'74 C160-8 Restomodification in Process

[ebinmaine 68,156]

51 minutes ago, oldredrider said:

Fuses should be rated by wire size. Google is your friend. 

 

1 minute ago, BOB ELLISON said:

@ebinmaine @oldredrider is right.

 wire size does determine fuse size. So if you wired your tractor with 14 gage use the 15amp fuse.

16 gage 7.5amp

14 gage wire needs 15amp 

12 gage needs 20amp

Thank you gentlemen! 

I saved this little chart to my email so as to put it in the tractor info file.

[jebbear 377]

Wow, talk about being late for the party, I just noticed your thread & will be hitching along for the ride! I guess I sometimes get too bogged down with my own rebuild & kind of forget to look around at what others are doing. My bad. Anyway, looking good and you're making great progress!

[PeacemakerJack 10,738]

[ebinmaine 68,156]

7 hours ago, jebbear said:

Wow, talk about being late for the party, I just noticed your thread & will be hitching along for the ride! I guess I sometimes get too bogged down with my own rebuild & kind of forget to look around at what others are doing. My bad. Anyway, looking good and you're making great progress!

Great to have you! 

I've been watching your impressive build for info. 

 Jeb! 

 

 

6 hours ago, PeacemakerJack said:

I could use some of that coffee! 

 

[ebinmaine 68,156]

Well buoys and gulls... We've got some top shelf Show-n-tell for ya today !!

I write "we" because my amazing honey helped out A LOT today!!!

Have I mentioned how awesome she is ?!?

 

Worked on the wiring a bit more. Hoping that's done for now.

The other day I was fiddlin' with the ground cable and the upper end came unpastedized. Not a huge shock  (see what I did there...) considering it was a badly done home-made piece.

 

Sooo... 3 new battery cables went in...

 

 

The double zip-tie between + & - is to keep them from moving and also keeps a piece of plastic between them.

 

 

Scored a name brand solenoid for about 25 bucks   

 

 

Right front tire had a gash big enough to throw a cat through so I changed that out today.

Super cool part was I had an original front wheel from the B80 on hand that had the same tire.

 

 

Spindle has a fair amount of wear just like every other thing on this rig.

 

 

You can see here that I drained the ummm... stuff... out of the rear axle/transmission.

I did refill with about 1- 1/2 quarts of diesel and spun by hand a bit in each gear and drained it again. Same color but much thinner like diesel shoulda been.

I'll likely repeat this a couple more times.... minimum.

 

Other concerns there though.

One hub is floppy loose and the other you can see in the next pic has been beaten by a PO. so ya' know that ain't comin' off easy.

And... the wheel with the tight hub won't come off.

Sprayed Penetrating oil all over the place and closed the shop up.

 

I'm thinkin' I'm gonna need to split the trans soon and replace the wheel bearings.

 

 

The contents of the following are self descriptive as each before and after. ALL done by my honey...

 

 

 

And... She worked on the seat cover some more too !!

Cut the whole seat piece. Then cut it in the middle and spray glued it.

 

Then trimmed around the edges to shape it.

 

[ebinmaine 68,156]

On 3/13/2018 at 3:51 PM, BOB ELLISON said:

@ebinmaine your not going to use a fuse ???? You need a fuse for the lights and the voltage gage. That's why I use the A  terminal on the switch that's for accessories. A fuse or 2 never  hurts and it will help stop cooked wires.

My honey showed me how to add stuff to "paint" files.

How's this?

 

[elcamino/wheelhorse 9,343]

@ebinmaine a few questions : Does you Honey do shed work for other people ? I have a C 120 that could use her expert sanding ability.

How did you rate that nice sofa in your shed. All I have is a 5 gallon bucket to sit on.

[ebinmaine 68,156]

1 minute ago, elcamino/wheelhorse said:

@ebinmaine a few questions : Does you Honey do shed work for other people ? I have a C 120 that could use her expert sanding ability.

How did you rate that nice sofa in your shed. All I have is a 5 gallon bucket to sit on.

Jim, she does not generally hire out to the public. I could attempt negotiations and advise of outcome later.

 

As to the nice couch being in the workshop. Actually, I used to have two workshops. Note, used to have. I now have my one Workshop .... the shed. The one that I "used to have" is downstairs in the cellar. It's part den, part workshop. 

That has been commandeered by my honey. I am okay with that for the most part. Especially when she does most of the work on my tractor.

She still "let's" me use the downstairs workshop occasionally. .. 

[classiccat 548]

Nice progress!  

 

Maybe she'll let you mow with it in a few weeks!  

[ebinmaine 68,156]

9 minutes ago, classiccat said:

Nice progress!  

 

Maybe she'll let you mow with it in a few weeks!  

HAHAHAHAHA  !!!!

 

Well, let me answer that in two halves.

1. We don't use either one of these tractors to mow so I'm off the hook for this one.

(We have next-to-nothing for a lawn)

2. We still have about 3 1/2 to 4 feet of snow here. Might possibly maybe be more than a few weeks...

Last Tuesday :

 

[elcamino/wheelhorse 9,343]

@ebinmaine where the heck are you in Maine , next to Canada ?

[ebinmaine 68,156]

2 minutes ago, elcamino/wheelhorse said:

@ebinmaine where the heck are you in Maine , next to Canada ?

I wish... 

Southwest Maine. In the mountains.

[PeacemakerJack 10,738]

Excellent work Mr. Eric and the lovely Ms. Honey!!!! that sheet metal is looking great.  I’m impressed. I hope our local expert Dan @Achto weighs in here...

 

Nothing like getting an unexpected shock or welding arc while moving your hands around on an engine!!!!Good to see that you have that mess cleaned up and organized...

 

That rear end “stuff” looks like coffee with way to much creamer in it!!!! Gross! No wonder those gears are worn a bit. Keep hitting everything with rust penetrant and hopefully it will free easier kinda like JackRabbit’s steering wheel!  

[AMC RULES 37,134]

 

[ebinmaine 68,156]

Thanks Craig!

[cpete1 332]

"Shaping Foam for seat"

Electric carving knife works good too, (Notice picture of custom truck I built long time ago) (Especially the knife your family would use for Thanksgiving carving) I went 3 years without telling anybody. I'd just sit and think about it when we were having turkey... until I finally dropped the knife once into gear oil by mistake, then I had to come clean...still have the knife... Your honey is AWESOME..... Thanks for the electric schematic also. Progress is looking great, That much snow looks scary...

Keep posting Eric!!

Chris

[ebinmaine 68,156]

11 minutes ago, cpete1 said:

"Shaping Foam for seat"

Electric carving knife works good too, (Notice picture of custom truck I built long time ago) (Especially the knife your family would use for Thanksgiving carving) I went 3 years without telling anybody. I'd just sit and think about it when we were having turkey... until I finally dropped the knife once into gear oil by mistake, then I had to come clean...still have the knife... Your honey is AWESOME..... Thanks for the electric schematic also. Progress is looking great, That much snow looks scary...

Keep posting Eric!!

Chris

Electric carving knife is exactly what she used! I'll show her the video later and maybe she'll try out the method shown.

I don't think I'd get too worried about the gear oil in the turkey. All natural petroleum distillate products are probably better than some of the interesting stuff that is in much of our food anyways.

Just tell them it is your method of "distribution and division and incision tool" maintenance.

 

Thanks! 

[cpete1 332]

When I dropped the knife, the "motor" end of the knife fell partially into a container of 90 wt gear oil, the oil went into the motor of the knife via the ventilation grille on the back. I cleaned it the best I could but the knife never had the speed that it originally had, plus you could smell the residual gear oil burning off the armature when it ran, really bad. There was no way I could not accept blame for the faulty knife so Mom told me to keep the knife, bless her departed soul. I do appreciate your suggestion as to avoiding the situation though very much, too bad I didn't know of you way back then. 

[ebinmaine 68,156]

Well, We did a bit of work on the C the last few days.

A few coats of primer on the de-rusted sheet metal.

I ordered a metal gas tank from @A-Z Tractor. Thanks Lincoln!!!!

 

That came in and we sanded and began priming it.

 

My honey glued the seat foam on to the frame.

 

 

She'll finish trimming that up at some point and begin covering it.

 

Me?

Oh, I had all KINDS o' fun with hubs !!!

 

Lemme just start by stating that I'm perfectly fine with the multi-piece unit in the next pic... then I'll explain.

 

 

OK so if you look at the outer edge of the inner portion, right next to the key slot, you'll see where some person in the past (not me, I'd admit it) beat the living stuffing out of the hub trying to make it fly off. Or to the moon ... or whatever.

I do not believe they were successful because the other side did not leak much oil and this side has NO visible seal even left in there and this is a different style hub than the other side. (See my post earlier today in Wheelhorse main section)

There are similar marks on the outside of the hub as well.

So... I was not super happy leaving this hub on when done knowing it may already be cracked and I wanted to do an experiment to see how much it takes to snap one of these infamous brittle hubs.

1/4" impact driver set on high broke it with my large 3 jaw puller.

Then I smacked off the rest of it and heat/cool/oil/repeat/etc for awhile and off it came... very reluctantly !!!

The axle shaft has some roughness from this one being so rusted on there.

 

The other side looks great and slid off with minimal resistance.

Also on the plus side - the keyways look great !

 

 

 

[PeacemakerJack 10,738]

I’m pretty sure Eric that you could make a  Picasso piece of garage art out of the pieces of that hub if you arranged them and glued them randomly on a metal back plate in a contrasting color!

 

 

I’m glad you were able to finally get that thing off of there—even if it was in pieces...

 

The project is looking good

[cpete1 332]

Wow Eric, That thing fought you that bad??? How much rust was on the shaft to hold it like that? Just asking for my own info so I know what to anticipate...

Chris

[ebinmaine 68,156]

17 minutes ago, cpete1 said:

Wow Eric, That thing fought you that bad??? How much rust was on the shaft to hold it like that? Just asking for my own info so I know what to anticipate...

Chris

On the record. I I really did treat this as kind of an experiment for my own future knowledge. Like I posted earlier, this Hub already had significant denting damage on both sides so I had very low confidence that I was going to be willing to use it at all, much less actually get it off in one piece without immense patience.

I'll try to clean up the axle shaft and show the rust if I can.

If I really did want to save this hub, I'm sure I could have. I say that because the penetrating oil was definitely doing its job by coming out the bottom when it was being sprayed into the top.

Only two of those chips came off with the 3 jaw puller. The rest I used the hammer simply to get them out of the way so I could get to the small heavy duty Center Circle which I knew the puller would be able to manage.

 

If I was going to take the time to remove this Hub I would have parked the tractor in such a position as to put the set screw at the top and began several weeks ago by spraying penetrating oil into the set screw hole.

There are multiple different methods that could have been used that are in posts on this forum.

[ebinmaine 68,156]

Changed the trans fluid for the 4th? time today. Looks acceptable for the season.

Need to get some wheel seals in from  Lowell S. for that.

Hubs arrived from @A-Z Tractor. They'll be painted soon and installed. 

 

 

My honey trimmed the foam for the seat and layed out the vinyl.

 

Anndd.......

 

I did a bit of painting !!!!

 

*

*

 

I'm going to warn the color purists.

 

It isn't red.

 

But it's a color no other manufacturers use that I know of.

 

 

 

 

 

I chose a satin to be more forgiving of the rough surface.

 

 

 

 

Tank and wheels will be Navajo white.

 

 

[Joshn569 273]

Looking great! I look foward to seeing that seat all finished up 👍

[classiccat 548]

Lookin' good.... That's a killer white!

 

Whether you like it or not... If i tilt my laptop just the right way.... that hood & pan are still red.