Karma and a Super Six

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BearCreek Majors
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Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

Ok, you guys haven’t herd much from me lately, I’ve been busy getting the boiler online, been heating the shop and house with it since December, been on vacation in Florida, I see they are selling Sundrop down there now, good to know I could now live down there year round if needed. And drug my 46 Ford Business coupe out of the barn I had bought several years ago with dreams of driving it around this summer, that came to a screeching halt this week and it is now stuffed in the garage by the house.
We normally go up to my Uncle Vic’s the weekend of Mothers day to take the toys out and spend the day plowing. I hadn’t done a thing with the majors all winter and the county 4 was back together after last summer’s bad transmission bearing, but I still had the drive shafts and floorboards off as I have to replace the pinion shaft seals behind the brakes and fix the brakes. With Uncle Vic’s only a month away I got her in the shop last Friday to do this, I then wanted to do a little plowing to make sure all was well and then give her the paint job she deserves.
So Saturday was the day for the local spring consignment auction and I’m still looking for a good used plow. As I got there the vehicles we already parked up the road a good 1/8 of a mile and an older gentleman that I’ve known for several years, Rodger, had just gotten out of his truck and was walking to the grounds as I drove by. I was driving my wife’s explorer that can be squeezed in most any where so I was going to try my luck at parking on the grounds, I stopped popped the passenger door open and told Rodger to get in, off we went. I found a parking spot rite away, Rodger thanked me and off to the auction we went. A good deed is always rewarded.
It was a beautiful spring day, a big crowed and a good day for selling…a bad day for buying. After about an hour I was already walking back to my car to leave. Tim, a guy I know from Bear Creek hollered at me as I was walking out, Don’t you have one of those oddball big wheeled English fords he says to me, ya I say, I have one. He tells me a guy he works for just drug one out of the shed that’s been sitting for years and wants to get rid of it, he gives me Paul’s phone number. I ask him if it had a four or a six cylinder motor but he wasn’t sure, he had looked at it a few days ago but knew nothing about it. Home I went and gave Paul a call.
Paul told me the thing had been sitting since he started working there eight years ago. It had had the wheels widened out and was used to move railroad cars up and down the tracks. It had been started six years ago to move it but they couldn’t steer it and it had been sitting in a shed since then. He also told me it was a super six but the original motor had been replaced.
The two boys and I hopped in the car with a camera and a flashlight and we where off. An hour later we pulled into the yard to see the ugliest County I had ever seen! The wheels sticking out the sides and a ugly yellow motor stuck in it that was the wrong one, I believe a D series. The hood was missing and the wiring was cobbled to a homemade dash and ignition switch bolted to the front of the left floorboard. I had been looking for a six cylinder motor for thirty years and the only thing that I’ve been able to find is two overpriced units on the other side of the country, and the chances of finding the correct motor for this one was slim to none……..but it was a Super six! By Sunday afternoon it was in my yard.
So by Tuesday I was over at the local wrecking yard to scrounge up some pieces parts that I needed. This is a big yard, there are usually 5 guys working at the counter not to mention the guys in the shop. I would have to guess the have a thousand tractors in the yard. Unfortunately the prices sometimes reflect this so I normally try to keep my purchases to the small piddely stuff and hit the smaller scrap yards if I need more costly parts. Off I went looking and scrounging only to find one bracket for the battery box I needed but I wanted to look around as the motor in the 6 is I believe a D series with a rather cobbled up oil pan and I wanted to look around to see what it had on it from the factory. Out in the blue section of the yard I was looking at tractors and motors lying about and I spotted an engine with an aluminum oil pan that looked much closer to what I wanted. The engine was laying on its side with the injector pump down, the pan looked like it was made for a county, and I soon realized there was no frost plugs on the side of the block………..I got down on my hands and knees to look under the motor……the injector pump was shaft driven, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at…..someone had actually scribbled COUNTRY on the side of the oil pan.
Off to the office I went, I could have walked past a naked lady riding a cow and not even slowed down. I got one of the guys out to look at it and give me a price, he was on the radio with the boss, no one was real sure what the story was, it had been laying around outside for some time so they sold it to me for core price.
My oldest boy had worked at this yard only a few years ago, I had repeatedly asked the parts guys if they had any of the sixes around and the answer was always no. this motor had been there sense 1992, with the date and initials from the guy that drained the oil out of it…..and no one knew it was there.

Next time you see an old guy walking down the road…… give him a ride.

Pat

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1962 model
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by 1962 model »

Hello there,
thanks for a look at those pictures, an interesting project, any chance of some more detailed pictures of the sump, I am goint to get one welded to make one for mine, there is a topic for these sumps I suppose you have seen this?

Mike

BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

I'll get ya guys some good pictures with measurments next week, "my computer at home is down so I'll have to wate till I get back to work next week"

Pat

Sandy Mac
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by Sandy Mac »

Thats a real good story matey. Great looking super 6 you have !
Sandy

frode
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by frode »

Great story, and I want one too :)

I dont think there are many of these in Norway, but I am looking for one. I am happy with my 654 atm, but a 6-cylinder is on my wishlist :)
frode

1957 County MarkIV Crawler
1964 County Super-4
1967 County 654
1977 County 7600-FOUR

JC
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by JC »

Wow! A Super 6 and a 590E, too. I think that you should go to Vegas or Atlantic City, or buy a bunch of lottery tickets, but be sure to take the old guy and the Explorer :lol:

Here's a couple of pics of a Super 6 with the original wheels. Its pretty wide, too.

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I have a picture, somewhere, of a Super 4 in England, with wheels like your Super 6, but without the custom centers.

I'm looking forward to seeing more pics of yours.

BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

JC, glad to see I could survive in California as well, I use to do a lot of work in LA and Tulare but never once saw Sundrop out there!
The pics you saw of a Major in England with the same style wheels makes sense, as this Super six was most likely “not for export”. The wheels are 36”, it has the hand brake, and the tail light brackets are still on the back of the fenders.

Both of the front drives had the input shafts/ pinion gears loose and sloppy so I removed the complete drive, tore them down to reshim and tighten every thing back up. On the right side I found some bad news. The pinion teeth were really bad. The ring gear only had a few chips and looks usable, but it also looks like all the rivet heads are slanted in the same direction, making me think then are partially sheared.
I’ll start making some phone calls today to see if I can come up with a good used pinion from a Super Dexta to put in it. It looks like the only thing I need to do is drill and tap the hole for the bolt that holds the drive shaft flange on.

And it always helps when Grandpa gets a little help!

Pat

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Last edited by BearCreek Majors on Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

JC
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by JC »

Pat,
To put it in the words of one of the guys I work with, " It looks like your pine cone lost most of its wrinkles" :)
The County manual says that the ring and pinion are similar to the Dexta ones, except that the pinion has a threaded hole in the end, so it sounds like it would work. I wonder if it will be too hard to drill.

Your grand daughter is cuter than a bugs ear. Does her mama know that she's hanging around all those greasy tractor parts?

BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

Last week I picked up a good pinion gear for the Super Six. Got the hole in the end of the shaft drilled and taped tonight, Thank God for Carbide tooling! Hoping to get both drives back together this weekend so I can get it out of the shop and get the Super Four panted, Symco Thresheree is just around the corner and I’d like to have at least one tractor painted this year.

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While I was waiting for parts for the Super Six I got the Super Four ready for paint, went through the front drives and replaced all the seals. I found the gears had some rust pitting but nothing to get upset about. Then went through the rear gearboxes and replaced all the seals and brake/pinion shaft seals as well. With new brake linings she now has working brakes, probably for the first time in many years.

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Anyone know for sure where the top end of the clutch pedal spring attaches? The Super six has this cotter key hanging from the foot board bracket that looks like the correct place, the Four doesn’t but it may have just pulled out.

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And another piece of our oddball collection, apparently we have a thing for English Fords. This 58 Escort was given to my oldest boy by my mother several years ago, it was just one of many vehicles that had to be dealt with after my father passed away. He has had dreams of making a hot rod of sorts out of it but has wisely decided to sell it instead. It would be a neat ride but a LOT of work, sometimes you have to face reality and move on with life. My mother drove it for a few years in the early sixties until the rods started to knock, one of my uncles tore the engine down for a rebuild and it’s been that way ever since. Kinda a shame to see it go but the only memories I have of it was playing “driving the car” in it with my brother.

Pat

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BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

Got the Super Six back together this weekend, no driveshaft’s on it yet but the seals for the shafts came in today. Sense the used pinion isn’t a matched set with the ring gear I had to make shims to move the pinion in, giving me a decent contact pattern in the center of the gears teeth. No that’s not loctite on the side of the housing….shim stock is sharp!
I have to admit I’m really starting to like the way this six sound when it starts up, can’t wait to hook something to it and make it work for a living.

Pat

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BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

I finally got some bigger tires on the Super six today.
I had a set of 16”x30” rims off of a Gleaner combine for a few years and a friend just gave me another matching set from a Gleaner that he is scrapping. I cut the centers out of all four rims and out of my old centers as they had already been modified with the spacers, welded together all the good pieces and now have 18.4 -30 all the way around. The tires aren’t much to brag about but they will do for now…. and the price was right!

Pat

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BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

This Weekend is the Symco Thresheree, I only took the two County’s up there this year as I don’t have the Selene sorted out yet.
Sat is the day for the tractor pulls and it is a long day, they use two eliminators but they had I believe around 250 tractors that hooked. And as usual the friends and family kept at me to pull the County’s, and as usual I laughed at them and used much profanity to describe their intelligence. As the day progressed I must have spent too much time in the sun as my intelligence began to waver as well. I decided to pull the Super Six.
At the end of the day when all the pullers were done they let me hook up, when I ran across the scale it came in at 8,900lbs, I have 200lbs on each front wheel, 100 on the rears, and 220 on the seat. We had also dropped the hitch down to the lowest set of holes.
You can kinda see that the rear tires were squatting quite a bit more than the fronts, but the frontend did stay planted to the ground.
The guy on the eliminator was good enough to let me run it down to the end of the track before he stopped me, and she then started to dig down with all four, and to my relief with no bouncing or jumping. We did put the tires with the better tread on the front and I’m thinking this helped. When I pulled away after they unhooked, all four dig spots looked almost identical in length and depth.
Luckily we didn’t break anything, we had our fun, and put on a good show, but the next person that tells me we should pull it will again be reminded of there intelligence with even more profanity.

Pat

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super6954
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by super6954 »

Hi Pat
its nice to see her in a once in a lifetime picture on the sled she pours the coal pretty good :) my 2 wd 6 cyl power major does that on the brush cutter with a lump of grass in it :lol:
The guys round here are still on at me to pull the 954 but they are getting a firm no and no possibility of a change in answer from me :wink:
Regards Robert
A Fordson is for life not just for Christmas !.

frode
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by frode »

Great pictures Pat! Would love to see a vid of that :-)
frode

1957 County MarkIV Crawler
1964 County Super-4
1967 County 654
1977 County 7600-FOUR

BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

Over the last few weeks I started to tear down the 590E that will go in the Super Six. I found a few sleeves that had been split by ice, but other than the manifolds nothing else was broke to speak of. I started on the head this week, lots of rust but nothing to get too worried about. I did some sandblasting to clean it up, found the exhaust seats were pitted quite bad but cleaned up good, (Doubt that they were as bad as Daves Johny) and will get the intake seats tomorrow night.
The valves look like a little of this and that thrown together. The exhaust valves look to be the old style, and it looks like a standard intake valve can be shortened up to work as well. The long rotator caps I will most likely have to make as most of them were gone with the rocker assembly and pushrods.

Pat


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BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

Oop’s, I was wrong, (hate when that happens). I decided to clean up the valves last night and realized the exhaust valves are the new style rotating valves, the new set I had are the old style non rotating. And surprisingly all but one of the exhaust valves were salvageable, the one bad one would have been usable if someone wouldn’t have hit it so hard trying to break it loose that it bent the head, I won’t mention any names. :oops: Unfortunately the intakes are all junk, two of them have good stems yet but there is enough pitting in the heads that I’ll just replace them all.

Pat

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super6954
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by super6954 »

Hi Pat
Is this the motor you need the rocker shaft for :?: if so does it have an FL head on, as I was looking at a used motor picture and I think the rockers I have spare will fit this type motor. Was wondering what the newer motor was thats in the tractor now, as I got that style in my 954 and it needs work, and it looks like my injector pumps gone south, The rack stuck and when i freed it it still don't feel right so think its screwed in the govenor :cry: . Was wondering if this was a new style 330 or bigger. and if it might be for sale at some point :?: .
Regards Robert
A Fordson is for life not just for Christmas !.

BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

Hi Robert, yes this is the one that I need the rocker assembly for and it is a FL head. I would REALLY like to have the correct pieces but in reality they are under the rocker cover where no one will know the difference any way. And when it comes down to it I only need to find adjustable rockers with the correct ratio, and I can then modify/make stands and a shaft to work, shortly I plan on looking through my Ford FE and Y block parts.
The engine in the Super six is the big D series, I believe the 380, without the turbo option. :( And sorry but I have other plans for this one. I picked up a Major several years ago without a motor, and the kids got me a good turbo off an Oliver,……shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what’s been going on in the back of my head.

Pat

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super6954
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by super6954 »

Hi Pat
No Problem on the motor :) If ya don't ask ya never find out :wink:.
Those rockers don't fit my engine from what i was told as it's not an FL head its an early one with vac gov. i think the ratio for these in my engine is wrong :| . If I can confirm they won't fit, my shafts and rockers could find there way to you for a good price like shipping ,if they are in good condition( haven't seen them for a while) ,and you can't find anything around that will work. Shippings what they cost me to get them from a friend in the U.K so could do the same for you if it get's you out of stuck, I will probably never use them here:) .

Yeah I hear the gears in ya head clunking as to where the spare motors going :D , I picked a 2704 ET Turbo up a few years ago, and tripped over another and half a tractor for $600 the other day, so that followed me home as well :lol:.
Also if i can make the adapter plate / alter the timing gear and get the lines made up, I have a couple of spare big P series injector pumps with 10 or 11 mm elements in.
That should liven her up even more putting one of those on :idea: :run:.
The other motor or parts of it might be a temporary fix for the 954 if I can't find a proper 330 to get parts from I don't really want to rip apart a running motor unless I have to though :cry: . Then I could still use it for a bit of heavy recovery work :) .
Regards Robert
A Fordson is for life not just for Christmas !.

BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

The grandkids were over this weekend getting rides on the redneck bobsled, (a hood towed behind the tractor), so the Super Six got left out for a few days and got a little Christmas snow on her.

I did manage to get the crank ground and the engine kit is sitting in the shop for the 590E, just need to find some time to get at it.

Merry Christmas every one!

Pat

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ford5000y
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by ford5000y »

BearCreek Majors wrote:The grandkids were over this weekend getting rides on the redneck bobsled, (a hood towed behind the tractor), so the Super Six got left out for a few days and got a little Christmas snow on her.

I did manage to get the crank ground and the engine kit is sitting in the shop for the 590E, just need to find some time to get at it.

Merry Christmas every one!

Pat

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That was wonderful!!!

I wish I could just park our 5000 in the very same manner as you did. But I couldn't. Because I always have to put a small can on the exhaust pipe and the tractor will be having dry leaves and bird droppings in the hood instead of snow. :?

BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

we finally got a break in the weather so I been heating the shop again and getting a few things done. I have the rotating assembly done on the 590E for the Super 6, just waiting for the tappets to come back, they had some rust on them so I sent them out to get resurfaced.

Pat

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BearCreek Majors
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

I got back to the Super Six this last week, got the engine done other than the head, that will go on after I have the engine in place. I should have the old engine out tonight.

Pat

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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by BearCreek Majors »

We got the engine out the other day but I wanted to pull the transmission out as well to check it out, this meant that the County framework has to come off to get the PTO gearbox off the bottom of the transmission. So I first removed the front axel assembly as the bearings seemed loose anyway …….and found the front bearing housing and retainer were broke. I think the pin for the rear mount must have came out, with the weight of the front of the tractor pushing down with no rear support, it was enough twist to break the front mount. I also need to weld up the wishbone by the rear mount where they torched it to clear the oil pan.
The transmission is now out and aside from a few minor repairs should be ready to go back in in a few days.

Pat

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frode
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Re: Karma and a Super Six

Post by frode »

Looking good, Pat! :-)
frode

1957 County MarkIV Crawler
1964 County Super-4
1967 County 654
1977 County 7600-FOUR

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