[AT] Update: '47 B - First starting attempt

[STEVE ALLEN]

It has been a while!  My wife is slowly recovering from her broken leg/ankle, and I am able to get outside the house a little more these days.

So today, though it is chilly and misty, the older boy and I got out and finished prep on the B.   We began my mounting the sediment bowl and the fuel line.  A small snag:  the bail for the glass bowl itself wouldn't fit because of the intake, but we selected another bail from another bowl, and it fit.  We put in fresh plugs, adjusted the wires, and fitted the new mag cap.  We drained a little bit of water out of the crankcase, topped off the oil, and put a gallon of coolant in to bring the level up higher.  We temporarily stole the battery off the '49 A and hooked it up.  We put in some gas, and the moment of truth was at hand.

We cranked some while playing with the choke, and it popped but wouldn't catch.  We pulled the plugs out to see if it was flooding, but there was some carbon crap on them.  We cleaned them off and cranked some more.  

The pops became continuous:  he was running!

I spent some time playing with the idle and power needle, working to dial the carb in a bit, but the cold was against me, and we ran out of the gas we had put in before I had them figured out, but we can't be too far off.  

We found one definite problem:  the manifold has a hole in it :-(  It's about a 1/4' wide and 1/2" long on the inside of the curve on the flywheel side of the tractor.  So we're going to find out if the anti-seize I put on the stud threads all those years ago worked ;-)  Off course, we'll clean them up and heat them first!

In the meantime, I wonder if I can contrive to put a temporary plug in place with JB weld, at least long enough to be able to move (after we put the battery box/seat and platform back on) out of the shed so we can do something about the floor.  Has anybody had any luck with such a project?

Anyway, I was not convinced he'd start today, but he did, and that makes me happy.  We have more work to do, but we can be fairly certain it won't be wasted effort now.

A Good Tractor Day!

The "original" Steve Allen