Messages

I ordered replacement lenses for my General from Oliver Crawlers and once again Chris delivered the goods.  I had a pleasant surprise when I arrived home from my business trip to find them well packaged and safe on my kitchen counter.  It is always a pleasure doing business with Chris. I also have to give a big thumbs up to my wife who allows me to keep tractor parts on the kitchen counter.

Thanks,

Doug

The HG started good, ran good, no smoke.  I actually missed seeing it sell. However, I asked the guys standing next to it afterwards and they said it brought $1,600.

Doug

Taking place in Glenford, Ohio about an hour SE of Columbus.  I have no association with it other than I plan on attending and possibly buying a sandwich and piece of pie.

Doug


http://www.auctionzip.com/cgi-bin/auctionview.cgi?lid=2671289&kwd

http://www.auctionzip.com/Full-Image/2671289/fp1.cgi

It was cold wet and snowy yesterday. Too nasty out to start putting up trusses on the new to us high tunnel. However, we could still work in the old high tunnel. We gave the General a little workout. It ran good. We found some slop in the control rod between the governor and the carb. It wants to slowly speed up when setting at idle or not drop back down when the load comes off.  We believe adjusting the yoke out will put more tension on it and clear up the problem. I am still tickled with this tractor.

We stirred up quite a bit of dust yesterday.  Normally we clean everything out, lightly disk and plant wheat in the tunnel for the winter then plow it under in the spring.  The previous year I planted wheat and then ran chickens in the tunnel over the winter. All of this helps maintain good soil moisture.  Last fall life conspired against us and we never got around to any of that. 

Doug

Tonight I took a couple of pictures showing the orange paint showing up under the red.

Doug

Doug, if that light lens is cracked I have some new originals here (assuming they're 115 204).
Still looking for a step...have fun, Chris

Thanks Chris.  I looked at the lenses tonight and they are KD 853 from Cincinnati Oh.  I should have measured them.  I also forgot to look at the back lense.

Doug

The majority of last week was spent finding and ordering needed parts for the Cletrac General.  The tractor is missing the serial number tag.  However,  I found that the born on date for the engine (IXK3)  is 2/13/41.  Out in the sunshine the paint under the red is clearly Cletrac Orange. The oil pressure gage has the Cletrac logo on it.

Saturday my friend Bigdog (Darrell) & cousin Mark came over for a workday.  We changed oil, pulled out the broken oil tube in the filter base and replaced it with a new one.  (Special thanks to Oliver Chris for the fast turn around and shipping on the oil tube) I replaced the cracked sediment bowl, Darrell cleaned the points and found that they were gapped .020 when they should have been closed. After being set properly we had spark.

The tractor had a replacement Carter UT carb with a really bad Id tag. After some research I found that the type of top Aluminum vs Cast Iron top determined which carb kit to order.  This one was the cast iron top.  We soaked the carb in the parts washer. The gaskets were shrunk up and the bowl had a good bit of sand in the bottom.  While the carb was soaking we worked on another project of putting new seals on the tiller axle. Afterwards Darrell finished cleaning and rebuilding the carb.

The battery looked  like it was shot. It was faded gray and there was no date on the battery. However, it had enough juice to slowly crank the engine last week.  During the week I let it sit on a  trickle charger and finally Friday night it had a full charge and it held the charge.  After everything was ready we flushed out the radiator, added gas and hit the starter.  She wanted to start the first try.  A little playing with the choke and she took right off.  Oil pressure came right up the generator was charging.  Everything is tight on this tractor.  No transmission noise.  It shifts nice no grinding and the shifting is very positive.  Steering is good an tight. You wouldn't know you were on a 75 year old piece of equipment.  That old Hercules engine sounds good. If you can't tell I am extremely tickled with the way this project turned out 

I don't know how long the tractor sat before I bought it.  The story from the seller is that I belonged to an older gentleman that used it to cultivate his garden.  It had quit running on him and he couldn't get it going and it sat for a couple of years before he bought it  The man I bought it from got it and made an attempt to get it running. However, he didn't work very hard at it.  He seemed to be a wheeler dealer and had enough projects setting around to keep him busy for a few years.

I will say that getting on and off of this tractor isn't as easy as I remembered it being when I was 10 years old. I am going to have to replace that missing step.  As you would expect with any 75 year old tractor there are some oddities. I will post about them later on.

Thanks for putting up with my long winded post.

Doug

Greetings and thank you for allowing me to join. 

The very first tractor I drove was Dad's Cletrac General GG.  Dad bought an old worn out Farmall Cub when I was 10 going on 11. About a year later after the Cub had been rebuilt and turned out to be a good runner and did everything Dad needed the General was sold.  I used to keep track of where it was and I saw it sold a couple of times.  The last time I saw it was back in the late 80's and I had neither the money to buy it or the place to keep it at that time.  In the back of my mind I always wanted to find another tractor like it.

Fast forward a couple of weeks ago and my cousin Mark found one listed on the Lima Ohio Craigslist and forwarded the link to me.  The listing was over a month old and the pictures looked like they were from last fall.  The tractor looked pretty straight in the pictures. The listing wasn't very descriptive basically saying that the tires held air and the motor was loose.  I found out that it was located about 15 miles north of Denny a friend from the Farmall Cub Forum.  About that time the wheels started turning.  I contacted my friend Denny to see if he would look at it for me.  Then I called the seller and chatted with him.  Denny was able to verify everything that the seller had told me and gave an excellent description of the condition.  That evening I called the seller and made an offer  He countered $100 more than my initial offer and the deal was sealed. 

Two weeks ago my friend Darrell, cousin Mark and I rode up to pick up the tractor and then Denny met us for a minifest lunch at the local tavern just up the road from where we picked up the tractor and the saga begins.

Thanks,

Doug