Finaly painting the Super Four

[BearCreek Majors]

Finally got busy at painting the Super Four, got all the seals replaced in the front drives last week, got the Super Six back together and out of the shop, did some cleaning in the shop and started to rip the Super four down. Started by steam cleaning her and after we had her striped down we put wheels on the back, drug her outside and steam cleaned some more. Had a few more oil leaks to fix, had to drop the oil pan and replace the gaskets. While we were in there we popped off a con rod cap to take a look. Still standard bearings and look like they are just broke in. This motor kinda stumps me, I know the head has been off it as some of the head bolts under the rocker cover have paint on them but other than that I don’t think the motor has been touched, and there is nothing wrong with it, it doesn’t burn any oil, has good compression and runs like a champ. It’s the only tractor I have ever bought that had a good motor. The PTO seal was leaking as well so we backed it up the side of the barn hill, pulled out the shaft and replaced the seal.
You may notice that the Boss had to get into the pictures, not a bad looking Grandma.

Pat

[BearCreek Majors]

Got the running gear in primer tonight. spent a lot of time this last week fixing small pidly oil leaks but I think I finaly got them all.

Pat

[henk]

Pat,

She is going to be a beautiful lady. And I’m talking about the tractor. The other one all ready is.
You are well equipped. Even a milling machine.
Many will be green.

[BearCreek Majors]

Getting there.

Henk……you'll get no arguments from me!

Pat

[BearCreek Majors]

Got the grey painted tonight, and I have to get my butt in gear, Symco is only a week away!

Pat

[Bensdexta]

Coming on nicely

Did you do any blasting, or just steam clean?

Hope you're putting Granny to work

[frode]

Good job! I like it. I want one of these myself

[BearCreek Majors]

the running gear just got a good steam cleaning and hand scraping where needed. the sheat metal normaly gets sanded to break the surface, then primer, then wet sanded smooth. the smaller parts I'll usaly sanblast in a cabnet, primer, and then minamal wet sanding. sence the rims are to big for the blast cabnet and they had acouple of layers of thick and peeling paint, the boys took them outside and blasted them down to mostly bare steel, we then gave them a good coat of primer and just scotchbrite to nock down the fuzzys before painting. And its usaly granny that runs the blasting cabnet, she kinda injoys doing it and it frees up my time to do other fun things like wet sanding till your arms fall off.

Pat

[BearCreek Majors]

Should have her mostly done by tomorrow and ready for the show this weekend. The tires look like crap all weather checked and cracked but new ones just aren’t in the budget this year.

Pat

[Bensdexta]

Unusual colour scheme, a Bear Creek Special for winter camouflage?!

Nice work and quick

[BearCreek Majors]

Got the County 4 done on time and over to the Symco Thresheree a few weeks ago. We had a great time, lots of people looking at her….and a few even knew what she was!
We had great weather all weekend and big crowds as usual, but I was happy to have all the tractors home and to kick my shoes off Sunday evening.

Pat

[henk]

Pat,

Congratulations. A great result. These tractors are so beautiful.

[frode]

I think I just got one of these myself . With dozer blade and backhoe. This one is also grey, and I was told that the last ones got this color scheme (same as the super-6)

It looks very good in new paint, BearCreek Majors

[BearCreek Majors]

Frode, get us some pic's! While I was at the Symco Thrashere an older gent that actualy knew what The Countys where, told me he remembered seeing a unit that had a backho and a blade, the owner used it for digging basments among other things. Id like to so how they attached the blade as I have a spare one off of my TD9 parts crawler that would look neat on the front of one of my Countys.

Pat

[frode]

I can get you some pics of the blade setup for my county 654 later. I have removed it for painting the tractor. I have not seen the Super-4 myself, and will be picking it up in a month or two. Will get some pics then

[frode]

I can get you some pics of the blade setup for my county 654 later. I have removed it for painting the tractor. I have not seen the Super-4 myself, and will be picking it up in a month or two. Will get some pics then

Picked it up yesterday. 5,5 hour drive each way to get it. Will post pictures later today.

[Mark]

Pat that's a nice looking County, nice looking garage too, well equipped, even have a good looking sand blaster to go with it! What do you heat with? I know you all have pretty cold winters up your way. I use wood and coal stove in my 20x30 shop, I could put my garage in yours and still have room for a few County's. Anyway it looks like you and your family are having fun doing things together.
See ya

[BearCreek Majors]

Thanks mark! The “sand blaster” and I have been together for 29 years now, and she comes in handy sometimes!
Heat…funny you should ask. Here is yet another one of my projects.
I heat with drain oil, I had made my own gun and stuck it in a furnace many years ago but the fire pot was so small and I was pushing so many Btu’s through it that I burn out the fire pot twice. I then got a good deal on a used Black Gold forced air unit (made to burn waste oil) that I used for several years until the heat exchanger rotted through I then got an old oil burner furnace with a good sized fire pot lined with fire brick, much better to take the Btu’s I needed to fire through it. I installed the Black Gold gun and used it for a year or two until I got sick and tired of it and the tank taking up valuable floor space in my shop.
I had a cement slab out back by the hog barn that was from a smaller barn that had fallen down before I bought the place. I also had a bunch of 10” channel iron frame rails from some old Oshkosh cement trucks, and a pile of used corrugated steel siding from a pole shed….what was I to do but build a boiler house! You may notice in the shop pics the heater hanging from the ceiling with the two orange lines to it, this nothing more than a heat exchange/radiator from a big screw air compressor and a squirrel cage blower behind it.
If you look close at the boiler building you can see the frame rails standing in the corners and supporting the center, as well as my dad’s major on the back side of the building. We split the roof line to make it look somewhat like an old chicken coop but I also needed the height to get an I beam, trolley and hoist up in the peak so that I can back a truck in the back door and unload 55 gal barrels of oil with the hoist.
I picked up a old boiler for $250.00. It was nothing but the bare boiler, front door, and the smoke box that the stack attaches to. I made the enclosure and installed the fittings, pumps, expansion tank, controls, etc. I then made another gun using the boiler water as the oil preheater rather than electric as used on the Black Gold unit.
I then got out the back hoe and dug trenches to the shop and the house, and the worst part…. I had to spend $1,800.00 on the insulated Pex tubing lines that got buried in the trenches. I then got a visit from a nice gentleman from the county that thought I was putting in an illegal septic system. Unfortunately for the county the nice gentleman gut suckered into doing a perk test in my back yard as I already had trenches dug all over the place.
We got the system up and running last year December and heated the house and shop all winter. I just fired it back up last week and as long as I can scrounge up enough waste oil I’ll go another year without spending a dime on heating oil.

Pat

[Mark]

Pat that's a nice way to heat. Your pretty handy to have around, your sandblaster should keep you for another 29 years.

[Bensdexta]

I just fired it back up last week and as long as I can scrounge up enough waste oil I’ll go another year without spending a dime on heating oil.

Folk used to heat with waste oil in UK but I believe there are health & safety problems and a licence is needed, so not many folk doing it now.

[BearCreek Majors]

Don’t quote me on this but I believe we don’t need a permit unless we burn more than 500,000 btu, and we need a permit to get oil from industrial/factories. We can legally take it from m private parties and farms.
If the furnace and gun are set up properly there should be no more pollution than a fuel oil burning furnace. There will most likely be more carbon in it but not much more than a few ppm’s in the stack.

Pat

[frode]

Pat,

Does your Super-4 have a transmission handbrake? Looks like the handle on mine is broken, but I am not 100% sure.

[BearCreek Majors]

Hi Frode, no the Super Four does not, but the Super Six does. Over here in the US very few of the Majors have the hand brake, normally we only see them on the tractors that were built for the UK and exported as used equipment.

Pat

[BearCreek Majors]

Plowing at Uncle Vic's this weekend, had great weather and a beautiful day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLGScE1EGQ0

Pat

[county654]

Great video

County and a Kvernland plough.....the legends live forever