My little burns

[Mudrig150 298]

So I spotted this little guy while driving down the street one day in winter. It was quarter of a mile from our farm and rotting away under a shed in the woods. The shed was collapsing, and the roof and the mud had just about swallowed this thing whole.
I asked the neighbour who had the tractor about it, and he said that if I wanted it, to just come take it. That made me happy!
We went down almost 5 or 6 months later, and using my brother's quad, we wrestled it free from its grave 6 inches deep in the mud and brought it home on a trailer on another quad. I was ecstatic. My neighbour stopped by and thanked me for getting it out of the way. We said what it's been sitting since around 2004, so it sat for 14 years.
This thing was ROUGH. The original briggs was long gone, replaced with a junk wisconsin which was missing everything to run. That swap was killed so early that the engine wasn't even bolted in. The jackshaft was stuck, the belt was stuck to it, the shifter was good, but the detents are bad, the throttle and choke cables are frozen, the steering is good, and the front tires were flat. The rears would've been flat, but they are so old and stiff that the tubes are shrunken inside the tire and they hold up the whole tractor plus my 135-ish pounds. The chains were stuck to the tires, too.

First thing I did was put it outside, where I pulled a ton of parts off, and then winter hit and water in the transmission froze. Oops. 
Luckily the tractor was on a stand at a 45 degree angle so it saved the gears from getting ice around them, and it only froze the differential.
We rolled (well, dragged) it inside and I attempted to remove the transmission to no avail. They used these stupid rounded bolts and the things were stripped. It was awful. 
I found a Kohler K161 in rough shape, tried putting that in, screwed up all my drilled holes, figured out that the spark plug hole was stripped, and then realized we had a briggs the whole time.

And now it sits, briggs engine laying on the frame with no spark. Soon...

[Achto 27,575]

Cool looking tractor!! Do you have any better picture of the engine? That air cleaner looks a lot like one for a Kohler.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Achto

[Mudrig150 298]

This is a picture with the kohler. I need to upload the briggs picture.

[Mudrig150 298]

I have it apart to replace the coil and to fix a few things. I need to fix the carb linkages.

[Stepney 2,325]

Ah, so another Burns surfaces I'll have to get photos of my two. Nice rescuing it! They are pretty uncommon now. 

[Mudrig150 298]

Yep, they are. Mine has been owned by my neighbor's family since it was new in around 1963. I'm trying to keep it as original as possible, but it's been painted orange, black, white, and a bit of blue. It's supposed to be green. I'll be painting it Bronze.

 

Let's compare our Burns, I think mine will be worse.

Edited April 16, 2019 by Mudrig150

[Mudrig150 298]

So it's been a while but I took the briggs and tried to run it. No compression. Pulled the head and the intake valve is leaking. The whole valve, inside and out is filled with carbon. The carbon is even in the intake passage and its scratched the valve seat enough to not seal. Happy to see I still have spark, though. It's been sitting but it seems to not have any oil leaks or anything. Good. Guess I need to lap the valves, and get it back together.

 

What I'm not happy to see is the big freeze this thing had snapped off one of the axle housing bolts in the case and not it's leaking where the axle bolts to the case. Time to chop the thing out and swap it.

 

So far I think mine is a 1963 model, it has a really low serial number. Only 1329. Let's see them others, @Stepney

Edited May 15, 2019 by Mudrig150

[Stepney 2,325]

I'll see about digging up some photos. My 1959 has no fenders on it and a wider stance, with a totally different body design. The '66 is a Gilson redesign, called a C-10. Otherwise it's the same as a Burns, they just added lights. The S/N on the '59 is 00578. Only going by '59 as that is the date on the engine, and the year the old timer I got it from claimed. It has been repainted red/white, bur like yours, was originally a metallic green and white. Gilson is of course orange/white, and has since been repowered with a 1932 Hercules engine. 

[Mudrig150 298]

But is 00578 the serial number on the engine or tractor? Burns have a 4 digit serial number.

 

Mine is 1329.

Edited May 16, 2019 by Mudrig150

[Mudrig150 298]

Finally got a motor for old Burns. It's an 8 hp, it smokes a bit on startup but it runs really good.

[Mudrig150 298]

What do you guys think of this paint scheme?

[AMC RULES 37,130]

 Well, I guess...

iffin' you're one of them "green" tractor kinda guys.  

[ebinmaine 67,498]

I like the scheme and the accents. As long as it isn't the same color as those "other green"  ones....

[Mudrig150 298]

19 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

I like the scheme and the accents. As long as it isn't the same color as those "other green"  ones....

It won't be. It'll be more green and less yellow than JD paint. I tried seeing how it looks with the original paint scheme of mostly green with like 3 parts being either white or gray, and it looked bad. I think the extra gray and white accents make it look good.

 

27 minutes ago, AMC RULES said:

 Well, I guess...

iffin' you're one of them "green" tractor kinda guys.  

Well, it was originally green, so...

In the picture, it should be a very green green. Depending on the monitor it may look more yellow but trust me, it is literally 100% green. The RGB value is basically 0, 255, 0. Basically the JD green is on the left and the Burns will be like the one on the right in this picture.

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Mudrig150

[AMC RULES 37,130]

Way too close to notice the difference.  

[rjg854 11,361]

If you're going for original,  the proper green is fine 

Edited September 13, 2019 by rjg854
Correction

[adsm08 2,060]

17 hours ago, Mudrig150 said:

What do you guys think of this paint scheme?

Looks just about right to run it on the Northern & Burlington line.

[Mudrig150 298]

Soooo I've been trying to find a briggs to go in this thing, and I'm having no luck. Anyone got any ideas?

[WHNJ701 4,165]

or try rebuilding the ones you have.

[Mudrig150 298]

18 minutes ago, jabelman said:

or try rebuilding the ones you have.

Ones been bored 30 over for a pulling tractor but was then put on a walk behind and ran for 1600 hours (half the time without oil), and the other has a warped block around the valve seat and a crack in the block. I think it'll be easier to find a good motor and swap parts from my 2. I am looking at an apparent 6 horse, earlier build.

Edited September 16, 2019 by Mudrig150

[Mudrig150 298]

So, turns out the one motor was NOT bored .030 over. It's just a dent in the piston.

 

I did, however, manage to source an almost brand new briggs 8 horse, pull and electric start, and looks to be 1" shaft. 175$. Should be a good choice for the burns.

[Mudrig150 298]

Finally! Got the transmission out. Got the last stripped bolt out of the mount and the last 2 bolts out of the fender, and then just wrestled the transmission out until the other side mount broke off the frame. They used 3 hex bolts and 1 regular bolt to hold the axles on, and all 3 hex bolts are stripped out, and to add insult to injury, they're hardened steel and impossible to drill out. Man, the bearings and bushings in the 1200 are crunchy, there is a huge amount of resistance when you turn the wheels.  Gonna swap the shifter between the transmissions, replace the shifter seal and shifter detents, and replace the transmission fluid, then put the new transmission in. 

[Mudrig150 298]

Decided to tear down the Burns all the way down to the frame, it needs paint bad and I also want to replace some bearings. Jaskshaft needs totally rebuilt, shaft is pretty buggered up on the end and pulleys are pretty rotted. Found out it has a 4" triple pulley on a 3/4" shaft, so I'll need to get 2 new pulleys for that. Found out the 1200 isn't original, the top bolt is in the wrong spot and it needed holes torched out to put it in. Also, when my neighbour said that he and his dad tore it down and totally repainted it, I'm starting to believe it less and less. There is barely any black paint on the frame in reality and what little is left comes off super easily. The hood was the only thing that had the paint removed before it was redone. Everywhere else they just painted directly over the original green.

[Mudrig150 298]

So I have an issue with the Burns restoration.

The back corner of frame is swiss cheese, sort of. There's quite a bit eaten away by the rust. Right there, right where the fenders bolt on, holds water and that's why it's so bad. The whole frame is just covered in rust, like tumors. 

Also I have a transmission mount that literally will not come off, some idiot welded it to the frame.

And, to top it all off, there's a pin in the steering wheel that's hella stuck and is hardened steel... Impossible to drill out.

All 3 studs busted off the hood's chrome piece, and the dash's chrome piece is held around the steering column.

Wish our hydraulic press worked, but some idiot decided to cut the apron plates and the mount for them off.

This is going to be... Interesting.

Edited January 14, 2020 by Mudrig150

[ebinmaine 67,498]

The metal work on the frame is repairable if you have the right level of skill. That's something I've been working on attaining myself.

If there's someone around you that can help out with that, awesome. If not, nothing wrong with setting that project aside for a while until you can learn how to do it.

Roll pins on many things can be a huge challenge.

I've never dealt with any that were super extreme stubborn