1945 Lindeman restoration-2

[Ray]

The paint on the hood had very fine cracks all thru it from being so old.
This is one of the few areas on the crawler that is actually smooth instead of the rough cast surface so I stripped the old paint off down to the metal and put a good coat of primer on it.



The hood and gas tank are finished painted.

[Ray]

Piece by piece, the crawler is slowly going back together.

[Ray]

The upright supports for the loader were sanded down and re-painted over the weekend.
Today I got them mounted back on the crawler.






This loader was originally made for the Massey-Harris-Ferguson Company and came off a tractor that was built between 1953 and 1958.
I had to modify these supports a lot to get them to fit on the crawler.
The uprights are rotated 90 degrees from the way they were mounted on the tractor and some of the clearances between the crawler and the upright tubes are tight.
The part of the upright that originally fastened to the frame of the tractor is now pointed up and the loader arms mount to it.
What was originally the "upright" part on the tractor is now the part that mounts to the crawler frame.
All the mounts for this loader support are mounted in rubber and there is no "metal to metal" contact between the loader supports and the crawler frame.

The upright tubes have a 1/4 inch thick support plate welded to each side of them.
The outside support plate on each tube fits over the final drive housing on both sides.



Here you can see the clearance between the support plate and the drive housing.




The upright tube on the left side has about 1/2 inch clearance between it and the flywheel.




There is only about 1/4 inch clearance between the hydraulic valve and the side of the battery box.
The rear bracing bar for the upright tube on this side has about a 1/2 inch clearance between it and the hydraulic valve leavers.




There is an inch or more clearance around the clutch pulley.




And about 3/4 inch clearance between the face of the clutch pulley and the forward bracing bar.




With both of the upright support tubes tucked in tight like this, it leaves about 1 inch clearance between the inside edge of the track and the side of the upright support tubes.

[Willyr]

With all that pretty paint it seems like a shame to put the tracks on to dirty it up.

[Ray]

The tracks are painted and the crawler is being set back down on them.






A block of wood is placed inbetween the front roller and the rear sprocket.
Then the front of the track is pulled up over the front roller and hooked onto the rear sprocket.
The block of wood keeps the tracking from dropping down on the track carriage frame.

The rear of the track is also pulled up onto the sprocket.




The pin is then pushed thru the track links.




The front roller is adjusted out to take up the slack in the track and the two track pads are bolted in place.




Then the roller covers can be put back on.




Making a front end loader fit this little crawler was a real challenge because there just wasn't very much room between the tracks and the crawler.
Earlier I had said there was about an inch of clearance between the edge of the track and the side of the upright supports for the loader but I was wrong about that.
At the tightest point, there is only about 1/2 inch clearance but that is still enough that there has never been any problem with anything rubbing.

[Ray]

Most of the loader arm assembly was sanded down to the metal.
Someone had drilled and tapped six holes in different locations so I welled them up and ground the welds down so the areas were smooth with the surface.
Some areas had some rust pitting, nicks or scratches so these were smoothed down, spot primed and a layer of red glazing putty was applied to them to fill the pits and scratches.






I let the glazing putty dry over night and then I sanded everything down smooth and primed it with the red oxide primer.
The parts are now ready for paint.

[mulligan]

Great job Ray!!

[kedorland]

Art work. A great peice of art work.

I tip my hat to you.

Kevin from Iowa.