10-20 CARB CLEAN

ok first time looking at this kind of carb not sher what to do it off an early 10-20 mccormik deering 1924 should i soak it in carb cleaner before taking apart and dose this tractor run on carosen or gas or both i have never delt with this old of a tractor any info is great thanks dan

Carb is very simple,It is all brass and only have 2 gaskets,Clean with carb cleaner,The long stem in the carb must be open,this is critical,Rice equ has all the parts,You will need a new float and probally a seat and main jet.If gas flows out of the carb where it goes together you might have to adjust the float

jimmy

It was made to start on gasoline and be switched to kerosene/powerfuel/tractorfuel/distilate/etc. for running. I should be plenty happy running gas full time, and it's likely someone already took of the starting fuel lines and/or (maybe 1/2 gallon round shape) tank.

Soaking it in diesel or something won't hurt, but I don't know that it will help you get it apart either. As noted above, they're pretty easy to work on; I recall many years ago when I was "knee high to a horned toad" getting a good scolding from my mother for rebuilding one in the bathtub.

Hi Dan,

Please do me a favor. If you are planning on using carburetor cleaner use gloves as it is very toxic. Try not to get any on you and if you do wash it off right away. It is a cancer producing agent. Thanks!

Bob

A 24 10-20 was made to run kerosene. It will run on gas, but may sputter and lose power if it gets hot. If you do run kero in it. put a rag or some canvas over the lower part of the radiator until the lower rad elbow gets a little warm. Running a cold engine on kero will thin the oil out in a short time. There are 3 oil pan valves. After running for a day, Let it sit overnight and then open the middle valve and drain the oil down to that level and refill with fresh oil.

(quoted from post at 14:27:32 03/16/09) Hi Dan,

Please do me a favor. If you are planning on using carburetor cleaner use gloves as it is very toxic. Try not to get any on you and if you do wash it off right away. It is a cancer producing agent. Thanks!

Bob

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FarmallBob, what brand of carb cleaner are you using? The stuff I have been using lately isn't nearly as strong as it was years ago.

For the record, just last week I decided to try a can of that Berryman's Chemdip stuff. That stuff is a total joke. It wouldn't even wrinkle the paint on an M carb.

Hi Rusty,

I don't use any of that stuff anymore! I use gas or kerosene and that isn't good to get on your skin also. Usually do get it on my hands but, wash myself off soon after finishing job. If it is a bad dirty job and I do have to resort to that bad stuff I will wear gloves, and eye glasses, and wash soon after. Read the lable on the can that is scary enough. Besides a cancer doctor that use to live next door to me told me about it and that is good enough for me.

You want to live to be old like me and be free of pain you have to take care of yourself!

Bob

The carb cleaner available from places like N.A.P.A. 30 to 40 years ago, was powerful enough to actually burn your skin if you accidently splashed some on you. You could place a painted part into that stuff, pull it right back out, and the paint was already starting to blister and peel. We cannot get that good stuff anymore. Today, I can buy the same brand, from the same place as what I used 40 years ago, and the stuff is so weak I think I could wash my hands in it with no ill effects. Blame it on OSHA and the EPA I guess.

Rusty,

I know and I used to use the stuff. My hands would be very chapped when I finished a project. In the machine tool industries where I worked years ago, my hands were most always pretty bad as we worked with all kinds of nasty stuff. Now I go into places to service and they have hot soapy water, and it really doesn't do the job as fast or as well. That 10-20 carb cleaner is probably OK?

Bob

Somebody correct me if this is wrong. I know that there was more than one style of manifold used on the 10-20 series (the exhaust exited through the hood OR through the firewall under the gas tank, depending on the manifold style). I THINK that these manifolds had a baffle that could be turned around to a cooler position for running on gasoline. The F-20 and F-30, along with the kerosene-distillate models of F-12 and F-14, had a lever that could be moved to different positions according to the fuel used, but I believe that the 10-20 had a baffle that had to be removed and turned around. It has been a LONG time (58 years, to be precise) since my father retired the 10-20 that I wrassled with for 10 years, and I don't remember much about the manifold. Some of you fellows who still have these tractors can probably comment on this.
Once, and only once, I decided to use kerosene, just to see what it was like. What a pain! Start on gas, cover the radiator with the blind, wait for vapor to start coming out the radiator cap, turn off gasoline, turn on kerosene, keep the engine hot or you'd get spitting and sputtering about like I do in heavy traffic these days. To shut down, off with the kerosene and let it stop, or....off with the kerosene and turn on the gas, shut off with the mag switch. I didn't know anybody who drove the old K-D tractors on kerosene by the time I got to using them around 1941. Too much trouble, maybe not that big a price difference then, but that I don't know.
Mostly because of the trouble involved in starting, keeping hot, turning off fuel to stop, etc. If you stopped on kerosene and waited a while, you'd have a lot of trouble starting, so that meant 1) drain the carburetor 2) fill carb with gas 3) start 4) switch fuels again. The other problem was that kerosene seemed to dilute the oil more than gasoline, so you had to drain down to the lower petcock on the crankcase every few hours, as somebody has mentioned in this post. The wasted oil wasn't free, either, so maybe the kerosene wasn't such a bargain after all.
I bounced around on that old steel-wheeled bird for a good ten years, and I sure wouldn't want to use one day in and day out any more, but I guess I kinda miss her. We never did ANYTHING to the tractor in the 22 years that my grandfather, father (and I) used it, and it always ran like a top. Rugged, rugged, rugged.