great, early 1929 
McDeering 22-36, and I'm sure your story will excite him to the point that 
he'll drop his home remodeling tools, climb down off the ladder, and run 
out to the back forty to get "Ol Neihart", drag it into his shop area, and 
start the process..And it also goes without saying, (although I willI), 
that any good resurrection story isn't complete without some pix. So, thank 
you for those too.

bobcurrie


  At 07:55 PM 7/24/04, you wrote:
>Before I begin the tale of the 22-36 I'd like to thank Karl and Justin for
>their input on dealing with the oil pan sludge, dropping the pan was a
>necessary evil.
>
>Before I began I called Gordon Rice and ordered a new pan gasket to be sure
>they were available.  In 3 days it arrived on my door step and I began to
>wallow in the slime.  Dropping that Big Ol' cast iron bath tub sized pan was
>not exactly fun. I had to enlist the help of a floor jack as well as remove
>the tie rod in order to drop it to the floor and slide it out. Sludge was
>about an inch deep in the bottom of the pan so I scraped out what I could
>and then washed out the rest with mineral spirits until it was "shiny
>clean". While the pan was off I cleaned out the Purolator filter and flushed
>all the oil lines to make sure none of the sludge got into them.  The base
>of the Purolator was filled with heavy sludge and the element was covered
>with a black crust.  The element cleaned up nice with a soft brush in the
>parts washer. After the oil delivery system was all cleaned up, it was time
>to apply the gasket and "Raise the Titanic Pan" into place.  This took two
>people since holding the pan in place and starting the bolts were
>impossible.  My Dad operated the floor jack while I grunted and groaned to
>shift the pan in place for the bolts to line up.  After 3 or 4 bolts were in
>place the rest was child's play.  When all was snugged up and in place I
>added the 30W Low Ash oil; seemed like it would never fill up and took
>better part of a 5 gallon bucket.  Problem was the top Petcock was broken
>and I couldn't get it open so I had to "eyeball" the level through the
>handholes on the opposite side of the engine.
>
>I forgot to mention but while I was waiting for the oil pan gasket I did go
>back to the transmission end of the tractor for one night.  I found a third
>drain plug in the transmission toward the front and was surprised to find
>about a gallon of water hiding in this section of the transmission.  This
>was higher than the rest so I can't figure why this didn't drain out the
>other holes.  I left it open not knowing if they were all interconnected but
>when I began adding the fresh 90W gear oil, it began to run out the front
>plug hole after about 10 gallons.  The transmission took a total of 15
>gallons before coming out the "full plug".
>
>Both rear tires were filled with calcium so I drained both off them,
>refilled them with clear water and drained again and then added 2 gallons of
>pure antifreeze to keep any water left in the tired from freezing.  I had to
>get new valves for both tires since both were leaking from calcium damage.
>
>Now for the engine, I put four new W-20 plugs in since the old ones were
>pretty sad looking although they worked last time it ran 4 years ago. A
>fresh E4A Magneto was also traded in for the old E4 since the impulse was
>not working. Seemed like all should be in order for a test run and believe
>it or not it started on the first crank.  This was too good to be true - and
>YES it was too good to be true because after its maiden run I couldn't get
>it started for 2 more nights.  Seems there was a carb problem(flooding) so
>now it was time to tear that down.  I cleaned it up and put a new needle and
>seat in but the problem only got worse.  I tried floats from other parts
>carbs I had lying around since the original seemed a little "heavy". After
>assembling and disassembling at least 10 times I decided to try the old
>needle and seat again.  Instant success this time; seemed like the old
>needle and seat worked better than the new one - no more flooding.  New
>needle and seat is now in the trash.   Time to try it again but this time it
>took lots of cranking and gentle persuasion to get it to start and keep
>running.  Lots of smoke and coughing until the cylinders got un-flooded, and
>some fine tuning on the carb adjustments.  But after it got over its initial
>"fits" it ran like a fine watch.  It will usually start on the first or
>second crank every time now.
>
>I did some Dyno testing since I really would like to use this tractor in the
>local tractor pulls since it would probably be one of the oldest in the
>pulls and it should do fairly well.  The test results were nearly identical
>to the Nebraska Tractor Tests if I'm interpreting them correctly.  At 535RPM
>I was getting 40.5HP which is about the same as the Nebraska Tests.  I
>decided to see how much lugging power it had and this is where the results
>really impressed me.  All the results can be seen on the pictures I'm
>posting at the end of this post but to make a long story short, when I
>reached the point of diminishing returns which was 320RPM's I was getting a
>reading of 57HP.  I'd appreciate anyone's interpretation of these figures,
>they seem odd to me from other tractors I've tested.
>
>The Dyno was also helpful in dialing in the magneto advance and retard
>lever. After I found the "sweet spot", the slightest tweak of the lever
>either advance or retard would give a loss of 2 to 3 HP at maximum RPM
>
>As always any comments always appreciated.  Pictures can be seen at:
>
>http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=3010962&a=31338268&pw=
>
>
>Lane Freeman
>New Tripoli, PA
>
>
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