When I left off this narrative back in March, I had done most of the dirty work, collected most of the necessary parts, and was ready to start putting my tractor back together. We shall pick up the story at the point where I located a suitable block.

Tim Casson, who lives in southeastern New York, on the Connecticut border, had a block. My son was in the process of moving from Albany, New York to Hartford Connecticut, and conveniently enough, went right by the place every weekend. So, I did the obvious thing, and asked him to pick it up from Tim and stash it at his place in Hartford until I could run down and get it. Having lugged my bare block around a good deal, I assured him that he could lift it and pop it in his trunk with no problem. When he called to let me know he had gotten it, he made quite a production out of how heavy it was. This confused me some, as my boy is somewhat larger than I am, and in much better shape, being active in the martial arts.

The confusion was cleared up when I made the trip to Hartford to retrieve my prize. Imagine my surprise (and amusement) when he took me to his storage area and showed me the block...complete with bellhousing, flywheel and governor assembly! This had to weigh fully 200 pounds, yet he had managed to load it into his car, get it home and lug it down three flights of stairs to his storage cage. I'm REAL glad I raised him to respect his elders!


Grandsons Casey (in purple) and Jarod (in drool) like tractors	Casey has been a Tractor Guy since before he could walk.

I took the block to my favorite (and much richer) machinist, and had it checked out. It proved crack-free, needing only to have the crank saddles align bored. After much searching, all the necessary parts were found. Pistons, wrist pins, rings and sleeves were obtained from Restoration Supply (http://www.tractorpart.com or resto@otw.com) Most of the bearings were available through the machinist's normal sources. The head, pan and valve cover gaskets came from NAPA. The only problem was finding cam bearings, which was solved by miking the cam and the bearing seats in the block, and then ordering individual bearings based on ID and OD measurements. He also had to machine the wrist pin bushings to fit. Several weeks of searching failed to find a source for new rod and main bearing bolts, and the originals were in pretty good shape, so the decision was made to reuse them. Re-assembly was very straight forward. The sleeves were a drop in, with the head holding them in place. I cleaned up the lifters so they slid easily in their bores, and bolted everything back together. All the gaskets other than those mentioned above were made from sheet gasket material of various types, and/or "blue goo" silicone sealer. I learned a couple of tricks while making gaskets...A .45 caliber shell casing makes an excellent punch for 3/8" bolts, and .38 and .30 caliber work well for other applications. Also, square, rectangular and round rubber o-ring stock is available in bulk, and can be cut to length and super-glued together for many applications. I used 1/16 square to make the gasket under the oil filter cover.

To this point, I've spent 15 months and $4300 ($2950 on the engine, $1350 on everything else) working on the tractor that has come to be known as The Red Menace. It has been time and money well spent, in my opinion, and I'd do it again in a flash. In fact, I might...there's this Allis Chalmers "B" I know about