Done

On Sunday, May 16, I had enough of the motor together to fire it up. Tommy started right up.

Compression spec is 355 psi min.  Before rebuild 185 to 225. Now 390 across the board.

No detectable leaks...yet.  Purrs like a tiger.

Yesterday bI put the rest of the sheet metal on and remounted the front-end loader.

I once again have a tractor.

The Journey Home

T Slowly she comes back together.  Here's the flywheel end hanging from the porch and waiting for a lift down to the barn.

Side view showing much of the yellow detail

Chris positions the motor over the mounts as another neighbor, Mark, awaits the signal to lower it in.

Back in the chassis ready to be reconnected before attempting to fire it up.

Black is Beautiful

I started with the yellow which requires a silver undercoat. The silver applied smoothly, flowed evenly and created a beautiful finish all its own.  I should have stopped there.   The next morning I started painting the small partsnwith "Hi-Po Yellow." .The paint was viscous and pale.  Much paler than the sample card, but much closer to John Deere Ag Yellow than I expected.   The first coat was thin and translucent, not hiding the primer coat of silver.  Worse, it was simultaneously drying too fast to allow the paint to flow and even out brush strokes; yet flowing too much causing drip marks. 

Painting any of the small parts hung up on a makeshift rod was like trying to make a peanut butter sandwich with the bread hanging on a string.   It was long, tedious, detailed work that wasn't coming out right.

I was only thankful that the machine shop had painte dthe block black, causing me to abondon my plan to paint it yellow.  Still, and in spint of m experince with the yellow, I prepped the engine for black.

Black was a revelation.  It went on easily, covered in one coat.  Didn't flow fast enough to cause drips, but just fast  enough to fill in brush strokes.                                                 

The end result, an engine block that looks like a wet piano, even when it is dry!  A real pleasure to use and much better experience than the yellow.

New Kid on the Block

The block is back from the machine shop. Where does one have to go to find an old time machine shop that does things right? Why downtown Portland of course.

Even as new condos arise in the Pearl District and shi-shi restaurants open next door, Bearing Services keeps trukin' along.  Located just a block behind Powell's Books in a building so old it's back in style.  There you will find a complete machine shop smelling of solvents and overflowing with blocks, crankshafts and pistons.

The short block.  They painted it already so my plan to paint it yellow is foiled (mercifully according to many). Chris came over and helped me get it back on the stand.

Pistons all shiny and new. They should be for $2200. They had to be bored out "twenty-thousandths" (of an inch that is). Doesn't sound like a lot, but for this little engine it's right at the edge. Any more and the block would be junk.

After about 3 hours Chris and I (mostly Chris) have the head is torqued down, the timing gears are in place and its cover reinstalled and the oil pan is bolted down.

The mighty Yanmar 3TN75 starts to look look every part of its 23 horsepower.

Touch Up

I did a little prep work on the carcass of the tractor sitting in the barn.

The area where the fuel tank sits (at the very front of the frame) is always a mess when I remove the tank.  I decided to use the small amount of Herculiner, DIY truck bed liner, instead of repainting it.  The only known substance that dissolves Herculiner is xylene.   Pretty tough stuff.  I used it on the tractor foot rests.  Remarkable stuff.  Like rhino-hide in a can.

The battery tray looked terrible, but two coats of Herculiner later and the it looks better than new.

Bit by Bit

This little motor has taken over my basement. In the foreground parts cleaned and ready to be painted.  In the background a table full of parts that are clean and ready to go as is.

I ordered POR-15 engine enamel in black and yellow. Even if it doesn't run well after all of this, at least it will look good.

Block/Head

The engine, mostly stripped down to the block and the head, on an engine stand.  Most of the parts on the table and floor in the background.

To Chris's surprise,  the piston are not melted.  He checks the cylinders.  They are not round.  They are supposed to be round. 

The near bare block, on its back, ready to go off to the machine shop (ka-ching) to be bored out for new pistons (ka-ching) and the reassembled (ka-ching).

Major Surgery

"Tommy Mow," my little John Deere tractor, was looking good this summer coated in fresh powder.

 (See my prior posting)

But while doing a particularly dusty job on a particularly hot day, I had an overheating incident.  The idiot light came on and I shut it off to let it cool down.  Tommy had always smoked a little, but now white smoke poured out of the crankcase.  There was a slim possibility that it was the injection pump.  I had it rebuilt and indeed all its internal seals had been eaten by biodiesel.

But when I reinstalled it there was still abundant white smoke.  It ran well, but smoked a lot.

A compression test revealed between 180 and 225 psi in each cylinder. Not only should the values be closer to each other, they should all be closer to 355 psi; the factory spec.

Time to Rebuild.

Sunday I started disconnecting the motor from the chassis.  

And yesterday, with the help of my neighbor and diesel mechanic, Chris, we set her up for transport from the barn to my basement workshop.

Chris guides another neighbor, Gwen, as she positions the massive bucket of her much bigger John Deere over the engine block.  Her bucket barely fit in the generous door opening.

Gwen lowers the motor outside the basement door where Chris and I will mount it to an engine stand.