The 820 Project

 

    

     There she sits, “looking as if alive,” to borrow from Robert Browning.  It actually is alive, as the picture shows the flywheel spinning.

     The 820 saw the light of day for the first time in over two years on Thursday, August 31, 2017.  It went down sometime in June of 2015.  About $5000 and many hours of labor later, it returned to life.

       In June of 2015, I shoved it into the red barn, thinking to have it running sometime in 2016.  Too optimistic.  The “new” crankshaft didn’t arrive until July 2016.  The freight truck was waiting for me when I returned from hauling a load of wheat to town.  It was right before harvest.

      Part of the teardown had been done, enough to know what parts I needed.  The freight guy and I unloaded a three or four hundred-pound package onto the old Dodge pickup.

     The crankshaft is heavy.  (Everything on that tractor is heavy.)

     The block containing head, pistons, and rods had to be moved forward to make room for the crankshaft installation.

Back together it goes.

      

 

      It was ready to run on August 2, but I could not get the cranking engine to start.  I had to limit myself to sporadic one-hour attempts.  I tried starting fluid, carburetor adjustments, point adjustments.  The dawn arrived when I decided maybe it was out of time. 

     This motor has two sets of points and condensers that supply spark to four cylinders.  One set of points supplies the back two cylinders, the other set of points supply the front two cylinders.  In checking the timing, I found that I had hooked the wrong points to the wrong cylinders.

      I reversed the wires and the thing started right up.  Go figure.  I don’t care to figure how many hours I spent solving that problem. 

      It took some cranking time to get oil and fuel pressure, but the diesel finally cackled and there we are.  There are still a few glitches to work out, but I think the old girl is about ready to go to the field.