[Farmall] Award

[Richard Pope]

Karl:

I'm brand new to this list and this is my first post.  That's an interesting 
story about your F-20.  I'm surprised it ran at all.

I recently purchased my first ever tractor, a 1953 Farmall Super M.  The 
thing runs great and I've used it on our property to pull out Juniper stumps 
and also drag the weeds.  We live in the High Desert in Southern California 
and have lots of tumbleweeds.  I need a few misc. parts before I start to 
restore the tractor.  Where is a good source for Super M parts?

Where do you live that's hitting 115 degrees every day?

Regards,

Richard Pope
Apple Valley, CA


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Olmstead" <olmstead at ridgenet.net>
To: "Farmall list" <farmall at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 12:25 PM
Subject: [Farmall] Award


> Well-known Farmall collector Karl Olmstead recently qualified for the 
> official "I'm STUPID" award.  For reasons known only to Mr. Olmstead, he's 
> kept this pretty quiet.  Here's his story:
>
> Remember that F-20 that I started for the first time in front of friends 
> on July 4th?  The one that I had lavished countless hours on getting it 
> ready for its first run in several years?  And how it barely ran?  One of 
> the steps in the preparation process was removing the rocker arm cover and 
> hosing down the valves with carb cleaner, then blowing any sludge and dirt 
> away with an air hose.  Then I oiled the rocker arms and the valves with a 
> squirt can.  Put the cover back in place and went on to other chores.
>
> Last weekend I was fishing around in my carb cleaner bath and I found the 
> priming tubes that belonged to the F-20.  I had removed them and put them 
> in the cleaner basket, but they rolled out and were lying on the bottom of 
> the carb cleaner bath.  Significant emotional event occurred; I whacked my 
> forhead with my hand, yelled a few cuss words, and knew why the F-20 
> wouldn't run right.  With those priming tubes missing, there are two 
> holes, nearly half an inch in diameter, directly into the intake ports in 
> the cylinder head.  Talk about a massive vacuum leak!  It's a wonder that 
> the engine ran at all.
>
> Maybe this weekend I'll try starting the tractor again.  I may have to 
> short-circuit the oil filter; it's still on my workbench getting fixed. 
> All tractor work has come to a halt here; we're hitting 115 degrees every 
> day, and my evaporative cooler in the workshop can't handle that.  Nor can 
> I.
>
> My plan on the oil filter mount is to align my mill with the threaded hole 
> that holds the filter cartridge cover housing in place, fill all the 
> warped areas of the mount with J-B Weld, and mill a new slot for the cover 
> housing to mate with.  My machinist buddy has convinced me that the most 
> important feature on the filter mount is that threaded hole; everything 
> else needs to be parallel or perpendicular to it to prevent leaks.
>
> -Karl
>
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