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JohnG(TX)
12-03-2001 09:32:34
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I just bought a 1941 Farmall M this Sunday. This is the first tractor I have ever bought, the others, a 1936 F-20 and a 1929 Regular, I have inherited from my grandparents farm. I really don't know why I bought it, it just seemed like the thing to do at the time. I bought it from my former boss, who was originally going to do something with it, someday, and it never happened. He just wanted to clean up his property and get rid of it. He said the engine was stuck and the block was cracked. The block plate behind the carburetor was replaced with an aluminum plate and a LOT of silicon sealer. There was bondo on the block in and around this area, and the whole section was bowed out toward the carburetor. Obviously the block had frozen at some time, but not busted out completely. It looked like this patch worked for some time. Other than these problems, and bad tires, the tractor was complete, with a perfect fuel tank and good sheetmetal. I paid $200 for it and I figured I could have $200 worth of fun with it. If it turned out to be a lost cause, I could probably make some of the money back from parts. Anyway, we got it back to the tractor shed and pulled the spark plugs. There was no rust of any consequence on any of them. The exahust pipe had a can over it for 10 years, so it must have done some good. We soaked the cylinders with diesel fuel, and I pulled on the front crank. It shot out gysers of diesel from the spark plug holes. The engine was definitely not stuck! At this point, wew decided to try to make it run. I played with the distributor and cleaned the points. Everything looked OK. We then played around with the carburetor and tried to get fuel into it. This also looked OK initially. The choke valve was stuck closed and had to be worked open. After a couple of hours of fiddling and trying, it finally fired a few times. Did I mention it was electric start? This worked out wonderfully since we had to crank and crank to get it to do anything. Everytime it fired a little, it rained down hot rust from the stack. Eventually we got it to where it would run smooth at both high speed and slow idle. We had no coolant in it, due to the bad side plate, so we could not run it long. The idea is to make a steel plate to match the curvature of the block and try to cover the access hole again. If I can get the block sealed up, then I can use the tractor as-is for a while until I feel like changing out the block for a better one. I have a pair of almost-new 38" tires on the family farm, so this is a good savings. I really don't have a lot of need for a tractor since I don't farm, or even live on/near a farm, but it seems like a neat toy. For $200, I think I could have done a lot worse. I am currently restoring my F-20, and this M is a slight distraction from that project. I hope to get both up and running next year.
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