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1952 Ferguson TO30

n8in8or

I never met a project I didn’t like
Messages
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Location
Kalamazoo, MI
I got a new toy for the sand box today, '52 Ferguson TO30. This is from before Harry Ferguson joined forces with Massey Harris to become the now common Massey Ferguson. I wasn't really wanting this but a friend of mine gave me a deal on it that I couldn't refuse. Plus the more I thought about it, I really do have a lot of things I could use it for. His father in law had been restoring it for him for something fun to do and then he passed away suddenly. Most of the hard stuff is done, but we did find out that it has a blown head gasket, so I'll be doing that right away so I can use it. Other than that it just needs a good going over to make sure the fine details are done and a tune up then I'm ready to use it. I've never had anything with a bucket before and I can't wait to put it to use!! I'll probably start digging some holes just because o_O

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Yeah my dad has a '56 TO35 with a Ferguson loader on it and his loader has a lot less structure than mine. My loader has a tag on it, but it's painted over so I can't see the brand. I'm not sure if I could carefully remove the paint and be able to read the tag or not. I'm guessing not. I do really like that it's a power bucket instead of a trip bucket, it should be a lot handier.
 
I got the head off today. The inside of the engine is really clean. There is no ring ridge in the cylinders so that's good, but I found that the valves and valve guides are worn so I'm going to replace those.

One interesting thing I found is that while the exhaust valve spring retainers are the standard style I'm familiar with, the intake valve spring retainers are an odd pin arrangement. They were super easy to take apart, but I have no idea why they used a different type.

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It's always so much fun when the parts for a project show up!

I got the gasket kit, radiator, hoses, thermostat, rad cap, carb kit, distributor cap, water temp gauge and most importantly - the valve kit which contains valves, guides, springs and keepers. I'm taking the head to the machinist tomorrow to get the valve guides installed and valve seats ground to match the new valves. I'm also going to have him resurface the head because it looks like someone ground on the head sometime in its past. Check out the gouges in one of the chambers - someone must have dropped a bolt or something inside at one point in the past 64 years!
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The head still isn't done so I'm taking care of some other little things on the tractor in the meantime. One thing was the steering wheel connection. It had the wrong steering wheel on it when I bought it. It's supposed to have one with a woodruff key and instead it had one with a set screw. It didn't bother me much until while I was pulling it in the barn the wheel was spinning but the tractor wasn't turning! As you can imagine the set screw made quite the mess of the steering shaft. You can get new shafts, but they're $75 and you have to disassemble the whole steering box assembly. I decided my best course of action was to try to repair the shaft. I first welded the edges of the keyway to build them back up, then I ground it back down with my dremel and various bits. It isn't machinist quality, but it should work just fine. We'll see if it does when I get the new steering wheel.

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I got the new steering wheel and hardware yesterday and installed them last night. It went together just like it's supposed to. The chrome bits look pretty good on it too. :D
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I didn't think chrome was allowed on tractors. The wheel looks straight, maybe needed a 4 degree offset keyway?
Seriously, I've seen where spotting in for a worn keyway sometimes doesn't hold. If that's the case and it starts slipping just cut a new keyway 180* out from the original, I'm going to guess in the year 2038.
 
I didn't think chrome was allowed on tractors. The wheel looks straight, maybe needed a 4 degree offset keyway?
Seriously, I've seen where spotting in for a worn keyway sometimes doesn't hold. If that's the case and it starts slipping just cut a new keyway 180* out from the original, I'm going to guess in the year 2038.
Funny! Thanks for the feedback. I thought about it not holding, but then when I looked at the service manual and it said you need to use a puller to remove the wheel, which is because of the taper fit of the shaft and the wheel, I was concerned a lot less. In the year 2038, I'll probably be more inclined to just rebuild the steering box and replace the shaft :cool:
 
Nice tractor! Rubber looks brand new too! Some money there that's saved. Great job on the steering shaft. I've got a soft spot for old Farmalls and Olivers.
 
Nice tractor! Rubber looks brand new too! Some money there that's saved. Great job on the steering shaft. I've got a soft spot for old Farmalls and Olivers.
Thanks! Yeah this tractor had so much going for it that I couldn't pass it up. My dad has a couple Farmalls and I always love listening to the Oliver Waukesha sixes when they're running good. I have a 1946 Massey Harris 101 Senior besides this Ferguson that isn't nearly as pretty but is fun at the tractor pulls in Farm Stock.
 
Finally getting back to this now that the Moose project is pretty much done. Not much progress tonight since I only had about an hour to work on it, but I got the refreshed head prepped and torqued down. This is the first time I've used a torque wrench with a crow's foot, what a strange design. I backed the wrench off 4 foot-pounds to compensate. Hopefully more progress tomorrow night.

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Rocker assembly is on and tappets are adjusted. Also got the exhaust manifold on. Next will be carb and governor adjustment.
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Looks good!!! There was a video I saw on how to use a torque wrench with a crow's foot, basically you offset the crow's foot so that it's 90* to the head of the ratchet.
 
I like the woodruff key fix. I am doing some work on mine and the steering arm has a worn woodruff key too. I am trying Loctite 660 quick metal retaining compound. I doubt mine will hold but might have been just the extra reinforcement you needed to last til 2058. I contemplated trying to Loctite in a few pieces of feeler guage trimmed down but decided not too.

My steering wheel was rusted to my spline/taper and couldn't get it off. I smeared the new one pretty good with anti sieze.
 
I did some work to the Turd Ferguson the last couple days. Last week we had 4” of wet, heavy snow. I didn’t have the chains on the garden tractor yet and frankly didn’t feel like messing with them. So instead I decided to just see what the bucket on the tractor could do. It actually got around really well, but the narro bucket left a lot to be desired.....but it got me thinking...... I remembered that I had a plow sitting around from a truck I parted out 10 years ago. So I dug it out and decided I would adapt it to work on the bucket frame.

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The main bracket I had done in a day and I was pleased with how it looked and functioned. The construction is a little odd in some spots I’ll grant you, but I was trying to use as much material and parts as I already had to keep costs down.

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I cut an existing 3-point top link I had and extended it to use as the 3rd link for the plow mount.

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At the end of the day I was laying out the bucket tilt cylinder to figure out how I could use it for blade angle. I thought something like this should work.

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Day 2 (Sunday) I started making the mounts for the cylinder. I spent 5 hours working on them, tacked them to the frame.......and found out it just wasn’t going to work right - there was too much slop in the system as a whole to have it connect between the bucket frame and the blade frame.

Here is one of the pieces I made to attach one end of the cylinder to the blade frame and elevate it 4” yet still be strong.

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So I reasoned that the cylinder had to be attached to the blade attachment bracket and not the bucket lift frame to reduce the total slop in the system. I had thought about this earlier, but didn’t love having the cylinder in this location. In the end, I realized it was the location that made the most sense. So I fabbed the additional bracketry and tacked it in place. It worked! So it was time to weld it out. I ended Sunday running out of wire, but it was dinner time anyway.

Tuesday I finished welding the bracket out. I tell you what, it was sure fun laying some real beads after all the sheet metal I’ve been welding lately!

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And then I got it installed.

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Then I started working on the blade attachment point. I was able to reuse one of the other brackets I made Sunday so at least that wasn’t a total loss.

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Finally last night it was all done. Well almost....I still need to make or buy the shoes so the whole blade isn’t scraping the driveway. I plow about 300’ of driveway and this should make the chore MUCH faster than doing it with the garden tractor. And I can use that extra time to work on the Tahoe. I can’t wait for our next snow!

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Ok, snow plow question time from the desert guy...
I’ve worked on and operated tons of loaders, dozers, backhoes,etc. but not a snowplow - surprising I know! Haha

In the first pics of the blade attached to the machine it has the concave working side facing almost straight down. Pins for this pivot are in the center junction and at the actuator that controls side discharging. So the two springs that have the wide range of tension adjustment going from lower solid attathment to the top of the blade- the hold the up and down pivoting action in place.??

Is this some kind of passive energy absorbing thing incase you attempt to move too much material?

If so, is that so you dont spin the wheels and get stuck or incase you hit a rock imbedded in a dirt road you are clearing and keep from bending the blade? My understanding is snow blades are much lighter built than an earth moving blade.

It seems the actuator you started with at the angle and now is linear to tractor frame would be at risk for bending if the blade pivots foreword too much. I see the rear pin is to allow upward motion- do you remove the springs and test there is enough movement of actuator to never be damaged if the springs are extended or damaged?

If you ever have questions about how dry dirt can be, and how to make it drier, lmk! Haha. I keep wondering what things I take for granted knowledge here that most dont get- other than everytime I rescue a broke down traveler they never have water for some reason...
 
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