What a frustrating day!

While waiting for gaskets to arrive to finish putting Bob’s engine back together Ivan and Graham started to rebuild Laddie’s engine. (Laddie has been waiting patiently while Bob’s engine was put on and taken off because of the leaking head gaskets and the other things).

The crankshaft was fitted after another final clean then the block was turned over and the spectacle gasket seats inspected one final time before fitting the gaskets, liners and pistons.

Graham (this is Graham of the stationary engines, by the way)  inspecting the liner seats, spotted an irregularity in the surface which, on closer inspections, he identified as a stitching up of this important part of the block. For a block to need welding there is not a good sign and the raised surface is certainly contra-indicative of the block being ready for having the liners refitted. Before rebuilding can continue the projecting area will have to be honed. No problem but, despite our systems for keeping tools tidy and ready for use, the honing tool has not come to light in an exhaustive search so tomorrow Steve is kindly going to lend the workshop his own set.

CORRECTION !!   See next blog.We'd all had a hell of a day yesterday by the time we'd finished (upsets from an ex-employer visiting the workshop - nothing to do with tractors) and it was last thing when the irregularity in Laddie's block was discovered. This morning Ivan came in late (very unusual for him but he'd had to go to chexk something after the high winds

In the meantime Daisy May was having her brakes attended to. An adjustment in the linkage system carried out by Graham has resulted in a brake which now functions. Unfortunately even when the brakes are disconnected Daisy May’s wheel is locking up so tomorrow we start looking at the differential. Everytime something on this tractor is fixed it does something else.

Also because of all the immediate demands on my time I have hardly made a dent in the paperwork I needed to do today so apologies for those of you waiting for parts.

Its been a really depressing week so far. Monday saw two set-backs- yes, I should be used to it by now but when a tractor has been lovingly worked on and then things are not right one does wonder why life can't be simple.

There were times in the past when Mark and I were working together when things kept going wrong when even he, with his sunny temperament and ability to look on the bright side, would go into the office and put his head between his hands.

One bright spot is that Mark is coming back for work here for one day a week to help us through the staff shortage since Gary has left us and we've got three tractors on the go two of which should have been finished some while back and one which should have been started and hasn't been.

So what's gone wrong: well for a start, Daisy May (the tractor who doesn't want to go home), is still here. Every day for the last week she has been started up (and started first time every time) and run round the yard.everything (apart from the brakes which we are still working on) has been fine.

Her owner had taken time off to come and check he was happy before she was delivered back at the weekend and ten minutes before he arrived Ivan went to start her up to bring her to the front of the workshop so that her owner could take her round the yard and damn and blast, the starting problem which had been fixed re-occurred! I think we are going to have to have the top off the gearbox again. There are no quick fixes on this one. I am off the opinion that the problem lies with the button on the side of the gearbox (this is a diesel, remember) which makes it impossible to put the gearstick into the starter position by mistake. I've seen a number of TEFs with this button totally removed but we are a restoration workshop and if we can get Daisy May starting with the button there then we will do so. The trouble is that every single thing on that tractor is worn to the point where things are loose and sloppy where they should be crisp and unidirectional. More on this later.

Bob was, by the time Mark had spent twenty minutes on him, running round the yard with a tickover which sounded gorgeous. He adjusted the governor controls and tuned the carb., reset the tappets and confirmed that new plug leads would be a good idea and we were left with a final list of things like adjusting the clutch pedal and painting the bits of axle beam which were still in red oxide.

This is what he looks like at the moment- again...

Why?

There is still water getting into the oil so off the engine has come again, pistons out, liners out to check the spectacle gaskets, big ends off. Bob's owner asked why, when Bob had run without problems, apart from the low oil pressure, before he came in there were so many problems with the head now which is a very valid question. I remember asking the same thing when my ancient Volvo estate which had run without problems started throwing every possible fit after just a service. I was told that disturbing anything on an older vehicle creates new stresses and strains and this is a similar case. We had noticed, when we started Bob in the workshop where there is a concrete floor that water was bubbling out in one corner of the head. This is not something that would have been noticable on grass. By stripping the engine for line-boring of course we upset all the comfortable juxtapositions of the gaskets, head and head plate which had settled down over the years. Bob had also been running with very low oil pressure. Now, with a newly reground crankshafts, a camshaft which is not leaking oil and new pistons with excellent compression, the whole engine function is notched up to a different level.

I only get briefly depressed when things go wrong. People say well, why don't you just give it up, retire, do something else you've always wanted to do but the bottom line is that I love the work, love  working with these gallant little tractors- they are individuals deserving the very best chance to go on running into the 22nd century and I love the challenge of getting things right in the end. When you've arrived at where you've always wanted to be since you were four years old, why chuck it away?

Anyway, to finish on a cheery note- I was looking through the photos to see if we had a view of a particular tractor and ran across this picture of my two grand-daughters sitting in the truck.

Steve and I in the workshop today moved towards getting Laddie (the other East Sussex tractor) started and continued with the process of testing Daisy May (the diesel with the series of problems).

The latest of these was the annoying diesel leak which persisted despite tightening every junction. Steve settled down to an investigative session.

(While I'm writing this I can hear Steve driving Daisy May out into the yard in the dark to test the brakes after another dismantling and inspection.)

By a process of elimination he identified to leak as coming from the entry into the bottom of the auxiliary tank itself- you can see the wet patch above the butterfly  in the photo.

Phonecall to owner offering options of taking tank off and repairing it, leaving it, bypassing it.

In the meantime I was getting Laddie's block out for its final inspection for clean-ness. I used the engine hoist to lift the block out of the cleaning bay then lowered it until I could bolt it onto the engine support which can be turned to make access easier on all sides. Our only complaint about our super Clarkes equipment is that the engine support won't fit comfortably inside the engine hoist and the heavy block has to be man-handled a bit as well.

It looked pretty good.

Cleaning every liner seat, oilway and face is vital so our cleaning is very thorough.

However our last inspection is out in daylight as things show up which can't be seen in artificial light and as I turned the engine over I caught a glimpse of something moving in the orifice leading to the oil filter (the black hole in the photo to the left of the oil pump mahined face) which turned out to be a a lump of oily clag camouflaged in the darkness.

This is what came out.

Out in the open we give a final high pressure clean with paraffin leaving it ready for rebuilding.

This next picture is Steve giving a thorough trialling of Daisy May's brakes. He was not satisfied and so she went back into the workshop to have the whole brake assembly dismantled and checked again.

On the final test run mentioned earlier he expressed himself satisfied with the one side but the side with the bent back plate (just one of the abuses this poor tractor has suffered) is still under discussion. My preference is to fit another plate altogether but this tractor has had to have so much more work done on it than was originally planned that her owner is quite understandably muttering about budgets so we'll have to see.

Being Friday Steve and I are going to knock off prompt at five and head for the Hill House to have a quick half so have a good weekend , everyone!

Bob is a TEA (petrol) converted to run on TVO as well. Unusually he had only one thin plate and two gaskets between the head and block. Usually there is one thick plate and two gaskets or two thiner plates and three gaskets. When we rebuilt the engine after regrinding the crankshaft and lineboreing the camshaft journals we rebuilt it as it was with the one thin plate and two gaskets.

We always get the engine running before rebuilding the rest of the tractor in case anything needs further attention. Lucky we did because Bob's engine started well and ran but examination of the oil (on the dipstick) showed that water was leaking into the oil.

Off came the head again and sure enough it was the dodgy part of the plate which was causing the problem.

This is one side...

and this is the other...

Decision time - fit a different plate- lots of phoning- no plates to be had for love nor money. However, on of our contacts said, Hold on a minute, when TVO convertions were first carried out they didn't have plates at all!

'What did they do, then?' I enquired.

'Gaskets', came the reply, ' Lots'

How many is lots?

'Sometimes as many as eight!'

We didn't need to fit eight. We only needed five to reach the required spacing. It was with trepidation that we started to run the tests again but it was successful. Sometimes old methods are the best!

When the time came to wheel back the front wheels complete with radius arms, steering arms and axle assembly we found two problems. The front axle pin which does the vital job of supporting the front of the tractor to say nothing of holding all the steering stuff and the front wheels was worn to a point where the amount of slop was alarming and also potentially dangerous. It seems unlikely that, however wor, a solid pin can snap but we have seen it on one of the tractors we had in where the only things holding the tractor together were the axle bolts!

The old bush did not want to come out so Gary heated it when it came out in two bits worn very thin.

Then he found that the hole in the axle was worn oval which meant that no way could a new bush be fitted- the whole assembly would have worn through again very rapidly.

So it meant fitting a new centre axle beam. We have a number around but only two passed the ovality test.

An unusual feature on Bob is the two original fuel tank filters which are surprisingly in excellent condition.

Steve and I were here in the workshop this afternoon (Steve had been playing bowls in the morning) and we started what should have been a straightforward job.

Simply dismantling the spindle assemblies to fit new bushes and bearings on both sides. By the way, if you wonder why I refer to them aqs 'spindles' rather than the more commonly used label 'King pins' its because thats what the Ferguson parts manual calls them.

We’d started off with the whole front axle assembly supported on the engine hoist (still being off while the engine was being rebuilt after its complete overhaul). Lifted but touching the floor. Finding it swung about too much we detached the side axles from the main beam and started work one on each side.

Steve had the nearside one and I the offside. Steve undid the bolts on the arm of the spindle, loosened it by inserting a wedge into the split and the complete spindle assembly dropped out. In the meantime I was struggling. Mine did not want to allow the same wedge procedure to operate. I handed mine over to Steve to finish off while I returned a phone call about parts. There were a lot of banging noises but when I came back though Steve was getting a bit red in the face the arm was off. I assumed that Steve was cleverer or stronger than I was and waited for him to knock the spindle out as he’d done with his, but it didn’t move. The other one had come out with gleaming metal and grease but this one was different, it was dark and rusty and very stiff.

We put it into the big vice, tried again to shift it, failed, applied WD 40 copiously and tried to tap it out being very careful not to damage the thread.

It moved four inches then wouldn’t budge any further.

We tried gentle persuasion with a copper hammer, tried a bigger hammer which Steve broke after it had moved another few inches.

We tried tapping on top and hitting bottom part together. We put it in the bigger vice and I heated it with oxy/acetylene while Steve applied a hammer but unusually this made no difference at all. We were standing back from out labours briefly both with aching arms and re in the face from the heat and exertion when Gary appeared with his stepson Daniel. We explained that we thought the problem was not rust but that the spindle was actually bent and Gary with the vernier confirmed this so we stopped to review the situation. An alternative spindle assembly was the answer so we started to search. These assemblies are handed and of course the first three we found were either the wrong side or were beyond re-use but eventually we decided that Herbert’s side axle had to be used with a new spindle. I broke the news to Bob’s owner who thankfully understands vintage vehicles and was very understanding. I’d already had to phone three times to discuss the seriously worn axle bush and pin, the excessive play in the spindles and the leak in the recently re-cored radiator. Neither he nor us can understand why it has a leak and I examined the radiator very carefully to see if there was any way damage had been done to it. One can always see from the fins where a rad. has had a knock but this has no marks at all so it remains a mystery.

Gary and I were not surprised to find that the bracket the radiator sits on was visibly bent on one side because of the bent spindle- obviously Bob had had a serious knock with a previous owner.

Gary straightened the bent bracket with a lever and a lot of energy and now the radiator (temporarily lent to Bob by DeeJay) sits squarely.