[Farmall] O-12 chores

Mon Dec 25 20:08:05 PST 2006

Karl, I enjoyed your story as always.  Keep 'em coming!

Alan Riley
Deville, LA

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <olmstead at ridgenet.net>
To: <farmall at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2006 9:29 PM
Subject: [Farmall] O-12 chores

> The Farmall list has been seriously short on notes from people workin' on
> tractors lately, so maybe it's time to relate another of my ongoing
> adventures.
>
> I drove my Volkswagen Golf to the EGE&TA swapmeet in Tulare, CA back in
> November.  I knew I was picking up a couple hundred pounds of parts, but
> nothing that the VW couldn't handle.  Didn't even slow me down; I still
> wound up buying a 1936 McCormick-Deering O-12. Seemed that the seller was
> more or less going my way, so he could deliver it after the swapmeet...
>
> The odd thing about this tractor was that it actually ran.  We started it
> up while it was still on the seller's trailer.  Smoked a bit, leaked a
> lot, but it did run.  Unlike the dozen or so O-12s I already have.
>
> After I got it home, I put in some more gas and ran it around the yard for
> a few days.  It's a hand clutch, foot brake model with the tiny 6" front
> wheels.  Clutch works like a Caterpillar, not a John Deere.  Back is
> engaged, forward is disengaged.  Not a speck of paint on the tractor, but
> it started easily.  Needed some odds and ends.
>
> A week or so after I got it home, the fan belt broke.  I didn't notice it
> and made another lap around my property before I parked it.  Smelled a
> little warm and steamed a bit, but that was all.  Next weekend I removed
> the fan, which looked a little funny (it had come loose, as it turns out).
> Fans are one of those things that never get serviced on the -12 family;
> they have an oil reservoir that needs to be topped off.  While servicing
> the fan I found a cracked blade, so I replaced it with a unit I had
> already sandblasted and painted.  Thought I had a fan belt, but it was 39
> inches long; used all the belt adjustment and more.  Turns out that a 37"
> belt is nearly perfect.  36 1/2 would be even better, if you can find one.
> It's a wide belt, so at NAPA, it's a '370W', or something like that.
>
> Had to remove the starting crank in order to make room for the belt.  In
> order to get to that, you have to remove the flat sheet of metal that
> covers the front of the frame below the radiator.  The cast iron support
> for the starting crank was broken, so I went looking for a better one on
> my other O-12s.  Seems that they've ALL been broken.  Probably by people
> trying to push something with the front of the tractor.  So the problem
> changed; I had to decide whether to make a new crank support or try and
> get an old one rewelded.  At present, I'm leaning toward fabricating new
> crank supports out of steel.  Some people can weld or braze cast iron
> successfully, but for every one of them there are a hundred people who
> think they can (and are wrong).  Only about a quarter inch of the crank
> support shows, so I think that a fabricated unit will work fine and be
> undetectable by casual observers.  And give me some quality time on the
> lathe makin' parts.  If I do go that way, I'll make up a lot of crank
> support, not just one for this project.
>
> I found a usable but ugly crank support, replaced the fan belt and fan
> assembly and fan shroud, and got the tractor running again.  Decided to
> check the air filter; nearly every old tractor I've bought comes with an
> empty oil cup.  This one was full of oil, but badly dented, so I found a
> better replacement and filled it with fresh oil.  The hoses that attach
> the right angle air pipe to the carb needed refreshing; I used 303
> protectant.  The magneto was working well, but I am nervous about running
> F4 magnetos that obviously haven't been serviced for thirty years, so I
> pulled the old mag and put on one I had rebuilt.  Plug wires and spark
> plugs will need checking before too much longer, but that's not urgent.
>
> Fiddled with front tires.  They were very low.  The 6" front wheels
> require extensions on the valve stems in order to get them out where you
> can add air.  I put two extensions together and got the tires filled, but
> one goes flat over night for reasons I haven't determined yet.  Rear tires
> just needed filling.  And the brakes drag badly; I can't push the tractor
> by hand.
>
> The more I drove the tractor, the better it ran, and the worse the
> radiator leaked.  I'm going to try a stop-leak fix first; rebuilding O-12
> radiators is a major task.  And the overflow pipe has rusted away, so any
> overflow drips down, gets sucked into the ran, and blows back onto me.
> That, also, will require radiator rebuild to fix.
>
> The fuel pump glass bowl had a water line in it, so I pulled it off and
> cleaned the glass.  Just marks from dirty fuel; the fresh fuel I had put
> in had no water in it.  Had to scrounge a new gasket for the sight glass;
> the old one was shot.  I started the tractor and saw fuel dripping from
> the fuel pump.  And noticed that someone had replaced the fuel pump vent
> with a pipe plug.  That's bad; it means that if the pump diaphragm is
> broken, fuel runs right into the crankcase.  So I replaced the fuel pump
> with one I had rebuilt.  The fuel line from pump to the 'T' by the gas
> tank had a badly messed up fitting, so I scrounged in my shop for a better
> line.  Found one and installed it.  Tried to start the tractor and it
> would only pop after I sprayed carb cleaner in the carb.  Unscrewed the
> end of the 'new' line I had installed and found it dry.  No fuel was
> passing.  Took it off the tractor and found that it was completely
> plugged, so I put the old, ugly line back on.  The O-12 started and ran
> well, so I drove it around and enjoyed it.  No smoke, crisp throttle
> response, etc.
>
> Pulled it back under my sun shade and drained the oil.  Black, and smelled
> of gasoline.  Removed the oil filter cover.  The filter was one of those
> Purolator brass sieves.  Unscrewed the plug in the base of the oil filter
> bracket, and nothing came out.  Poked my finger in.  It was full of
> 'Jello'; sludge which was too thick to drain.  Stirred it up with a
> screwdriver and let it drain overnight.  Today I removed the cover plate
> and cleaned out the 'sludge trap'.  My term; I've found it full of goop on
> every F-12 I've dismantled.  Sludge falls off the filter element and drops
> down into the sludge trap.  Nobody ever cleans it.
>
> Since I was into sludge cleanup, I removed the rocker arm cover today and
> hosed down the rocker arms and valves with Wal Mart carb cleaner, then
> blew the sludge off with compressed air.  Cleaned up the oil filter
> bracket and installed a new gasket.  Tried a repainted oil filter cover on
> for size and found that it rocked side to side at least a sixteenth of an
> inch.  No way it would seal.  Looked closer and saw that the oil filter
> bracket was damaged, as all X-12 units are; bent downward and cracked from
> being overtightened to stop leaks.  Since ALL oil filter mounts are bent,
> I'll have to root through the ones I've already cleaned up and find the
> least distorted one.  Then I'll have to fill the O-ring groove with JB
> Weld, mount it on my rotary table and mill out a new groove with a 1/8"
> end mill.
>
> Once I get the filter mount back in place, I'll put in the old brass
> filter element and fill the crankcase up over the crankshaft with diesel
> fuel.  Then I'll remove the spark plugs and tow the tractor around the
> yard in gear so that the inside of the engine gets washed out.  Then I'll
> drain the diesel fuel and drop the oil pan (no easy task on an early O-12;
> this one has the Y-shaped radius yoke under it, which interferes with oil
> pan removal.  Then I'll clean out the pan, clean up the oil filter intake,
> and install new oil pan gaskets.  After all of that, I'll fill the
> crankcase with good oil, confident that 90% of the sludge buildup is gone.
>
> And after that, I'll drive the tractor around and then adjust the valve
> lash.  And take care of a few more odds and ends.  Hopefully I can stop at
> that point, with a good-running but ugly O-12.  And get back on the O-12
> restoration I'm just a little ways into....  still rebuilding the front
> axle and steering parts.
>
> -Karl
>
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