Help me identify this tractor

Hi all! I’m hoping some of you can give me some advice and point me in the right direction. My fiancée's grandmother is getting ready to hold an auction, and an older Alice Chalmers tractor will be going up. I’ve spoken with grandma, and she’d rather it go to me rather than to someone outside of the family. Having worked on cars, small engines, and motorcycles, I’m mechanically inclined, but don’t have any experience with farm tractors. I’m interested in taking this on as a project, but have a few questions.

First, here are a few photos:

What is missing?

I’m not seeing a radiator, or hood. Anything else I’m missing?

What in particular should I be looking at/for?

I will be seeing the tractor in person this weekend, and will have more details and better pictures then.

What would be a fair price?

What is is?

From what little research I’ve done, It looks to be a B/C/CA. Any indication of model or year? Is there a data plate on the machine that I can look for to give me some more information?

What would I need to do right away?

I’m unsure when the last time this was run. I’m hoping any parts that are missing can be found on the property, but I need to know what to look for. 

I appreciate any and all help you all are able to provide. I’ll make sure to update you when I know more. In the meantime, do you have any recommended forums or articles I can take a look at to start reading and learning?  

Edited by joshdc91 - 22 Jun 2016 at 11:15am

What distinguishes it as a CA?  I figured it out elsewhere, the spinout rear wheels. What else distinguishes a CA from a B or C?

Edited by joshdc91 - 22 Jun 2016 at 11:16am

Well, what can happen is that water can get down from the top side to the crankcase, but at the same time it can stop on top of the pistons and not go much further, but can sure lock the engine up. If it has set outside, for me I'd pull the head and take a look, plus the pan. Tain't cost nothin' yet.LOL And there's several places on this site you can save some money on parts instead of Acgo who seem pricey but good. Drain all fluids the first thing. If water is in tranny, hydraulic system, engine etc. you'll get a cleaner job by not mixing them up trying to turn the engine over. Gotta change'em anyway. But if there is no water in anything go ahead and loosen it up and after you get it started and warmed up, then drain oils. Sounds like there is a possibility that the radiator went bad, was removed to repair and job never completed. Look hard for missing parts. You could pull the plugs and pour a mixture of kerosene and acetone in on the pistons and let it set for 24 hrs. or longer and see if it loosens up. There's a small inspection cover on the LH side of the flywheel housing that you can take off and reach in and prize the flywheel back and forth to get the engine to loosen up. Might take a month but don't give up. Another good way is since the rad. and hood are off it would be easy to chain or wire a long 4X4 to the front pulley crossways, and hang a heavy weight on it. Use as long as you have handy. You know, the old fulcrum story. I forgot what your other questions were but you're fortunate to find a CA like this. In my opinion there was never a better little tractor made for the time. Time to eat. See you later. Leon  Cmo  P.S. send pics.

In front of the shifter lever the serial number is located.  If you can get that you can refer to the serial number section of this forum for the year of the CA.  

If the exhaust hasn't been covered, its almost sure an exhaust valve sits open and water has run into that cylinder and rusted the rings to the cylinders. Forcing an engine over in that condition often bends the connecting rod sideways (column buckling) to the I beam shape and that puts more bind on the rod insert and the piston which then breaks the rod and the remains of the rod generally pokes a new crankcase inspection hole in the side of the block. Its far better to take the head off and pull the rod, piston, and sleeve that are rusted together and work on them without pushing on the rod. There are some potions that will break the rust, Kroil being one of the best commercial products but some experiments have found a 50/50 mix of acetone and ATF works better. In any case it takes some patience.

Gerald J.

Thanks for everyones help. I'll be taking a look at it this Saturday. I'll update on Sunday or Monday with details and more pictures.

It is an early CA, probably 51 or 52 model. It looks to be a pin hitch and has the early style air cleaner cup as used on the C's and early B's. A B would have a wide front end and the steering arm goes down, instead of up where it comes off the gearbox under the gas tank.
 It has a hand clutch lever on your right as you sit on it, B and C never had that. As mentioned, the double boss on front(under where the rad goes) was only on a CA. Power shift wheels were never used on the B and C.
 I might venture to guess they hood is missing because the hole in it isn't big enough for that (wrong) muffler.
 It could be worth a couple hundred dollars for a parts tractor and if the rims aren't rotted out from calcium chloride that is a big cost savings for a restore project.


Edited by CTuckerNWIL - 22 Jun 2016 at 4:40pm