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Saving a Farmall M

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The 460 isn't too bad. The hydraulic levers are kinda stuck from sitting at the moment. Also the radiator needs a patch. I know the hydraulic system is making pressure as when I was initially cranking the engine over without plugs in it I heard it load down a little and when I walked to the back realized it had lifted the 2 point up. Oh yeah, and the starter button needs replaced too. I have to jump the terminals on the back of the old switch to get it to spin.

Gary, you aren't wrong, it's been a lot of fun, though it's unfortunate that I'll be out of action for a bit. Never had ice get to me like this before.
 
JP,us old"pickers" just love digging thru a barn like that.Truly I was excited for you...So. Mi. got our butts whopped good by an ice storm,out of power for 6 days(very unusual)..Ended up buying a new generator and reefer before it was over...ouch!! Slid down a hill with leather shoes as a teenager just showing off to a girlfriend..Had some good speed goin' until I hit a bump..Woke up a few mins. later and passed blood for a few days...lesson learned!!!
 
It has definitely been fun looking through stuff, and a little bit questionable when you look around at the poor condition of the barn otherwise. It's a shame so much of the stuff is beyond saving. Some stuff would be worth saving except we'd have to completely deconstruct the buildings to get it out. There's another hay baler in the barn, behind where the IH one that they used sat, that is sunken very far into the ground and has a wood pile on it, with the second floor of the barn resting on that. The baler itself may be beyond saving as a whole anyway, but under the wood pile is the Wisconsin V4 engine that I am hoping to pull from it and save. There is also like 6 or 7 push mowers in the other end of the barn, decks are all pretty bad but I may take them just to keep all the engines for parts and then scrap the decks. In the same area is an old wooden dresser, no good anymore but the drawers all seem to have stuff in them. A couple were open/came open but others are stuck. I want to pry them open just in case, I found a brand new set of 4 vintage Champion spark plugs in one drawer! I believe they are in one of the pictures I posted.

There's a whole other smaller barn in front of the big one, and a building next to it, they are pretty rough. That second barn has 2 hay wagons that I am unsure if we are going to be able to pull out. One of them might not be too bad to retrieve, the other may be holding up the second floor. The other building next to it is almost completely collapsed. When it gets warmer I'd like to try and better poke around those buildings and see if there's anything we missed.

Alongside everything else, in the one smaller mostly intact building off to the side is a big bin of old picture slides, the property owner seems to not want them. I plan to look through them and see if I can find any photos of the farm / property back when it was in operation. I think that would be pretty cool.

Oh, and there's all the equipment in the hedgerows. Want to try and remove / save the big panel off the combine with the "Massey Harris Clipper Combine" decal on it. Also wanted to try and take parts from the rusted up Wisconsin V4 on the baler in the weeds. Heads, manifolds, carburetor, magneto? (not sure if it's still there or not), starter, some of the tins from around the cylinders, etc. The big flywheel shroud is rusted right through at the bottom (they almost always are) and with the exhaust completely open I don't doubt that it's stuck, so I don't feel bad stealing parts and/or potentially breaking some bolts in the process.

I'm sure there's other things I want to save that I've forgotten. Hopefully we have enough time to get as much as we can, do have to keep in mind that they are trying to sell the property. Will keep this thread updated with pictures as we go, as well as updates on that Farmall M too.
 
Pulled the spark plugs on the M a couple days ago. Report based on what I could see through the plug holes is as follows:

Cylinder 1: pretty decent

Cylinder 2: water came running out of it when I pulled the plug!! didn't really see rust though, so the water could be recent

Cylinder 3: fair amount of rust

Cylinder 4: not quite as decent as cylinder 1 but still decent

I'm thinking cylinder 3 is the culprit. Some guys just came and purchased the loader off my dad's M, and they gave the idea of mixing 50/50 acetone and transmission fluid to free it up. Said it worked well with one of their machines. Thoughts?
 
JP,

Mark E. from this community helped me free up a sticky valve in my B&S-powered Snapper mower. He recommended running some Dextron ATF into the carb while running the engine. It smoked like crazy but really helped.

Yours isn’t yet running of course, but I think the ATF idea has some verifiable merit. Dextron in particular, which Mark E. prescribed specifically.

Not sure about the acetone mix idea, because while the aggressive solvent idea also has merit, it seems to me acetone would undermine some benefits of the ATF/Dextron.

Maybe beginning with acetone then switching to ATF/Dextron after a bit of progress with the solvent?

And if that allowed one to free things up and get it firing, I’d be tempted to trickle some Dextron into the carb at idle to further scour/lube things up throughout.

The Dextron trick saved me the need to pull the head and perform surgery! (Many thanks, Mark E.!!!)

Disclaimer: I’m no mechanic! I suppose it depends how much effort one intends to make (or save) to breathe life back into the old girl.

Best,
-C3
 
My thought was to add some of the ATF into the gas tank once it was running. I now have acetone and ATF (though not any name brand) gonna go put the mixture into each cylinder, and I guess we'll see what exactly that mixture does!

In the meantime...
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Edit: the ATF is indeed Dexron
 
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So I pulled the valve cover too get an idea of the condition of the rest of the engine. Little bit of rust, about what I expected. Looks to just be condensation. I loosened up the rockers and got all the valves to close.
IMG_20230312_165251.jpg


Then I pulled the whole manifold. Exhaust ports all had water get into them at some point. Manifold is not the best, as you can see the exhaust side of it is very much rusted out and patched back together, one of which patches is rusted out again. Intake side is okay. Every manifold bolt loosened up without breaking too.
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Gonna take apart the carburetor later and see what it looks like. And I did stuff paper towel into each of the ports on the engine for good measure.
 
50-50 ATF and acetone is a home made version of Kroil, which is pretty much the gold standard for penetrants.

I had an O-6 that wasn't too badly stuck, cylinders were kind of a straw color and somebody had plugged the exhaust, I filled it full of diesel fuel and let it sit til I got around to it, all the diesel fuel was in the pan and it was free.
 
JP, I've removed many things from cyl and the worst was rust...If you run it with rust in the cyl at the least it will plug up rings eventually...Atf soak will help loosen most of the rust but once it fires where will it go..some out the exhaust for sure but....If it were me ,I'd pull the head before trying to fire engine and do a super clean up in cyl.Most depends on the long term intent of the tractor..We both know expense of rebuild can be serious....A new head gasket would be cheap insurance....good luck my friend
 
So I pulled the valve cover too get an idea of the condition of the rest of the engine. Little bit of rust, about what I expected. Looks to just be condensation. I loosened up the rockers and got all the valves to close.View attachment 153222

Then I pulled the whole manifold. Exhaust ports all had water get into them at some point. Manifold is not the best, as you can see the exhaust side of it is very much rusted out and patched back together, one of which patches is rusted out again. Intake side is okay. Every manifold bolt loosened up without breaking too.View attachment 153223View attachment 153225View attachment 153226
View attachment 153224

Gonna take apart the carburetor later and see what it looks like. And I did stuff paper towel into each of the ports on the engine for good measure.
that i-90 sign probably attracts snow!
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JP, I've removed many things from cyl and the worst was rust...If you run it with rust in the cyl at the least it will plug up rings eventually...Atf soak will help loosen most of the rust but once it fires where will it go..some out the exhaust for sure but....If it were me ,I'd pull the head before trying to fire engine and do a super clean up in cyl.Most depends on the long term intent of the tractor..We both know expense of rebuild can be serious....A new head gasket would be cheap insurance....good luck my friend
Gary, the cylinder head will most likely come off anyway, but with it still being winter I would prefer to leave the engine sealed up for now. Figure I should give it a shot at freeing the engine up beforehand.

I would invest in an "aftermarket" or used manifold.
yeah, definitely going to have to. It will work okay enough to at least start it (when I get to that point) but definitely going to want a replacement before I start doing much else with the tractor. If I do end up starting it on that manifold it's going to be LOUD....

that i-90 sign probably attracts snow!
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well, you would think, but the actual i-90 is less than a half a mile away on the other side of our street! Behind a couple fields of course.
 
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