I have to keep everyone ready to "Tune in next week" lol

Your wife WANTS you to go look at a tractor??? Sounds like you're bothering her too much in the house.

Looks terrific! Bet it'll sound like a million bucks when running. :)

Sugarmaker wrote: Nice work Dave! Good luck, and it looks like you are close to starting this 45 up! The wife wants me to go look at a WD45 at a auction in town this Saturday. Its rough. No carb and the exhaust manifold has a can over it. Narrow front end. Tires look poor to fair. Nothing special, just a well rusted old Allis! I don't think I need another project right now. Regards,  Chris

C'mon Chris.......you've got LOTS of time to do that.....right after the Maple syrup, and then the.....Honey-Do-List.  Besides, you need extra parts........
You can NEVER have too many Allis tractors......

79fordblake wrote: When did you start this project? Took me 10 months to get my engine done and you started before me I think.

C'mon Blake, it's one thing to be poking somebody in the eye on the shops forum, but that was nasty...Poke him back 6 times Dave and say he can't read any more of this...

ALL kidding aside........Looks GREAT Dave!!  Keep em coming!!!

Hour Meter
     I thought it would be fun to install an hour meter so I could keep track of my hours on the rebuild. Sometimes you get fooled about how many or few hours you actually put on a tractor.
I bought HOBBS Honeywell 85094 hour meter for $25.
     I looked and thought for awhile and finally decided to mount it behind the battery box to the left of the Traction Boost gauge. I got a thin piece of steel banding, bent it and mounted it similar to the traction boost gauge. The meter hangs on the banding and is attached just by 2 zip ties. I would like a little more factory look, but this was simple and you hardly notice it. At least it looks better than the hose clamp I had holing it on at first. I grounded the hour meter to the bolt it mounts to. For a switched power lead, I decided to run a wire to the coil and share the positive coil terminal.
     If I forget and leave the switch it will still read hours even if the engine’s not running, but at least it’ll give me a good sense of how much use I’m putting on the tractor.




Boy, the hour meter doesn't look that crooked in person, but it sure does in that picture.


Edited by Allis dave - 22 Mar 2017 at 7:16am

I'm going to skip my explanation on how to install the radiator, alternator, starter, and water pump. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be rebuilding an engine. LOL
Only thing I think is noteworthy on the radiator is to make sure that the rubber mounts that the radiator sits on are good.

Priming the Oil System
For initial fill, I used 10W-30 John Deere breakin oil into the engine. From what I understand, this is basically lower quality oil to help parts wear into place a little quicker. I poured some on top the head to lube everything good, before tightening the valve cover, then dumped the remainder of 6 quarts into the sump.

I bought a small transfer pump (looks like a small bicycle pump) to try to prime the pump and oil galleys a little. I held the hose tight to both opening on the top of the filter base with the filer off. I pumped several pumps and could hear air and oil squirting inside. Maybe it'll help everything get oil a little faster.

I put a magnet heater on the oil pan for about 30 minutes to try to warm and thin the oil a little since it was only about 40 degrees outside.

Startup
I'm not sure I've ever been so nervous in my life as I triple checked everything. Is it going to start, seize up, have oil pressure, leak, or run perfect???

I charged the battery about 2 weeks ago and hooked it up.
Jumped in the seat and with the switch off, turned it over a couple times. I heard a tink tink tink. I found where the 5-blade fan was barely hitting my lower radiator hose clamp. I turned the clamp around and tried again. Everything sounds good now. It turns over pretty slow with those 175 pistons.
Flipped on the switch, tried several times and nothing.
Got the battery charger and let it charged for a couple minutes and wow, it turns over fast now. Fired up after 3 rounds or so.

Everything sounds great and feels smooth. Oil pressure takes about 5 seconds build up then pegs the old Allis gauge which is suppose to mean 30PSI.

Hydraulics
I already put my pressure gauge on the hydraulic remote. I checked that pressure and get 3500-4000 PSI. After the 4th time of having the pump off and rebuilding and adding shims, I finally replaced the unload valve and it looks like that fixed it. Hopefully now I can finally pickup that rotary hoe and 9' mounted disk.

I varied the throttle from 1/4 to full until it got up to temp. I took the timing and verified that the timing advance is working, then I shut it down. It takes about 5 seconds for the oil pressure to bleed off. I think I could hear the oil squirting a little as it bled off. Hopefully that's normal for a full flow system. Hourmeter says .3

Adjustments and Breakin?
The next morning I tightened the manifold nuts about 1/8 turn to 20lbs again. I started it again just for a minute to double check the hydraulic pressure again before I pulled the pump one last time to install that pesky torque tube to clutch housing bolt that I missed. No blue smoke on startup and oil pressure was about the same. This weekend I'm going to pull the rocker arms off again and retorque the head and reset valve lash.

Then I need to start it up again and actually adjust the timing. It needs to be at 23 degrees which is marked on the flywheel. Do I just hookup the timing light to the #1 cylinder then rotate the distributor at WOT until the 23 degree mark is aligned with the mark in the inspection hole?

For breakin, I planned on putting 6 round bales on the hay wagon and taking about a 2 hour drive after letting it warm up to temp.
Then I thought about letting it run the PTO generator on the house for a couple hours. In the old milk cooler and Harvestor unloader days it would've probably almost maxed out the 45 on power (used to make the Massey 235 get hot), but now it should be a pretty light load. While it's on the generator, I thought I could hook the vacuum gauge up to the manifold and to use that to adjust the carb.

Then let it cool, retorque the head a final time, set the valves one last time, put the hood back on, and keep checking the manifold nuts until they stop moving. Then change out the breakin oil after maybe 20 hours, and run a compression test to see where my pressure is at.

Does that sound like a good plan?


Edited by Allis dave - 23 Mar 2017 at 12:15pm

a timing light at full throttle would be more accurate than point-break setting....hope you marked the flywheel so you can see it with the light.

Put on the finishing touches yesterday and drove it out of the sick bay. Looks a little funny cause the hood it still off, but I still want to retorque the head once more.

Edited by Allis dave - 26 Mar 2017 at 8:28am

flywheel,pressure plate,front pulley & shell of hand clutch all got spun when doing mine

Thanks for the kind words guys. What makes it a good thread is everyone's pointers along the way. I know I went through Marv's thread several times too while working. Can't wait to actually get using it for something.

Hi Chris,
I'd love to make it over to plow a little more this year but I don't think I'm going to make it that way this spring. Went to the in-laws for Christmas. I guess I should've stopped and plowed snow!

Took the 45 out for a breakin drive yesterday. I put 5 round bales on a wagaon and pulled them around for about 2 hours. 2.5 hours on the hour meter now.