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1950 A-C WD Resurection


85_Ranger4x4

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And so the battle continues...

As I backed it in the barn I noticed I had a coolant leak in the radiator (of course) Been thinking about over the winter while it was too cold to do anything about it anyway and decided to pull the radiator, pressurize it and see what is going on. The side frame is broke loose from the top tank and the built in shroud has some issues... who knows.

Been busy prepping the '45 for battle, it is about ready to go.



I got the radiator bolts loose enough to slip the grille out and this fell out. Don't know as I have seen one that big before.



I put coolant in it yesterday and spilled some, it was leaking to the right side when it was running earlier.



On of the blankety blank nuts ripped off the support and spun. It was round with a flat on one side, tried vice grips (two sets) they would slip, prybar slip, heelbar slip. Stuck an extension in there and it worked great.



At least now I can fix the hand crank shaft I think. There is no pin in there for the spring to force it back out. With no radiator it is right there to work on.



As it sits right now. :dntknw:

 


85_Ranger4x4

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Got back to it FINALLY

Washed out the second fuel tank, it has some pitting on the bottom but I think it will run. Doesn't leak water anyway. Kinda crusty inside, you can see what I washed out of it.



And we got a new heat dissipator that does not also dissipate coolant. :yahoo:

Tried with the other one, it has been so buggered up more leaks open up when you try to fix one just on the top tank.



Of course it showed up a day late, it was in the 70's yesterday and I wanted to put in then, supposed to be cooler today and snow tomorrow.
 
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85_Ranger4x4

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A free tractor is about as bad as a free dog...

Anyway the fuel tank had some pitting (not leaking) on the bottom where it sits on the fuel tank support so I cleaned that up:



Kinda wierd, it didn't leak and I didn't see any holes after I cleaned it but with the pic on my laptop it does look like there were pinholes... great.



I put some JB weld on it to hopefully slow its demise



The old temp gauge fitting the radiator freaking awesomely. :annoyed: I did get pick up a new one so I could actually see the needle.



New radiator is in.



I thought the lower hose was leaking on the water pump. I sanded and sanded and cleaned trying to get it to work. Mounting gasket was dry, pulley that wrapped around the nose of the water pump was dry, I couldn't feel any moisture around the casting, I was drawing a blank.



I had like 7 trips to town on the stupid thing at this point and didn't want to make another one to get the pressure tester from work so I just yanked the water pump off.

So this morning at break I plug the outlet, set the thing on the fan and add water. For awhile it was going down but I kept adding... and when I got back from lunch the pulley was full of water. It must have been a tiny leak wicking down the pump body and not dripping on the pulley and then running down the tiny amount of pump body until it got the hose. :pissedoff:



 

85_Ranger4x4

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Water pump is has been in awhile, runs like a top now. I also took off the WD pin hitch and converted it to snap coupler. Hooked the fuel system up last weekend. Dad found a 6.00-16 tri rib front tire that had been painted yellow. I got most of the paint off and with a new tube mounted it this week.

Bolted the hood down last night, checked the fluids, put the snap coupler drawbar on it, put the shredder on it and gave it a try. It didn't miss a beat and the hand clutch is freaking awesome for shredding.



Governor is awesome, it is right there and nice and snappy. Steers nice with two inflated tires (who knew? :icon_confused:) I need to finish wiring the lights and a couple other little things like seat bushings and work on the lift cylinders to get them move but it was a pleasure to drive last night. Engine played with the 6' shredder and brome up the hood, it was a pretty good load for the B.

But I thought I was going to die last night, in 30 years of dealing with allergies I have NEVER reacted as bad. Sneezing as hard and as often as I could, coughing up "stuff", sore throat, sore chest... it sucked. It was going great until I was about 1/3 of the way done and then it was like hitting a wall, I had to quit. Dunno if I caught the brome at the wrong time, if the WD's lower seating was part of it, the fan was blowing a lot of it back to me so maybe it spins faster/moves more air or what but it was brutal. Probably a combo of everything with timing being the biggest part of it.

 
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PlumCrazy

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Are the lift cylinders stuck up or do they creep up? If they stuck up (and not rusted) crack a line lose and see if they bleed down.



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Been attacking the WD in my free time. Latched onto it with the B and got it moved out of the road.

Couldn't wait to get this morphadite sickle mower bracket ripped off.



Done!

Are the lift cylinders stuck up or do they creep up? If they stuck up (and not rusted) crack a line lose and see if they bleed down.
The PO had them unhooked from the rockshaft (that was tied into his sickle mower mount) and wired up to the tractor so they would go to full extension to make the sickle mower go up and down. Much easier than removing them and putting plugs in the pump but I guess at least they stayed with the tractor this way.

The chrome isn't great on them, they will need polished. Not sure if they are stuck from that or from being continuously over extended. I need polish the rams and to loosen the nut on the barrel and see if that will help. I haven't done anything to them aside from hook them back up to the rockshaft and note the rockshaft is an unnaturally high position and will not go down.
 

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Gotcha. If the are stuck extended then typically it means you have a pump issue. I have found two with a stuck cam follower that caused the cylinders to fully extend until you cracked the lines and bled them down.... until you started the tractor and they would go right back up

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The hydraulic pump is silent until I move the lever and then it grunts. I just did it once to see if it worked.

I had that problem with my WD-45 last year, it would lift all the time. One of the spools was stuck in the valve part of the pump because of a tiny bit of debris.

The above pics are from before I ever started the tractor. I know with the '45 it wants to pick up the rockshaft first, once it maxes out it kicks over to the outlet so my theory is they unhooked the cylinders and just let them extend (and stay extended) while they used the outlet to run a remote cylinder on the sickle mower. So then every time they picked up the mower the cylinders would get hit again with pressure and never ever be retracted. And the rams are pretty rusty.
 

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Had the '45 to a show this past weekend, Sunday I unloaded it and parked it next to the WD.





Then I get to looking, the '45 has two new 5.50-16 BKT front tires (which I think run a little big), the WD has an ancient 5.50-16 dual rib and a 6.00-16 tri rib... but it has a ton more wheel clearance.





So I went thru the parts book looking for a different spindle or something... nothing. Had dad look at it and he said they made aftermarket spacers for better mud clearance.

Never heard of such a thing, explains why it sits level with the big combine tires on it. Kinda cool to have a tractor with a lift kit too :icon_thumby:
 

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That WD has a 2" spacer between spindle and casting for sure. Weird, that would mean the the whole shaft was extended/replaced in order to engage into the sector gear.

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My 45 has two new BKT 6.00s on it and the WD has two old 5.50s
 

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We have a 45 with optional front end that is made for quickly swapping between narrow and wide front, it sits a little taller, but not that tall, and is easy to identify by the round dust cap on top instead of the bolt on cover

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PlumCrazy

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That paint scheme.....It pains me

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85_Ranger4x4

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Looking in the parts book the shaft is just a shaft and the two spindles are held on by a single bolt from the bottom with a setscrew in the front. So insert spacer between the bolster/shaft and spindles with a longer bolt. The spacer would have to be special made to engage both the shaft/bolster and the spindle assy the same so it would work, not like a hunk of sewer pipe would work.

Kind of a nice thing, these things really suffer for mud clearance in the front.

I know my '45 had 6.00's on it when I got it, they started dying after a wet spring when I kept plugging the front wheels up. So I dropped down a size thinking it would open things up more... I think they are about the same size though.

Ever seen the aftermarket wide fronts that retains the narrow front bolster? Those look really goofy.
 
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