Farmall M Won't turn over

I'm new to the forum, so my appologies if I don't follow proper ediquite. I recently bought a house which came with an old Farmall M (year unkown?). Apparently the previous owner didn't want to be hassled with moving the tractor. This farmall has sat out in a field through all of Michigan's seasons for the last 20 years. It's covered in rust and in very bad shape. It fired up every time without any problems, but it would overheat after about 5 minutes. I wanted to start working on the tractor, so I moved it to my barn. While moving it, I noticed there was a fuel leak from the sediment cup.

I ordered a new sediment cup and decided to clean the Zenith carburator while I waited for the sediment cup to come. Yesterday I put the carburator back together, installed the new sediment cup, and tried to start it. To my surprise, the tractor wouldn't even turn over. When I pressed the starter, it would give one good attempt ot turn over. The fan would turn about 1/8 of a revolution, but then it would just stop.

Did I do something wrong while rebuilding the carburetor? I would imagine that it would still turn over, but it wouldn't fire up if I messed the carb up.

Any help is appreciated.

Most likely the starter is stuck against the ring gear on the fly wheel. Very common problem on the old tractors. All you have to do is back out the starter, turn the engine just a little by hand and put the
starter back. If the engine doesn't turn by hand another possibility could be its stuck in 2 gears - another common problems on the old tractors. Try depressing the clutch and see if it turns. I guess you
could also have a bad starter but my money is on the starter being stuck to the ring gear.

Thanks Charlie.

I should also mention that my wire (who doesn't know anything about engines and can't drive a stick) got curious, so she climbed on the tractor while I had it apart and started pulling levers. I had left the tractor in Reverse to use teh transmission as a parking brake. My wife ended up pulling the transmission from Reverse to neutral without ever pressing the clutch. I didn't think this would cause any issues, but it sounds like I may have the "stuck in 2 gears" issue. Any idea on how to troubleshoot or fix this?

If it gets hot, the head gasket may be leaking. may have water in cylinder, if so pull the plugs to let it out. good luck, Joe

Fiddling with the carburetor did not affect how the tractor cranks, unless you somehow managed to defy physics and fill one or more cylinders with gasoline. To eliminate this one odd unlikely possibility, pull all four spark plugs and crank the engine over. If gasoline (or water, because you left it out in the rain without covering the exhaust) shoots out of one or more cylinders, you have your answer.

When the tractor is not running or moving, it is not necessary to push the clutch to shift gears. If your wife only slipped the gear shift from reverse to neutral, it is probably in neutral. Try to roll the tractor. If it is in gear it will stop with a quiet clunk very quickly. It should roll freely a few inches in each direction if it is neutral.

Now, have you charged the battery? 1/8 of a turn, then nothing could mean that you ran the battery down starting it over and over. It could also mean you have a dirty connection somewhere in the heavy cables between the battery, switch, and starter. It is very common for things to be perfectly fine one start, then suddenly have a bad connection.

If you want to eliminate a jammed starter, simply loosen the two bolts holding the starter, jiggle the starter around, and then tighten it back down.

Charge the battery for 24 hours, then try again. If you still don't have anything, start taking apart and cleaning battery, switch, and starter connections one by one.

If it turns a little every time the starter is tried, the starter is probably not stuck. Could be weak battery or starter, bad connections or starter switch. Remove spark plugs and try. Also good idea to remove valve cover to check for stuck valves. With plugs out you should be able to press on fan belt and turn engine by hand if all is good. Try with clutch pedal pushed down, unless clutch is stuck it should turn even if stuck in two gears. Overheating in that short of time without a low coolant level sounds like a plugged system, radiator or engine block. Stuck thermostat usually won't cause overheat that fast unless bypass is plugged. Also make sure the coolant pump impeller is turning through the drive studs and connecting casting in front of fan.
Farmall M didn't use a zenith carburetor.

I would install new heavy battery cables and clean all the connections.Hal

somebody else touched on this - but your over heat problem is very likely a bad head gasket. Cylinder pressure goes into the water jacket and
pressurizes it and bubbles coolant out the radiator very much like it's over heating.

If that's the case, coolant can just as easily make its way into the cylinders. If that happens, you get locked up and can do some real damage.

Pull all the plugs and try turning it over, just to be sure that's not the case. Use a white marker to label the plug wires from 1 to 4 starting at
the fan side of the engine back, this will make it foolproof to get their order correct when putting them back.

if you're not spitting coolant out the spark plug holes, reassemble.

I'm guessing what's MOST likely is that your generator/alternator isn't working - or that your battery is just on its last legs. It may have been
good enough for a few starts, but isn't getting recharged and you've finally hit the point where it doesn't have the juice left to spin the starter.

Coincidences are frustrating, but I think that's what this is, that this happened right while you were doing the other work.

Start by checking all battery connections. Next make sure the battery has a full charge. If both of those are good pull all the plugs out making sure you do not mix them up so not to mix up the firing order then try to spin it over. As one of the guys said it may have a bad head gasket and it has gotten bad enough to have filled one or more cylinders with coolant which would cause a hydro-lock

Just one step further, loosen the oil drain plug most of the way to see if there is water/coolant in the pan. If it sat a couple days the water/coolant should have separated and should drip before the plug is all the way out and also before the oil drips out. If it was getting some coolant in the cylinders, some could get into the pan also.

After you get it running, and you say it gets hot real quick, you might need a new water jacket plate, It's got some fins in it, and if their rusted away, that will make it heat.