Oh the joys of old tractors. LONG.

I know NONE of you can relate to any of this.

A few years ago I bought a '38 B to play with but things being what they are, haven't had time to spend on it till lately.   The seller was a friend and good mechanic so even though the carb and mag were in a box and my buddy said there was some bearing nose in the left final drive, I wasn't too worried.... but he hadn't really owned it that long....hadn't done any work on it really. Few odds and ends to sort out for the correct police but nothing big. I could tell someone had done a few things...added a three point with a few homemade parts (works fine), fuel line, JB weld on the air cleaner cup....that kind of stuff. Not unheard of.

Well, I cleaned and rebuilt the carb, put a little Marvel's in each cylinder, new plugs, cleaned and timed the mag (which was a later model X mag), cleaned out the tank, primed the oil pump and she started up after a few pulls and maintained good oil pressure. No smoke after burning off the Marvel's.     Cool.
So I am playing with it...putting around the area.   Wait...do I hear a rod knock? What is this wet stuff blowing all over?   Yep, water pump is dumping it out as fast as I can pour it in.
So, I get a water pump and begin swapping it. Hey....why does this crankshaft pulley flop around? Why isn't it tight?   OK, pull the grill and radiator. Put a wrench on the crank bolt....snap. Breaks off flush with the surface of pulley boss. Cobalt drill and an "easy out". Snap. "Easy out" breaks off even with the top of the broken bolt.   Maybe I can shatter the easy out stub with a good hard, sharp punch. Of course NOT. It just drives deeper in the hole. OK. Dremel tool and little grind stones...and time. And more stones. OK. Finally grind out the EO stub. Drill on through the bolt with successively larger bits and get the pulley off. Oh, by the way, none of the four studs and nuts holding the radiator support on the front of the motor are the same. What the...??   Hey, WHERE is the woodruff key on the crankshaft? What the...?? The keyway in the pulley has a big chunk missing! The bolt has been just cranked down hard right over the crank key slot...and has been wallowing out the keyway.   I bet THIS is what I have been thinking is a rod knock!
So...now to figure out how to repair the crank and find another pulley.
AND A WOODRUFF KEY.
Hope you have had a chuckle.
(....and we are still friends. He had not done any of the "work" on the crank.)

Edited by 1mathom1 - 18 May 2015 at 10:26am

Yup! The biggest thing wrong with something mechanical is the guy that worked on it before you.

SteveM C/IL wrote: Yup! The biggest thing wrong with something mechanical is the guy that worked on it before you.

As a friend of mine says about old tractors, "The damn thing has been farmered to death."

BTW:  I'm not a metallurgist, but I play one on TV.  Actually i'm just clumsy and I break a lot of tools.

At least it wasn't a hose clamp holding a square key on a shaft....

Stuff like that happens to me on a good day. Most days it's worse. Darrel

Another reason that I am not interested in buying a tractor that has a pretty paint job.

SHAMELESS wrote: i'd better stay away from Darrel, he don't needs any help!

SHAMELESS, you thinking that if'n we were to work together for a day, that by the end of the day, we'd be about a week behind? Darrel