[AT] winter projects?

[Mike Sloane]

Since Winter didn't officially end until 3/20, I guess I should include 
about the only thing I accomplished with tractors this season:

Last Fall, I had a bunch of trees come down on my property from my 
neighbor's land. He had no interest in doing anything with them, but 
said that he wouldn't mind if I piled anything I didn't want for 
firewood back on his side. Most of it was eastern red cedar, which 
nobody burns around here, but there was also an 18" ash that looked like 
a good source of wood. I had also acquired half a dozen chain saws that 
"needed work". I got several of the saws working fine (in addition to 
mine) and have made considerable progress on the mess - the trees were 
all bound together in miles of bittersweet vine. Once I started in on 
them, I also realized that a LOT of the trees on my place were also 
being strangled by the bittersweet, so I started cutting and pulling 
that down as well. What has this got to do with tractors? The cuttings 
ended up in several very large piles in the middle of my lawn, all held 
together with the vines and impossible to move by hand. So I decided to 
re-activate my Case 430CK loader tractor to remove them. The Case hadn't 
been run in a year, and of course it wouldn't start. It ended up that 
the main jet in the M-S carburetor was clogged with brown goop. Once I 
cleaned out the carburetor and put fresh gas in the tank, I had another 
problem - the ignition points were "dirty". I filed them and got the 
engine running reasonably well, but then I found that the mostly bald 
tires in the back didn't provide enough traction to move the trash. So I 
went through my "inventory" of old tire chains and actually found two 
that were a perfect fit. They are the "ladder" type and have a tendency 
to fall between the lugs, but the lugs are down so low that isn't really 
an issue. Finally, I was able to move the piles, but I found that the 
engine was still hard starting and didn't run all that well. I "bit the 
bullet" and ordered a Pertronix "Ignitor" module for it and installed it 
earlier this week, and now the engine starts with a touch of the starter 
switch and runs more smoothly than it ever has since I have owned it. 
The only thing left now is to get the generator/regulator fixed up so 
that the battery charges...

Image can be seen at 
<http://public.fotki.com/mikesloane/case_430_ck/chains-on-case-4.html>

Our winter was unusually mild, so the Ford 860 that usually does snow 
clearing duty never even ran, and it is still too soon for springtime 
chores for the other tractors. The only other tractor that ran was the 
Farmall 560 diesel that powered the 25 KW generator during a couple of 
power outages last Fall and Winter. That tractor blew the hydraulic hose 
between the pump and the hydraulic manifold (fortunately only a few 
minutes before power was restored). Not really a "project" - that was an 
emergency repair. Image can be seen at 
<http://public.fotki.com/mikesloane/farmall_560_tractor/new-hydraulic-line.html>

Mike

On 3/25/2012 8:31 AM, john hall wrote:
> I posted this back at Thanksgiving and thought since the list is practically
> dead, maybe some of you would like to give updates on how you did on your
> winter project to do list?