Considering buying a 58 Major with a frozen diesel engine.

[Oughtsix]

Quick question about the battery cables... One cable goes to the starter solenoid the other goes to the engine block. I think I read somewhere on this forum that some of these tractors are positive ground??? That is a new one on me! Does the Positive or Negative terminal of the battery go to the starter solenoid on my tractor?

P.S. I will do some looking for the serial number and see what I can find.

[henk]

It's a Mark I engine so before April 1957.
The price for the auxiliary valve could easily be 200 dollar, so you got the tractor for free.
And please teach your daughter some history.

[Pavel]

Early Fordsons were positive earth -- therefore the cable/wire to the starter is from the battery negative post.
You could, of course, convert to the modern negative earth system by reversing the battery wires and re-polarising the dynamo/generator. All that is needed to do this is to remove the main wire from the dynamo and 'stroke' it 3 or 4 times against the dynamo terminal. It will spark, or flash, each time, but that is normal.
One other problem you may come across are the battery terminals which are usually of different sizes to each other.

Pavel

[Oughtsix]

Early Fordsons were positive earth -- therefore the cable/wire to the starter is from the battery negative post.
You could, of course, convert to the modern negative earth system by reversing the battery wires and re-polarising the dynamo/generator. All that is needed to do this is to remove the main wire from the dynamo and 'stroke' it 3 or 4 times against the dynamo terminal. It will spark, or flash, each time, but that is normal.
One other problem you may come across are the battery terminals which are usually of different sizes to each other.

Pavel

So by the 1950's all the majors were Negative ground? I just wanted to make sure I wasn't connecting up the battery backwards.

[Brian]

All Fordson Majors were Positive Earth. The change to Negative Earth came in 1964/5 with the '000nd Series.

However a dynamo can charge and operate with either Positive or Negative Earth systems as long as it is polarised by "flashing" the Power Terminal of the battery to the "Field" (small) terminal on the dynamo with the dynamo installed on the tractor.

Alternators must only be installed on Negative Earthed systems due to its internal electronics.

[Oughtsix]

Thank you for the clarification!

[ford5000y]

The tractor looks good!!!!

wheel weights, wide tyres, silver grills (oops, the grilles again) everything looks nice, except of course that the engine won't turn as you have said (don't paint the grills orange !!!!)

Another tip:
It would be advisable to adjust the front axle width, especially if you're going to use it for plowing. Because, as far as I can see, the front axle is too wide compared to the rear.

And, also, congratulations on your "purchase"(it looks more like a giveaway). I'm green with envy in such a way that last night I dreamed that my uncles fordson major was in the front yard!!!!

[super6954]

I'm green with envy in such a way that last night I dreamed that my uncles fordson major was in the front yard!!!!

Well there is a way to make that dream come true Just go round there one day and ask him if he would sell or donate it to you . I know you said you where shy, I used to be like that but grew out of it . My parents wish I hadn't now though,Because there are way to many tractors in our yard that I own.
Before I would of never gone into a strangers yard, and asked guys if they wanted to sell the Fordson I saw when driving by, or was told about by friends
Regards Robert

[ford5000y]

Yes, I'm thinking about that for "some time" but, still my shyness overcomes me every time I had the chance of talking to my uncle
Perhaps I could have my father talk to my uncle about it

It is because his fordson was in a pretty sorry state. I have never seen it run in all 17 years of my life (even though, I have seen it move. It is initially parked on the front of their house but they moved it on the side because it blocked the view.) the tractor is parked outside, battling the rain, and other elements. And, it has the remains of the hydraulic automatic clutch release in it

The other dream that I have was that I am discing with a fordson power major (the power major looked like Dandy Dave's FPM because before I went to sleep, I was staring at his pics of his FPM and drooling over it ) The dream ended up like a nightmare because of my weakness in reversing a trailed implement backwards!!

[ford5000y]

My parents wish I hadn't now though,Because there are way to many tractors in our yard that I own.

Well, at least probably all of them were fordsons or fords, because I think they'll be more upset if you would bring home a Massey

[Dandy Dave]

Yes, I'm thinking about that for "some time" but, still my shyness overcomes me every time I had the chance of talking to my uncle
Perhaps I could have my father talk to my uncle about it

It is because his fordson was in a pretty sorry state. I have never seen it run in all 17 years of my life (even though, I have seen it move. It is initially parked on the front of their house but they moved it on the side because it blocked the view.) the tractor is parked outside, battling the rain, and other elements. And, it has the remains of the hydraulic automatic clutch release in it

The other dream that I have was that I am discing with a fordson power major (the power major looked like Dandy Dave's FPM because before I went to sleep, I was staring at his pics of his FPM and drooling over it ) The dream ended up like a nightmare because of my weakness in reversing a trailed implement backwards!!

You need to go and talk to your uncle and at least let him know that you are interested. Otherwise someday you will go there and it will be gone, and too late for you to get it. He most likely has no idea that you are even interested. At least if he knows that you want it, it will be on his mind to give you a go at it.

On Dreaming about my FPM. The old girl is flattered. Dandy Dave!

[ford5000y]

You need to go and talk to your uncle and at least let him know that you are interested. Otherwise someday you will go there and it will be gone, and too late for you to get it. He most likely has no idea that you are even interested. At least if he knows that you want it, it will be on his mind to give you a go at it.

Thanks Dave,

the good thing about the fordsons around here is that few people would want to sell their fordsons because fewer people would want a fordson for work. They would prefer ford 5000s. That means that there is an extremely high possibility that he had been thinking of selling his major but he won't because he thinks no one would be interested in buying a non-running tractor with rather expensive parts (parts for fordsons around here were known to be a little bit expensive, probably that explains why some of the fordsons around here were kept in their garages and used in light jobs because their owners would not want to buy parts). They have a pre-force ford 5000 for farm work.

Since we're talking about his fordson, here is the tractor in question...



as you can see any fordson addict like me would be interested in it just looking at its condition, she's looking sad for some time . she was moved there probably 10 years ago, she was originally parked directly in front of their house (a small detail was shown far right of the first pic )

[Dandy Dave]

Great Crusty Critters. She's a rough one! Oh heck, he may even just give it to you as you are family if he knows your intentions are to revive it and save it.. All I see is a labor of love bringing that one back. I've done stuff just as bad, and even worse. Is he married? If so, putting a bug in your aunts ear may also help. Often the women want these things out of the yard anyway. Dandy Dave!

[ford5000y]

Great Crusty Critters. She's a rough one! Oh heck, he may even just give it to you as you are family if he knows your intentions are to revive it and save it.. All I see is a labor of love bringing that one back. I've done stuff just as bad, and even worse. Is he married? If so, putting a bug in your aunts ear may also help. Often the women want these things out of the yard anyway. Dandy Dave!

Yes he is, his wife is my teacher when I'm grade 5. But the bad thing, is I have never told her about it during my elementary school days because during that time, I was infatuated to another tractor, and that tractor is my grandfather's ford 4000.

Another bad news: the fordson in the pics has all brand new front tires when it was parked up
But has anyone ever notice the hydraulic automatic clutch release toplink bracket Because that means, the fordson's fitted once with a rare option! And again, that means that there's a possibility that my uncle have all the remaining bits of it!

And yes you're right, she would want to get rid of it!

[Oughtsix]

Well, its been a little while. My old Fordson hasn't moved a hair in about 3 years... life kind of got in the way.

Last week I had a bit of a wild hair. After a couple hours studying the manual and how to pull the injectors without screwing them up I went out and dumped a gallon of Burn-O- de-seize down the exhaust stack.

On the way home today it occurred to me to wonder if the de-seize had done anything to loosen the engine. So I put an adjustable wrench on the front of the crank shaft with a 5' cheater and could feel myself rounding off the nut on the crank shaft. I pulled off the cheater and the wrench to inspect the nut... to my surprise it wasn't rounded over! I put just the wrench back on and the crank has freed up!!!! This is a tractor that we pulled down my bosses gravel driveway at about 25mph and popped the clutch with the transmission in high and dug two nice foot deep grooves into his driveway with those big old frozen rear wheels.

I didn't have time to do any more but I hope to pull the exhaust manifold off this weekend to drain the Burn-O-, change the oil and try to crank her over! I kind of figured the Fordson would be a retirement project in another 15 years but now that the engine is turning I have high hopes of getting her running and putting her to work!

[SkidRoe]

Wow, Major break through!! Congrats!! Keep the momentum going, you will have it running by the weekend!!

Cheers - SR

[BearCreek Majors]

Remember to check the oil, make sure you don't have a bunch of water or sludge laying in the bottom of the oil pan waiting to wreck your engine!

Pat

[Oughtsix]

Well I could get the crank shaft moving but I couldn't get the crank shaft to rotate a full 360 degrees without binding up really tight.

So this morning I pulled the front shroud, radiator and head. There was just a bunch of petrified gunk in the cylinders. Hard deposits like calcified water deposit's and a touch of surface rust. So I made the hour round trip to harbor freight and picked up a cylinder hone. The hone did a nice job cleaning the cylinder walls and I did my best to make a pretty cross hatch pattern. Now I can pretty much spin the crank by hand with some effort... it is tons better than going at it with a wrench on the front crank.

I called a buddy to help me get the head back on.... darned thing is heavy! Torqued all the head bolts down to 50 ft/lbs starting from the center and working out. Then repeated torquing them to 85ft/lbs center bolts first working out. Got all the fuel lines, injector lines and what not connected back up. My bolts had 100 on the heads.

I put on a battery and cranked it quite a bit and nothing. There was a lot of smoke from the solenoid. I pulled the started wire off the solenoid and the lug connector was way over sized, held on with a couple copper washers to reduce the hole size and everything was very corroded. I cleaned that all up to pretty copper and no more smoking.

The engine was turning but no signs of life. So I pulled the fuel line at the tank and got clear diesel. Put the tank fuel line back on and pulled the fuel line on the far side of the filter. No fuel came out when cranking. I remembered a lot of fuel drizzling out from near the fuel filter when I had the head off. So we cranked it quite a bit longer until fuel started coming out of the filter. I put the lines back on and cranked a lot more then finally got some light puffs of whitish smoke. After a lot more cranking I got to the point of a good amount of heave whitish/blackish smoke. My optima battery is now exhausted and charging.

The fuel in the tank was clean, clear but old. Tomorrow I am going to drain the tank and fill it with fresh fuel (The fuel in there was about 3 years old). Should I use pump diesel or kerosene to try to get her started?

I have no doubt the the oil in the crank case is a thinned out mess from all the kerosene I used to clean out the cylinders when I bored them. If I can get her to kick over I will change the oil. I picked up 2 gallons of Shell Rotilla. Is 2 gallons enough?

One last question. How do I stop the engine once I get it running? I was going to turn off the cock on the bottom of the fuel tank if I couldn't fined anything else. I have the throttle on full when trying to start her... is that correct? I was told to never use starting fluid (Ether) in a diesel. I assume that hold true even for an old Fordson? How much cranking do these tractors usually take to get going after they have been sitting for a while?

Thanks for the encouragement!

[SkidRoe]

At this point, a whiff of starting fluid probably would not be a bad thing. Just make sure you have the engine cranking before you spray it in and only spray into the air intake stack. And yes changing the oil before you go to much further would be a really good idea.

[BearCreek Majors]

Sounds like your on the rite track, when you put that clean fuel in the tank mix in some ATF, it will help to loosen up the gunked up injectors and pump. To shut it down you just pull back the lever on the back of the pump, it may still have a cable hooked to it. to ease starting, push in the excess fuel button at the bottom of the lever, this lets the fuel rack go to max, and resets itself as soon as the governor pulls it back.

Pat

[BearCreek Majors]

This lever.



Pat

[Oughtsix]

Thank you for the info! My fuel pressure relief (thank you for the picture) does not have the dash cable on it. It will be nice to be able to shut her off if I ever get her running!

Last night I pulled the head off again to check everything out. I had left the cylinders dry which wasn't good. They now have a new coat of oil on them.

I did change the oil last night. The oil that was in there was a little dirty but it was very thin from the kerosene and other chemicals I used for cleaning the head.

It got dark and I wasn't able to get the head back on while I could still see what I was doing. I did crank the engine a bit with the head off. Everything moves nice and smooth and the pump is firing out of all 4 injector lines. Hmmm... Maybe I will connect up the injectors before I mount the head so I can see what the injector spray pattern is like?

[SkidRoe]

Not a bad idea on the injectors, but since you have them out, why not take them to a diesel shop and have them bench tested? That way, you will know that they are good.

BTW - Just checking, but you are going to fit another new head gasket when you put the head back on, right?

Cheers - SR

[Oughtsix]

The current head gasket is an original (I believe) solid copper head gasket. When I have worked with solid copper gaskets in the past I have just annealed them and put them back on. I haven't annealed this gasket.

My quandary is: do I buy a new head gasket? do I buy an upper end rebuild kit? Or do I buy the whole rebuild kit for ~$600.

The white smoke means that I don't have enough compression to ignite the diesel. Is my problem the head gasket, the valves, the rings or the cylinders? So I am just going to try to get her running with the least investment possible.


Ok, here is the score: I got the head back on with the cylinders nicely lubed. I didn't put the intake and exhaust manifolds back on. I can keep her running as long as I feed her her starter fluid!

So I believe the compression is good! That leaves fuel. I flushed the fuel tank with Kerosene and I am thinking that I probably have some left in the fuel system. Does Kerosene combust at a higher temperature than Diesel? Or does it not contain as much energy as Diesel? Hmmm..... I guess if I flush the fuel system again and can't get her running without starter fluid my next step is to pull the injectors and have the nozzles replaced. As suggested it is probably worth it to do that anyway.

I figure if I can get her running decently that I will just buy a complete gasket set and call it good. New head gasket, new valve cover gasket, new intake/exhaust manifold gasket.

When I am trying to start her should the fuel lever be all the way up or all the way down?

[SkidRoe]

Sorry, must have missed the earlier post.

Kerosene has less energy potential as diesel fuel, but it should still run on it. It sounds like you are not getting any fuel, or the fuel you are getting is not atomizing properly.

Did you run the test on the injectors that you were going to try?

Cheers - SR