Refurbishing my Z145 135

[The kid]

I've been working on some of the small things. The 135 side emblems looks to be made of pot metal. I was going to have them rechromed, but the cost is not in my budget right now. So with a bit of sanding, priming and a steady hand I've repainted them. I'm going to seal the entire emblem with clear acrylic which will hide the roughness of the pitted chrome.

[Mike476]

You are a patient man my friend, nice job!

[The kid]

I finished refurbishing the front nose bar and emblem. It's not chrome but it's as good as any repo you can buy. Note the bar is the original. I gave everything three coats of clear lacquer for luster. The Massey Ferguson 135 signature looking front end. -Robert

[NHmitch]

I finished refurbishing the front nose bar and emblem. It's not chrome but it's as good as any repo you can buy. Note the bar is the original. I gave everything three coats of clear lacquer for luster. The Massey Ferguson 135 signature looking front end. -Robert

That looks awesome, you have a steadier hand than I do to work on that type of detail!

[The kid]

That looks awesome, you have a steadier hand than I do to work on that type of detail!

Thanks Mitch. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be so sometimes I need one of those helping hands magnifiers to see details. I took a 1941 Studebaker gauge cluster and removed all the original workings and replaced them with modern VDO gauges. That was a pains taking conversion. Now the gauges looks like them where made that way. Except the amp gauge now reads volts.

The side emblems turned out way better than I thought they would and should look great when mounted.

On another note. I finally found some rolls of "friction" tape. Now I can finish up my new wiring harness. I've got to locate a small terminal block to mount inside the dash because I'll be adding more lights. I even ordered a waterproof cigar lighter jack to mount of the dash. Going to put one of those floating cup holders on it too. -robert

[The kid]

I needed to get a better look at the battery tray which suffers from a bit of cancer over the years. Now I know there are many ways of pulling a wheel. Most of those methods just won't work on the 135 because of the collar below the wheel. There's no place to hook a conventional puller. I've seen pictures of home aid pullers. The 135"s wheel can be damaged if your not careful. So I used an old school method. It takes a bit of time but it works. Tools needed. Can of penetrating oil such as WD40' and a large rubber mallet.

First I jacked the front end so I can spin the wheel easily. I removed the crown nut and gave the threads a good soaking. What is holding the wheel in place? There is a slot in the steering shaft and steering wheel. A half moon shaped key fits in there which locks the two together. Over time rust builds up and locks it up tight. I took my rubber mallet and strike the underside of the steering wheel close to the shaft without hitting the shaft. I do that three or four times and spin it to the next wheel spoke. This took me around thirty minutes to finally loosen the wheel to where I could lift it off without damage. BTW striking the crown nut did nothing but flatten the top. <smile>

Striking from the bottom after about three turns of striking every spoke I noticed movement. So there you have it. -robert

[The kid]

I bought all new gauges for the 135 from. A dealer on eBay. There are in India.. I received them yesterday well packaged. The water temp and oil pressure gauges where compatible with the old ones as for the plumbing. My old gauges sweated moisture in them and used some kind of transformer to power the lights. The transformer is long gone so they are history. Had a problem with the gas gauge. It appeared to be misaligned in the gauge window. They are sending me two gauges. One with color and one without. Now how is that for customer service.

Just finished up on the dash stripping the paint down to bare metal and will shoot some red on it tomorrow. Followed with a couple a coats of clear. By removing the dash it allowed my to cleanup the area that was behind it and get some paint on it.

I was recently at Harbourfreight (love that store) to pick up some 7" hook and loop sanding disk. They where out of the 36 grit, but had the bolt on type. I took them home and used some old carpet I used to line the trunk in my street rod and glue a piece to the back of the disk. Makes them stick like a magnet. Took all of fives to make. The 36 grit eats paint off and don't have to wear a sand suit. -Robert

[The kid]

It's been awhile since I've posted anything here. I haven't had much time to work on "Ole Sally". I did get back at it and got a few items checked off. I stripped the paint of the instrument dash and while I was at it shot the front nose with paint too. You would be surprised the number of MF RED versions there are.

I ordered the gauges off ebay from a dealer in India. Believe it or not MF's are big sellers over there and they carry some parts you can't buy anywhere else. Two of my gauges (that came with tractor) had been replaced and two where original. The two original where those types that use a transformer and look like glow in the dark. The transformer was long gone and the other two had moisture sweating inside them.

The tachdrive dynamo was long gone and replaced with a standard one. So I ordered a new Tach as well. I tested all the gauges but the oil pressure. I'll have to burb it when I fire up the tractor to get the air out of the line. -robert

[The kid]

Replaced manifold and added heatshield.

The original manifold was missing a bolt on the exhaust flange. the entire flange looked in poor shape so I decided to replace the entire manifold. When talking to the rep at a salvage yard he had a heat-shield hanging on the wall behind him. Less that $75 for the pair.

After removing the old manifold, it was going to be a pain to get the shield back on because a few bolts are dang near unexcessable. On my replacement manifold I used an air grinder with a small cone tip and ported out some of the manifold surrounding the two upper outside end bolts. No need to do the two in the upper middle. After removing enough material a thinwall 9/16 1/4" drive with an extension worked perfect. After checking all my bolts access I was ready to test fit the heat-shield. The bar running horizontal from the throttle linkage to the governor was keeping the shield from mounting. After seeing what was hitting and where on the heat shield I came up with a plan.

The points where the heat-shield was hitting the manifold I marked with a marker. I also marked some removal on the two center upper bolts to make sure they clear too. Note: the two upper outside bolts are purposely longer to mount the heat-shield to. I re-mounted the manifold temporarily and tried to install the heat-shield. After two or three attempts and fine tuning with a grinder. I now can slide the heat-shield on after the manifold is mounted. Those guys at the factory probably had some custom made crooked wrenches to access those bolts. Now to break it all down.

I treated the replacement manifold and heat-shield with 500 degree grey paint. Not a perfect color match but close enough.

Installed the manifold to head gasket and slid on the manifold. I secured the manifold with the two upper center bolts first. Next came all the bottom bolts. The two outside upper are reserved for the heat-shield. After torquing all but the two upper outside I'm ready for the heat-shield. This is one more bolt that needs removal and it an upper block to tranny bolt where your battery ground is attached. Pull that bolt. The lower part of the heat-shield bolts there. Installed the outside upper bolts and tightened and I'm done. Now I can access my wiring on both sides making my wiring harness before re-installing the gas tank. With the tank out of the way if gives me plenty of room behind the gauges and wiring.

Just a touch of locktight on each bolt to assure they stay tight. -robert

[Mike476]

Nice job, they sure look pretty all cleaned up, takes me back a few years to when I did mine.