Godzilla!

So I got off to an early start today. The plan was to get the front end sorted, and start rebuilding the steering linkages. The weather has been predicted to be 28 degrees this weekend, but early morning was quite cool- so good working conditions.. I, as always start off with a few easy jobs, just to get into it.

I started attaching the engine breather- no worries, just made sure I had the new gasket in there. I will be painting this up, as it will get sprayed grey as part of the spraying process- which is coming soon!

I then decided to complete the front end and get it cleaned up properly, I needed to take off the wheels. The bolts were stuck solid, so I used my leverage bar- that I now call Godzilla! I also have son of Godzilla - who I will show you in due course! Godzilla made mince meat of the seized nuts and the wheels were off in no time. It's important you do this, as I realised the wheels were badly rusted to the hubs and had to whack them to get them off even after I had removed the wheel nuts.

It also gives a lot better access for the cleaning up process:

I completed the same process both sides, and spend a good hour on each axle with the grinder. I pretty much got all the paint and rust off- however due to the cast space it is quite difficult to get into the recesses. I use a fl;at blade screw driver and wire brush to finish off. Once finished I painted up the back side of the axle and let it dry before connecting it to the center axle. I have some nice uniform new axle bolts to use- and they look awesome when on.

I also experimented with different track widths but finished on the below configuration. You can also see that the steering is slightly off- this was tricky to get right. When you pull the steering linkage all the way back, it seems to disconnect from the rack. Meaning it's quite difficult to get lined up again. This took a good 20 minutes of fiddling to get lined up. They are pretty close, but I will make some final adjustments on the track rod end when I come to bolt them together. Once the axles are mounted I can easily finish off the painting.

There is also a point that most of the grease nipples are already full of paint. My plan is to replace them all, after the grey spray! I have a full box of imperial nipples ready to go on and then I can grease up all required parts.

I was well ahead of schedule- a good focused session of 4 hours completed the above work. The grinding threshold is about 4 hours before I just can't take anymore- but I am getting better.

So a nice cup of Yorkshire tea and a chat with my friend Marcus who dropped by and I was raring to go for some more tractor action. Marcus looked quite envious even though he won't admit it and prefers to take the piss out of my restoration by referring to it as Tractor Sex. He was off on his motorbike to a lifeboat charity event.

So I turned my attention to some of the parts that need preparation.

I started with the seat. It was completely rotten- I will be ordering a new seat pan tonight. I did manage to salvage the spring though. Dan had arrived and helped splitting the seized nut with a hammer and chisel. This freed the spring from the seat, then I grinded it, primed it and bolted it on to the tractor.

You can see in the below picture- the next parts I want to focus on are the beaten dashboard parts. I have removed all the dials and key etc from the existing dashboard.

I soon got a bit bored of grinding, I have however cleaned up the whole of the front of the dashboard, but still need to complete the back of it- It also has a big rusted hole behind the ki-gass instruction plate. I also laid out a few other parts that need completing! I decided I would do the drawbar as it was the least 'technical', I primed this up so it is ready for spraying and re-attachment.

A great piece of news, is that I did more testing of the ki-gass pump.... and got it working!!!! YES!!!!

Cleaning it up and fiddling around I released the plunger and have done dome tests and it does build up air pressure in the output pipe! This is fantastic news- so I have the tank, and need to check I have the copper tubes- I may need to order these, but it does mean I can get ki-gass working!! I was quite worried about this, and to get the pump working was a great feeling.

Once I had cleaned up the dash, the paint on the front end had dried- so I wanted to get the track rods connected properly and the foot pegs put in place and primed up. In hindsight this is a massive error! Later on I realised that to get the clutch pedal on, you need the track rods off. So at some point I will need to remove the left tract rod to get the clutch pedal on properly- very annoying. Either way, I copper greased the rod ends and they slipped in and I pinned them with the foot pedals.

It is actually starting to look quite cool. Some minor adjustments to the tracking is still required- which I will complete later. I have also started positioning my new bolts where required. Various nuts and bolts have been missing from various parts of the tractor and my new ones are going in nicely, still not recognising C or F threads first time though! :(

You can see below, that I have also reconnected the starter shaft and spring.

Below is a picture of the rods and foot-peg connected and no chance of getting the pedal on! When the paint has dried properly, I will whip the foot-peg out and see if I can pop out the ball joint and push the pedal on- with minimum of fuss, hopefully- or an hour of struggling.. more likely!

It was time for another cup of tea and a chat with Dan- he was buying a new car- sounded good.

We discussed what we were going to do next and the plan was to get the starter motor, dynamo and fan belt on to the tractor. We are going to get it running before we do the grey paint spray- so we can confirm all the change we have made are operational. Especially the clutch- if we have to split the tractor again, we don't want to ruin the grey paint. So the focus now is to get the fuel, air and cooling systems back in place. We go the starter motor on, without too much difficulty, other than a nut witch is ridiculously difficult to tighten up. The dynamo is now on the bracket but we hit some complexities caused by the previous owner!

When I got the tractor, there was an unsightly alternator on it. To get the alternator on, the previous owner had butchered the bracket with new drill holes and what I didn't realised he had welded an extension part on to the dynamo bracket. We only realised this when we were trying to fit the dynamo. We are going to hacksaw this off tomorrow and then fit the dynamo properly and get the fan belt tightened correctly. You can see below the extra part that has been welded on to the bracket.

You can also just make out the seat spring back on, nice and orange!

Here is my summer picture out of the log shed! Looking forward to do ing nothing in the 28 degree heat tomorrow!

The final image below, is showing the starter and dynamo attached. The started was a fiddle to get the connection link to sit correctly. It seems to approach at the wrong angle. We managed to sort this out by shortening the link by cranking the connection to its shortest setting. I have tested the starter from the gear stick and it definitely engages the solenoid- so it seems all good.

The plan for tomorrow, is for Dan to start early and rebuild the brakes, whilst I concentrate on reconnecting the fuel system. There are definitely going to be parts of piping that are missing, so I need to work out exactly what to start ordering!

In other news, I have won a new hydraulic lever and the cross shaft on ebay! I snook in at the last minute... So as soon as I get them, they will be going on!


Right, to order the seat pan...