WD 45 LP Unconversion

Yesterday, (12/23) I started tearing down the engine that came out of the propane tractor. It always amazes me what you find when you tear into something this old. The oil-pump and pick-up surprised me the most. The pump has a 10 tooth tear on it, from a D-17 maybe?

Here is one of the reasons I removed the engine. You can see where someone trimmed the gasket when they put the pan on, it leaked like a sieve.

Another disturbing find, not sure what causes this. I did find the shims pinched between the halves of the bearing shells, that couldn't have helped. You can see in the picture just on the left side of the bolt hole where the shims were pinched.

The engine has flat top pistons, 4&1/8" bore. It is NOT clean like I have heard propane engines tend to be on tear-down. Who knows if it was built for propane or ran on gas for quite a while? Had 190 psi compression in the best cylinder. One sleeve looks like the wrist pin may have been hitting. The low cylinder had 175 psi when I did the compression test. Maybe I should start a separate thread for the engine portion of this?


Edited by IBWD MIke - 24 Dec 2016 at 10:59am

As mentioned earlier in the thread this tractor had a final drive seal leaking. This is the good side, went ahead and serviced both. Who knows when it was last done.

Not what you want the inside of the rim to look like.


Got the seal changed and took her for a spin, everything looks good. I'm really starting to like this thing. Even the wide-front. A happy consequence of this project was finding out I sheared a bolt on the Dixie cutter. When that happened last fall I thought I took the intermediate gear out of the narrow front 45. Took the mower off the wide-front tractor for the final drive project so I put it on the narrow front and went to mow. Mowed about an acre of tall grass, worked like a charm. Talk about a load off my mind not having to work on that intermediate gear. 

Thanks Don.

Once again it's update time, finally!
I hit a few snags that really slowed my progress on this. The big one was a seal that I ruined when I assembled the torque tube to the bell housing. Just got to remove the engine to fix that little hydraulic leak. Once I got that buttoned up, started fighting with the fuel delivery, tank was rustier than I thought it was. Kept plugging the neck in the sediment bowl. Pulled the tank, about 5 pounds of nuts and bolts, shake till you can't shake any more and wala. Since this tractor started life as a WD it had the short fender mounts, changed them out to the tall ones today. Installed the hood, (best one I had) good enough for now, not a show tractor.

A shot with the M5 Dixie Cutter.

Last year I had trouble with hold position not holding, scalping, so I built and installed these 'feet'.

I think Murphy was riding shotgun with me today, when I engaged the pto, didn't go 10 feet and the button, pin that holds the coupler on the pto shaft left and ended my mowing for the day.

This has been a fun project, a little trying at times but still fun. It took a lot longer than I had anticipated, which is not unusual for me. The tractor has a few other things that need attention, pretty sure one axle seal is bad, will fix that when I get wheels and tires figured out for it and change the grease in the final drives. I have Char-Lynn power steering I was going to put on but decided to wait to get the thing up and running. I installed the pulley so that part is done. 

looks like you been really busy, and all looking good! and i'm glad i'm not the only one with a toy(s) on my work bench! and that si one cute little puppy you gots! what kind? and I wanna see more pics of it!

Starting to look like a gas tractor again. I really hoped to get this thing running this weekend but apparently I'm not very fast reassembling. Have some mowing to do with this thing, would be nice to get done before the snow flies.

Well Mike, Are you going to sell the LP parts now?
  I have an old WD with propane and the exhaust was clean, so was the oil between changes. and the fuel never varnished either. and nobody ever stole the gas out of it. but when we had mileage between fields, it came home to get filled up. Always thought a WD45 set up with LP would have been nice, and so were the 190XT on propane, smooth running tractors.

New clutch and pressure plate installed.

Finally got the tear down done, ready to start going back together.
 
Going in the right direction.

Time for a little update, finally got time to start the tear-down. Unfortunately the battery was dead in my camera so I didn't get as many action shots as I would have liked.
Here it is with the oil leaking engine out.
 

Is the Lp gas tank and carb for sale

Update time.

Well, winter arrived with the holiday season, deer season, and a new puppy for the girlfriend. This all combined to slow my progress a lot.

Painted several of the small parts.

One of the things that slowed me down is the oil seal on the shaft. They originally came with two seals, this shaft had a repair kit installed. It took quite a while to track down the right seal for it, (Thanks to Reed at the Farm Store)



It is two seals in one and requires a spacer.

Looks like you have it going your way, good job! Like the old saying go's "don't tosh old parts you might need them latter on down the road" I live by this. lol

With the hand clutch ready to go, time to clean up and paint the torque tube. To me the worst part of working on these old things is cleaning up to paint.

My red-neck spring tester.

OK here is where it gets a little confusing. The book says to build three stacks of shims .140" thick, space evenly in place of the pressure washer. Then press together by hand and measure  the gap, subtract .005" and use a shim-pack this thickness.

I use an old sleeve to press things together and measure.

Now you can tear this thing apart.


This particular clutch is in pretty rough shape, it's not the one going in the tractor. I got over halfway through building one before I remembered to take the pictures. Thought I would show the dis-assembly process.