[AT] No smoking please

[Indiana Robinson]

	I had my AC-C at the museum show running the buzz saw and I was having some problems 
with scale in the gas tank. Some years ago it got a good bit of water in the tank. I'm 
not quite sure how since it was parked outside for years without any problems and has 
never gotten any water in it since. I suspected a bit of foul-play. When it had the water 
in it the inside of the tank developed a lot of rust and scale. I had been intending to 
pull the tank and shake it out but but always hate to take a painted tractor apart since 
it always chips up paint. That has just given me an excuse to procrastinate and I have 
become increasingly good at that. I have a small piece of rubber tubing in the tractor 
tool box and if some scale blocked the outlet I would take the sediment bowl off and hold 
the tube up against the outlet and blow it clear. Today,since I was at a show, of course 
it decided to really do a first rate job of clogging and wouldn't blow clear. I decided 
to pull the complete sediment bowl assembly and clean it out a bit. The problem was that 
I didn't have a container big enough to hold all of the fuel in the tank. After careful 
deliberation I said to hell with it and removed the fuel line and unscrewed the assembly 
from the tank (looking for nearby smokers first). I held a 1 gallon ice cream bucket 
under the thing as I took it out and I was actually able to remove it and get it screwed 
back in losing only about one half pint of gas (maybe $60 worth).   ;-)   My ice cream 
bucket ended up with about 2 tablespoons of scale in it and about 3 quarts of gas. I sat 
it aside for a few minutes to settle out and then strained most of it back through a 
cloth and a funnel into my gas can. The tractor is now running trouble free. I will 
probably pull the thing again when I get it home but I will have a container large enough 
to hold everything. Then I can take time to flush it out better. There does not appear to 
be a stand pipe in this tank but I may put one in it while I have it apart.
	There were not a lot of "special" tractors at this show, mostly the regular tractors 
used here in the midwest for general farming. One I found interesting was a Massey Harris 
50 which looked like a Massey Ferguson 50 but with the MH decals and the chassis all 
painted gold. I don't recall those being sold here. It was a very nice restoration and 
watching him drive it , seemed very tight and responsive like a new tractor.
	Another I found interesting was a Ferguson TO-20. It was not really a restoration but 
had been painted. I noticed that it was a little off color from a distance but that's OK, 
I'm not the correct police. What was unusual was that when closer it was very textured 
and grainy. Not just orange peel but more like it was intentional. Maybe some kind of 
industrial coating??? It was not like poly bed liner.
	I could sympathize with several guys that had nice paint jobs which were partly ruined 
by modern gasoline. One in particular was a very nice Oliver 770 that had a sharp paint 
job but had a 2' circle of blistering paint where gas had leaked from the carb and ran 
down. I saw several others with blistered areas. It kind of makes you appreciate those 
old Farmalls with the little tin shield under the carb. 

-- 
"farmer", Esquire
At Hewick Midwest
      Wealth beyond belief, just no money...

Paternal Robinson's here by way of Norway (Clan Gunn), Scottish Highlands,
Cleasby Yorkshire England, Virginia, Kentucky then Indiana. In America 100 
years 
before the revolution.


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana USA
robinson at svs.net