OK. Regrouping.

1. I'm going to put the front end stuff back together at the front axle. I'm thinking of oiling the pins and parts real good first so they have some protection, as long as I'm there. Does that sound like a good idea? Is engine oil ok for that?
2. I'm going to undo the front end at the back (counterintuitive though that may be) and then fiddle around with my support system in some way before I proceed. I'm not positive yet if I will hang poor Arthur from the ceiling or put him on gurney, but I'm working it out. And doing a lot of staring at roof beam, hoist, Arthur, etc. The Gorilla swingset won't fit into the barn/
shop, nope, so that's out. But I'm working on figuring this out.
3. At some point fairly soon, I want to drop the oil pan without splitting the tractor yet. I still don't know what I'm into, here.
4. I am going to get the old floor jack to work by seeing if it will go back down if I tromp on it, and then I will have two big floor jacks to help me get things moved and held up, etc. That's got to be better than one.
5. I am going to re-find the tiny ball bearing I found last night under Arthur that I now know (after reading Carl's link) is the critical bearing I need to repair my broken bottle jack. Then I am going to fix my bottle jack so I have it, too.

You know, it doesn't sound like there's much in the way of progress here. But -- I AM going to go out to the shop!! Woo-
hoo! And I know, eventually (ok, WAY eventually), I will get the oil pan off! :-)

It's kind of sad to capitalize on some other poor slob's hard luck, but you can find some real bargains on quality stuff there.

My problem is there's a real good pawn shop only a block from my office. It's real easy to find myself wandering around in there during a lunch hour even when I don't need anything. I'm keeping an eye on that place now, waiting for a good compressor to make an appearance.

Yeah, I really only want my bottle jack fixed so I can put it back in my truck. I loaned the one that came with my truck to a guy who was stranded, and it didn't come back quite the way it went out. :-) So I got this one and it's been ok. For now, there is NO jack in my truck because I took it out to use when I lifted that corner of the loader when it got stuck. Then I put it in the shop when it got snowy, and then after that when I tried to put it back down so I could put it in my truck again -- well, that's when I blew it apart by accident. I just want to get it back together and get it back in my truck at this point. Although I carry fix-a-flat it still makes me nervous not to have one in there.

(i know many of you experienced "guys" have done it for years, and transmissions are almost always done this way but we are talking the first time here, and strength is an issue too. each of you could probably bench a couple hundred or more.... even lifting from the rafters has its risks.. i have broken those, too, but that was lifting the whole vehicle :-) J2

On the other hand if you have the front end removed and just want to look at Arthur's innards before you remove the engine go ahead and pull the pan. Just bolt it back on when you remove the engine. Be sure you still have the supports under the transmission.

New question: Is it very difficult to put the pan back on? It's not, right? (Just making sure after my various "woopses") :-)

(::clutching sides of head:: AAAAA ! Too many factors!!!!)

:-)

oh,yeah,general concensus is to not oil those front end parts,oil collects dirt which leads to increased wear..leave her dry..

Tim

I will keep this alternative (to keep going the way I'm going) uppermost as I got out to the shop later to walk around and around the tractor and think about what I'm going to do, and how. Thank you!!!!

Dawn

I had a loud knock in the engine which led me to tear it down about to the point you are now before I figured out it was the crank pulley bolt which had gotten loose and worn the pulley to the point where it was wobbling around.

It would have been easy at that point to put a new pulley and bolt on and call it a job, but I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet.

I had a local shop rebuild the (low and uneven compression) engine for me, so for all practical purposes it is now a "zero time" engine. Because of that business, I am now what most would call "committed," and I'm taking a little more time and care with the rest of the tractor than I would have with a quick repair.

It will always be a working tractor while I have it, but once I get it back together, I shouldn't have to mess with it for a long time. If I had stopped with a pulley repair, it would have been something else this season, and the season after that, etc.

That's my two cents! Keep at it - I'm enjoying your periodic reports; they are an encouragement for me to get back out and tackle my project again.

es

I do know there is stuff loose around the pulley area, for certain. And I know that the first moment we had him running again, way back in August, I was pretty sure it sounded like the knock was coming from that area. So there is a real possibility that it's something like that and that I could get out of this particular situation fairly easily. In fact, that's in the back of my mind much of the time.

On the other hand, a lot of people who come after me are going to depend on this tractor. We're going to depend on it just as soon as it's running again, too, but I'm extremely aware of the fact that I'm rebuilding it for the next 50 years, possibly in service to our non-profit all that time. So I know that whether I rebuild Arthur now or later, it's going to happen at some point. Or at least, I'm pretty sure of that. (You never know, of course, the future being as unpredictable as it is.)

It seems that at every step of the work so far, I've circled 'round and 'round this precise issue of "fix it all now, and right" or "just get it functional but back in the shop every winter". And every time I think I've made a decision I realize that I haven't. Arthur is a lot more than a hobby, which would seem to suggest to me that I need to just get him running as the priority, then play "keep up" with the repair work every winter. But since he is not "merely" a hobby, his proper functioning -- for a long period of time -- is also that much more important. And if I miss something important for the sake of running "now", I know it could cause damage that would make things much harder to handle in the long run.

There are other trade-offs too. For instance, I often think I should be putting my time in on preparing the garden beds, writing all the stuff I have to get written, preparing our programs (I do those things, but you know what I mean). But -- yesterday I went out to the shop with a 4-days' duration migraine headache. Nothing helps those, and I mean nothing. They come from overwork, however much I love what I do. About 30 minutes into pounding out the front axle pins, I suddenly realized it was gone. And maybe that's the most important factor of all.

Sorry to wax so thoughtful. But you've really helped me come back around to what I know is a pivotal issue.

Dawn

That's usually about the time *my* migraines start kicking in! ;o)

es