Earl, the Farmall 450
1999 Temple Early Day Tractor & Gas engine Show
Parade
Saga Of My Ongoing Search For a Tractor
I found this tractor in Florence, TX. A
man named Guy has a lot of old tractors and also sells new farm
equipment. I went down to look based on some ads he ran in the
Thrifty Nickel. I was actually about to buy the 450 when we
figured out it wouldn't go on my trailer because of the rear
wheel tread width. Then I realized another person was only
asking a couple hundred more for a Farmall 560 diesel I had
looked at last fall. I told Guy I'd get back to him regarding the
450 and drove back home. When I called the other fellow about the
560 diesel he had found so much work to do with it that he'd
decided not to sell
7/22/99 The Saginaw 3 point hitch
arrived. It cost $90.00 to ship
down from Michigan, but I really think I bought the right
aftermarket 3 point hitch. I removed the old drawbar and got the
axle clamps turned upside down when Micah arrived about 9 PM. The
hitch had been shipped wired down to pallet, and the semi driver
backed in and dropped it right in front of my shop. I had backed
the 450 right up to the pallet and set up lights. When Micah
arrived we shined the truck lights from the other direction.
There are four bolts that protrude from the axle brackets. The
top two pointed straight back, but the bottom ones swiveled down.
Somehow, Micah and I were able to lift the whole hitch assembly
up and hang it on the top two bolts.
9/30/99 The starter would only
turn Earl over very slowly. Even adding jumper cables from the
Jeep didn't make it spin any faster. I figured the brushes or
something must have gone bad in the starter. Three bolts removed
it and it was placed in the back of Jeep. When I hadn't taken it
to the starter shop to be looked at by Thursday the 30th and the
Temple Tractor Show was comming up, I decided to take the day off
from work. When I gathered up enough extension cord to put the
battery charger on, it showed the battery already had a pretty
good charge.
Wheels had to be moved in to get him on the
trailer for the Temple '99 show.
Coco, the CyberChicken got to attend the Temple '99 Show
4/10/00 Earl now has 4 new tires
Earl did crush a couple of cinder blocks waiting
for his new tires
Ready in time to haul to the 2000 Troy Funfest
6/02/00 Earl gets a workout. The
new pasture got baled right before the Memorial Day weekend.
On Friday night, we found ourselves with 102 new large round
bales sitting all over the field. Saturday morning it was
doing some raining, so I figured I'd better use Aunt Bea, the
International 1486 to move the bales. Figured I'd stay dry
in the cab. When I attempted to air up the right front
tire, air came out from around the valve stem as fast as I could
put it in. The neighbor's 50 ton railroad jack is just
perfect for Aunt Bea. Throwing the wheel into the back of
the Jeep for a quick trip to Evan Tire, the tube took four
patches. I don't think the person who repaired the tire
before had been very good about getting all the thorns sticking
through the tire. I had the tire shop add a couple squirts
of the sealing compound as well. When the tire was
re-mounted, I returned the neighbors tools and began to hitch up
his hay moving forks. It took weight to get Aunt Bea to let
her hitch down, and then it would just rise back up on it's own.
I figured air got in the system from the complete trans and rear
rebuild. I later figured it may have also have had to do
with where the "Draft Control" lever was set. Taking
up the top link as much as I could, the forks on the neighbor's
hay mover still pointed down. I could lift up a bale, but
they fell off very easily when I tried to move them. I
decided to try the hay fork on Earl and got a ride back home to
get him. They worked a bit better on Earl, but still
pointed down a bit. Finally I just drove over to where the
neighbor had a little generic 3-point spear sitting and swapped
it for the one I had been trying to use. This one was able
to be adjusted properly with the top link I have and it worked
pretty well. Earl would pull great wheelies when starting
out with a bale raised up on the rear. When I tried to move
last year's bales, some of them were too heavy for Earl to move
at all. One bale at a time the bales were brought back and
stacked in areas that could be fenced off from the rest of the
pasture. All the hydraulics had been scrubbed clean so I
could see where the leaks were coming from. The whole
middle of the tractor is covered in HyTran again from moving all
the bales. Seemed to use/leak about 1 quart of motor oil
for each 5 hour running period. At the end of the second
session of bale moving, I noticed the rim was wobbling on the
wheel. The clamps had worked loose, and one even lost the
bolt and clamps. Earl was parked and I decided it was time
to buy my own bale moving equipment.
8/26/00 Earl has not been having such a great
time lately. I took all last week off from work just to get
things done around the The CyberRanch. Originally I was planning
to go to the Portland show, but I bought a digital camera with
the money I would have spent on the airfare alone.
The first day I got to do a little box blading,
Earl's whole front pedastyle fell off. Luckily I was in reverse
and on some some soft, piled top soil. The front end really
plopped down. When goodwench looked out, she thought I'd dropped
the front end into a soft spot and gotten stuck. All four of the
bolts attaching the pedastyle to the bottom of the bolster were
either broken off or had their threads stripped away. Going to
Chester and Esther as parts donors, I found one of the bolts has
a crown on it's head to serve as a steering stop. A call to my
local Case/IH dealer told me that bolt was still available for
about $25.00. I decided to wait on that and just got some
3/4" fine thread bolts, nuts, and lockwashers. Earl was
jacked up with a HandyMan jack on either side frame rail. I had
help getting the pedastyle back in place and held with a couple
loaner bolts from Esther the '41 M. I could get three of the new
ones in, but the fourth seemed to have the head rub and not drop
down into place. I figured a really good cleaning would probably
allow enough room for the head to drop down into place. I was
anxious to get to some box blading for my great Drainage Project.
After just a couple scrapes, I saw what looked like antifreeze
blowing out from a leak in the exhaust manifold gasket. I quickly
drove over to my Live Oak Shade Tree Tractor Garage and shut her
down. I had a bad feeling, but didn't investigate any farther
until this morning. I dumped a five gallon can of gas into the
tank, and then pulled the dipstick to check the oil. For the
first time, the level wasn't low. It was quite high and the oil
had that sickening tan look of having water mixed into it. Now
I'm hoping it's a blown head gasket, cause I sure don't need
another cracked block, like on Teddy, the '57 Ford 641. I
guess I better hit it with the pressure washer today, cause it
looks like it's time for the big split...
Collecting,
Restoring, Painting
E-mail me at
goodwrench@cyberranch.org
Email me.
Y'all please come back and visit me soon.
This page was last
updated August 26, 2000