Carl's 416-8

This is Carl's 416-8 and deck, he's a retired Marine Colonel from TN and a great guy.  This tractor belonged to his father in law.   It came here for some work and a restore but I don't really think it needs a full restore, but it does need a lot of work.

I spent more time and diesel than ever cleaning one up because of all the leaks but it came out pretty nice.  These are some of the before pics.

These are some of the round 1 cleaning pics with the tractor assembled.

 

This is round 2 of steam cleaning with the panels removed. 

 

Yesterday was a nice 75 degree day minus the 30mph wind and 50 mph gusts but it was truly a good day to get outside and get some things done.  By the end of the day it was in the shop and ready to get started on.  The worst thing is it leaks just about everywhere and the deck needs more work than we thought but after a nice day it is underway at least.      It was also a nice day to do some rearranging in the shop, get some work tables cleared, and get back to Horsing around.  

 

Just a little shaft polishing, seal changing, and misc cleanup today.  Carl's coming up tomorrow morning to look at everything else. 
 

Carl was here today for awhile and we looked everything over and have a good idea of what to do.

The deck is getting a lot of work, main thing if you look close the blades were spaced down on the spindles all over the place, mainly due to the left one in the pic (actual right side) hit something pretty hard and even ran the blade into the rear of the deck at some point.  The deck is bent at the spindle mount but I think with enough work and patience it can be straightened back where it belongs while saving the spindle.  Most of the rest of it is apart minus the adjuster assy on top and we know pretty much what we're up against.  It's getting all new wheels, belts, blades, bolts, and whatever else it needs to make it right and there are plenty of all the parts here in stock so that will go pretty quick. 

Other than that, the PTO and clutch are resurfaced and all the new hardware is set aside for it.  The rear seals are all in, hubs are painted, on and have new hardware, stud kit is in and it's getting black anodized lugnuts, it will look like my 414 does.  It's also getting a slot setup with all the goodies to go in it.  I got a little excited to see it all on there so it all got done today.  Sorry the pics aren't the best but the sun was setting and coming in the widows so I'll get some more later.

 

Just some misc little things this afternoon.  The play is gone on the shifter after the new hardware kit, a new NOS clutch spring is out to put on, new fuel lines and filter are done, carb is cleaned and set up and she is running.  Also got the front wheels off and everything cleaned up.  There's a little wear on the axle you can see in the pic where the old bearings sat but not enough to warrant replacing them.   It now has precision sealed ball bearings in it and is shimmed up and set up right, and no more having to grease them.  It always amazes me that shops don't keep good parts, bags of shims, and the hardware in stock needed to put it back the way it belongs but what else is new lol...  

 

I thought today would be a really good day and put me toward the downhill slide but it didn't quite work out that way...  The breather assy got all cleaned up and a new air and pre-cleaner filter ready then it was on to an oil change.  I guess someone tightened the daylights out of the oil filter with a cup adapter instead of using the right longer oil filter and it took awhile to get it off then I saw a ton of caked on oil in there.  I went on and removed the wrong regulator that was on it to peek in there and things looked even worse.  Then it was on to removing the battery and some other things to get the rear cover off for an even better look.

A few of the other things I found was a strap on the throttle lever to tighten it up, a missing rear throttle stop plate, and the positive battery end pulled right off, as well as a few other things.  I thought oh boy here we go...  After getting the rear cover off things looked even worse.

 

After talking to Carl again we thought it was best to go on and go through the trouble to pull all of the engine covers.  It looked a lot worse than I thought so I went on and pulled the flywheel as well to check the main seal.  I'm glad we did all of this extra work as you will see below...  I didn't think I would ever have to get a tractor out to the steam cleaner for a 3rd time so this is a first as well. 

 

I had some help late yesterday so it did manage to get steam cleaned last night so here are some pics from this morning.  The deeper I get the more I find, as usual when someone has been in something before lol.    It has the wrong plugs in it, a sealing washer Champion (incorrect) versus tapered type (correct), and they were terribly over tightened (prob to get them to seal) and did a little damage to the head.  The wiring close up is from the last peeps in there that also didn't get them routed right, looks like the flywheel has them almost cut in two. The 9 pin connector also has some heat damage but no surprise there...