The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

The great day has come when the engine needs to rejoin the rest of the tractor. Any advice for an easy time?


I have the engine hanging from an engine crane & levelling beam. Unfortunately this only allows alignment in one axis, as moving the suspension point on the beam affects alignment both fore & aft and in roll.

Maybe I can change roll by attaching a strop around the exhaust manifold?

I saw a post by Brian on the old site advising the use of rods through the bolt holes & a G-clamp to gently ease the two together.

Should I level the clutch housing first with a spirit level then try to do the same with the engine before easing them together?

Or are Brian's rods the best way - how could I doubt it?

Any other advice or tricks appreciated

Many thanks,

Use the levelling beam to align front to rear, don't worry about the roll. When I fitted mine I found a spot on the engine were I could fit a bar left to right and used that to control the roll. I think I put it behind the head. I had mine in gear and the PTO engaged so I could turn the shafts to align the clutch plates. I did use a pointed podgy bar through the bolt holes when they were close, and that worked very well.

I'm not sure I would use G clamps. It should go together without that much force.

Idealy you require two 7/16" dia. guide rods as shown in the workshop manual to align the engine to gearbox.

Why have you painted the mating face of the gearbox? This should be face to face with a smear of grease if necessary, painting the faces could result in fretting between the adaptor plate and gearbox.

Gerald

Tubal Cain wrote:Why have you painted the mating face of the gearbox? This should be face to face with a smear of grease if necessary, painting the faces could result in fretting between the adaptor plate and gearbox.

The black on the clutch flange is KBS Rustseal. It is a thin tough coating - I'll give it a rub with fine paper to make sure it is flat.

Is it wrong to paint the back of the adapter plate also?
I'll give it a rub.

bring the enge in gear box together and roughly line up the input shaft to the gearbox. measure in a few places the distance between gearbox flange and the adapter plate. this will tell you if you are not square. and being level will help. i did the entire job with a trolly jack. would not recomend very hard work, but the buget would not strech to an engine hoist. i would have thought a sling round the manifold might be a bit risky, its a very thin casting, can you not use one of the holes in the adapter plate?

Thanks All,
Very helpful.

Are there any last minute jobs/checks to do before I bolt her up? Everything in there is new - single clutch, pilot bearing, thrust bearing, input shaft seal.

Perhaps the faintest smear of grease on the splines?

hi Ben
I used some bolts through the bellhousing to guide the adapter plate on. Just remember which way the bolt heads go as some bolts will only slide out one way once you have mated the two parts!
The bolts gave me the final guidance/alignment control. Getting the gearbox shaft into the pilot bearing was the headache.
I also used a strap slung around the engine as this gave me a little side rock to get it lined up as when suspending from the top I found the engine twisted off from vetical.
IMHO
Regards
Jerry

Mounted engine this morning.

First I levelled tractor with spirit level in both axes. Then I levelled engine fore & aft using the levelling beam. I ran the blue ratchet strap from crane jib to one of the left hand loader mounting holes towards the bottom of the adapter plate, but clear of the clutch flange bolt holes so I could adjust engine roll independently from pitch.

Used 2 long bolts, about 6" long with unthreaded shanks, as guide rods - worked well.

Pushed up the engine and turned PTO to engage splines.

Manage to wriggle the engine flange back to within 3mm of the clutch housing flange fairly easily, with side dowels engaging easily. By measuring a spare input shaft, I deduced that the pilot bearing must by now be engaged, so I gently tightened the mounting bolts to finally close the gap. Bolts turned quite easily.

On testing the clutch, I found there was no free travel of the pedal - there should be 3/4", so I deduce that was why I couldn't wriggle the engine the last 3mm, as the thrust bearing was pressing on the clutch fingers.

In retrospect releasing the clutch rod first would have made life easier.

Many thanks to all for the excellent advice - it's what this great website is all about!

Hi Ben, looking good!

What did you paint your block with?

I was thinking of using a zinc rich primer plus the colour coat.

russelm wrote:Hi Ben, looking good!

What did you paint your block with?

I was thinking of using a zinc rich primer plus the colour coat.

Engine and tractor were bead blasted, phosphate primed then painted with New Holland Q-Coat, See also:
http://www.fordsontractorpages.nl/phpbb ... highlight=

I have also used Bilt Hamber Electrox zinc rich primer on quite alot of body bits. Also had alot of small parts, throttle rods, bolts etc zinc plated, which is fairly inexpensive these days.
Look forward to seeing some of your pics
All the best,

Finally got a few more bits on the old girl. 2nd hand nose cowl needs a bit of welding but fits - that's a relief.
And yes the tractor's had orange grills for at least 40 years, so not changing now!

Excellent, I also obtained a second nose a few weeks ago, I am currently straighteninga few areas and lead loading some dents before the spray gun comes out (got a lot to spray up once the humidity drops a bit)!

I hope that by the autumn the entire front back to the gearbox will be finished as its justa case of bolting prepared items back on now

russelm wrote:Excellent, I also obtained a second nose a few weeks ago, I am currently straighteninga few areas and lead loading some dents before the spray gun comes out (got a lot to spray up once the humidity drops a bit)!

Mark,
Why lead load?
Wouldn't welding + a bit of bashing be more permanent? Or is the lead loading in lieu of stopping, eg pit marks?

Lead loading instead of modern filler in my case.

The one I have needs no welding thankfuly