Good weather- good progress

Its been a great day today, lots of sunshine and lots of work.

I started off by cleaning off the old cork gasket on the rocker cover, I also grinded some more paint off key areas. I have a full gasket kit, and are replacing them whenever possible as the current ones on the tractor seem extremely degraded.

The top of the engine block cleaned off nicely, I also removed all the remaining paint left on the rocker cover. There is now a clean metal surface for the cork gasket to get a good seal on the top cover.

I then turned my attention to the dreaded bolt on the rear left wheel brake drum. Dan had brought some metal chisels and we started working away at it with a view to snapping the head off. dan spent about 10 minutes hammering away- then I took over. The first hit and the shredded bolt head started to move round! I slowly, and with great patience hammered the bolt round anti-clockwise. It came out cleanly- awesome!  Below is the remains of the bolt and the tools use to get the job done! My advice to anyone trying this- see the bolt as replaceable and get straight to the hammer and chisel. Penetrative fluid just cant get to the seized threads. When the bolt came out the threads are dry and rusted.

So great progress already and it was still early.

Based on this, I thought I would crack on with breaking down the brake components with a view to working out why the brake wasn't working. When I got the tractor, the brake pedal on the right hand side had been removed. I had done this before and I managed to disassemble the brake in around 5 mins. I used a log and a hammer to get the drum off and then pilers and sockets to take the brake components apart. The good news, is that I worked out what was causing the brake operation failure.

The brake rod from the pedal to the drum, was rusted and seized badly in the tractor side connection. The other side was well lubricated, this side was seized solid. Soem hammering freed it off- and I cleaned it all up nicely.

Above you can see the extent of the rust and seizure on the side of the tractor.  I have a pot of copper grease that I am using to make sure these parts keep on moving after reconstruction!

So, all brake parts broken down. I am now grinding the paint back, oiling and cleaning up ready for priming. I'm planning to do that in the coming week! Stay tuned- how exciting :)

Dan had finished his other work, and now we were ready to tackle The Big Split! Fortunately the new clutch components had been delivered in the morning- perfect timing!