Ferguson TO-20 Restoration Project

[JenniferBX]

Ferguson TO-20 Restoration
This project will take a long time to get done, as it will be a "here and there" effort as time and funds are available. I thought I would start by sharing a few photos I took of the Ferg today. We have already removed some parts to start cleaning and painting, but the bulk of it is still all together.

This is a 1950, according the serial number sequence list that I have.

I have some more details that I'll post later, and also some questions , so if we have some Ferguson experts out there, please stay tuned to this thread!

Jennifer [ and Mike ]

 

[buckshot721]

Wow, looks like it will be a great project. Good luck on it!

 

[Gale Hawkins]

They make great project tractors. They are not hard work on or get parts for and do not take a lot of space to store when completed. If there was ever a desire to sell there is a market or are handy to have around any tract of land.

 

[JenniferBX]

I have been looking all over the internet at TO-20 and Ferguson, ....and am AMAZED at the following these tractors have, especially in Europe. The other really neat thing is that SO MANY parts are still right off the shelf, and at reasonable prices. Mike and I have been seriously thinking about bringing it up to 12 volt, with a self-regulation alternator kit, but that will be down the road.

I tried to remove the hood today, thinking it would a simple matter of just removing the pivot bolts and lifting it away. Apparently there is a captive nut that each bolt goes into, and those nuts are spinning. Sooooo..I gave the whole nut-bolt mounting area a shot of penetrating oil to ease the rust bond between the bolt and nut....In a few days we'll try to get in there with some kind of pliers to tighten the sheet metal 'wrap' on the nut and try again.

Not too clear in the photos is a tiny bit of rust through in the very bottom of the front grill. After it is out and blasted, I will have to look and see how hard it will be section in new steel, or to just buy a new front...amazingly STILL available right off the shelf.

Headlights and fender taillight were missing, but the hood hardware for the light housing stems was there, and those parts are removed and under restoration. The inner plates have been blasted, primed and painted already. The outer castings are cleaned, but need a little straightening, and then rather than gray, I will paint them with a nice shiny silver paint. It has two right hand castings, ....wing-tail high on one side, low on the other..We thought about getting new parts, but keeping these is kinda fun and quirky. Because there was so much variation in the shade of gray from the factory, we decided to make it easy and use a standard Rust-olium color, for which we can get spray cans, and real spray gun enamel at a local store. The parts I have done with spray can look fine, and this way future touch up will be a snap. The PTO cover has been done and re-installed as a glimmer of color and inspiration to get it all the same color some day!

More pix
Here you can see the 'shadow' of there the headlight mounting hardware was, note the high and low tail one side VS the other side

Rad looks OK, not like new, but darn good for an old tractor.

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums
[IMG]http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g83/Fiberglassfan/Ferguson%20TO-20/DSCN5736-r.jpg
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Next, hood removal and prep for its bodywork....and to find a nice blue paint to "fill" the emblems with...

 

[JenniferBX]

Detail of the cancer rust....

 

[Gale Hawkins]

It will be a great skill building adventure too. Once you do one you may be hooked as well. :thumbsup:

 

[Zork]

Nice tractor; I have a 51(I believe). I bought my parts from Steiner Tractor and they were an exact fit and bolt in; not too pricey either. Good luck!

Steiner Tractor Parts - New Restoration Quality Parts for Antique Tractors

 

[JenniferBX]

Thanks for the link to Steiner...I have added them to my resource list.
Jennifer

 

[JenniferBX]

Our engine plate is toast....There is no visible black ink on the plate, just some barely visible stampings that we can copy over to a new plate when the time comes. Steiner has a nice reproduction plate...Wow! I am SO impressed at the availability of parts for these....the prices and availability are so much friendlier than what we have found in restoring a car. What this Ferguson is going to need when it is finally done, will be a big Oliver and a green Johnny Popper to stand between..... For about 6 or 7 years we have been watching Classic Tractor Fever and the other tractor shows on RFD-TV, so yeah, that is what gave us the "Fever" and led to Mike and I buying this little Fergy..I have vivid memories of summer evenings in Wisconsin back in the 50s, and the sound of a 2 cylinder John Deer off in the distance, or the deep humm of the more modern 4 cylinder Fords and MMs and Olivers....Harvest time meant working late, and sound of laboring tractors echoed late into the sultry hot August nights....Ah, behold the joy of childhood memories from long ago.

Jennifer

 

[flusher]

Hey, that looks like a neat project.
Several years ago I did a partial restoration on a 1964 Massey Ferguson 135 diesel. Needed to replace water pump seals, clean the fuel tank thoroughly, rewire the tractor, replace all the gauges, repaint with an HVLP sprayer/air compressor rig.

Currently, I'm doing a complete restoration on a 1951 Minneapolis Moline BF tractor

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...62478-mid-mount-milimeter-bf-restoration.html

I've been pecking away at this project for 2+ years. The engine has been completely rebuilt (not running when I bought the tractor) and the tractor has been completely disassembled, cleaned and repainted. Presently I'm installing the engine on a test stand to run it before reinstalling it in the tractor.

Hope your project works out for you. Have fun.

 

[JenniferBX]

Hi Flusher, I checked out your thread, ..I sure do remember MMs from my childhood summers in Wisconsin farm country, don't see too many of them these days out here in Oregon...A few show up the annual tractor event that is part of the big 'steam-up' at Antique Powerland. I see you had a problem with corrosion holding the bearing into the water pump casting...If you ever run into this issue again, or other rust bonded parts, there is a way to address the problem besides penetrating oil, the torch, or a lot of press pressure. Immersing the rusted parts in a water solution, made with some Arm and Hammer cleaning soda, and then than applying electricity between the parts and an iron target also in the solution, will result in the rust being eaten away, even from down inside the tiny little places between parts. Eventually all the rust will move over to the iron target, leaving a simple black oxide finish on the once-rusty part. You can use a battery charger from your shop...the minus goes to your rusty part, the plus to your target iron. I saw car restoration guys using this method back in the 50s and 60s when I was young, and it has remained popular even today among the fine antique auto restoring guys, and even some tractor guys whose web sites I have visited . When I get the parts of the throttle linkage off the Fergy, they will get this treatment to clear our corrosion from inside the joints. The remaining black oxide is easy to wire brush, bead blast, or just leave and lube. I have seen guys working on VERY precious and rare irreplaceable parts on really old antique cars use this method to free up corroded press fit parts without damage. It is kinda slow, but it it allows you to reduce the risk of cracking a casting trying to push out a corroded part, it might be worth the trouble. I did a 'Google' search and found a lot of pages describing the method..this one is clear and easy to follow...Tech Tips -- Electrolytic Rust Removal For more, just search "Electrolytic Rust Removal"
Cheers! Jennifer

 

[flusher]

Hi Flusher, I checked out your thread, ..I sure do remember MMs from my childhood summers in Wisconsin farm country, don't see too many of them these days out here in Oregon...A few show up the annual tractor event that is part of the big 'steam-up' at Antique Powerland. I see you had a problem with corrosion holding the bearing into the water pump casting...If you ever run into this issue again, or other rust bonded parts, there is a way to address the problem besides penetrating oil, the torch, or a lot of press pressure. Immersing the rusted parts in a water solution, made with some Arm and Hammer cleaning soda, and then than applying electricity between the parts and an iron target also in the solution, will result in the rust being eaten away, even from down inside the tiny little places between parts. Eventually all the rust will move over to the iron target, leaving a simple black oxide finish on the once-rusty part. You can use a battery charger from your shop...the minus goes to your rusty part, the plus to your target iron. I saw car restoration guys using this method back in the 50s and 60s when I was young, and it has remained popular even today among the fine antique auto restoring guys, and even some tractor guys whose web sites I have visited . When I get the parts of the throttle linkage off the Fergy, they will get this treatment to clear our corrosion from inside the joints. The remaining black oxide is easy to wire brush, bead blast, or just leave and lube. I have seen guys working on VERY precious and rare irreplaceable parts on really old antique cars use this method to free up corroded press fit parts without damage. It is kinda slow, but it it allows you to reduce the risk of cracking a casting trying to push out a corroded part, it might be worth the trouble. I did a 'Google' search and found a lot of pages describing the method..this one is clear and easy to follow...Tech Tips -- Electrolytic Rust Removal For more, just search "Electrolytic Rust Removal"
Cheers! Jennifer

Thanks for the info. I'll give it a try next time I run into that type of problem.

Like you, as a kid I spent summers in central WI at my grandparent's place in Auburndale. Grandpa was an old time country blacksmith.

 

[duke7595]

Hey looks great and can be a lot of fun and rewards of a job well done, hope to see the finished product.

I completed a Ford 2000 here are some pictures.

 

[JenniferBX]

Hi Duke,
What a beautiful Ford! Love that blue and grey combination... Our little fergie has taken the back seat for a while, as we have had some big problems with vehicles we need to keep running, but slowly we are making progress. We have quite a bit of rust in the lower part of the front grill inserts. steel gone completely in patches. Mike and I are deciding right now about the solution, to just buy reproduction parts that are not very expesive, or bend up some sheet steel and do the old cut and trim and weld. We now have a wire feed welder, the kind that used shielding gas, not flux-core wire type. One of us will need to do some practicing and figure out how to use it for this sort of welding if we go that route. Part of me wants to repair the original pieces, for both the originality aspects, and the idea of learning a new skill..in the old days my Dad used oxyaceteline gas to patch-weld sheet steel and showed me a bunch of tricks on how to do it well...starting with a perfect fitting patch that has essentially no gaps. I have seen Stacy David on TVs "Gearz" weld a sheet steel patch with a wire feed welder, and how to do that with a less than perfect gaps....hence my interest in learning how. Next sprng we pull the wheels wet-sandblast them before new paint. We bought a sand siphon tip for our water pressure washer...works like a charm if the sand/media is dry and can easily flow up the suction tube. It mixes the sand with the high pressure water to cut fast, leaving no dust. Works to remove grafitti from concrete too. It will make stripping the big castings next year a real breeze. We found a shop that can take the engine that is seized, and do the magic to loosen it up and hone the cylinders in a real machine, not a hand-drill hone like we have in the tool-box. We are hoping that we don't need to bore, as that will mean new pistons...but it shall remain a mystery until spring-summer 2013 when we remove the engine to start that part of the process....Our goal is to start re-assembly to run in summer of 2014....taking our time, doing the project with spare-change, so to speak, but we are both having fun and enjoying the process, even if it taking much longer than we had initially hoped.
Congratulations on the Ford 2000.....I just love small tractors like these! Makes me want to do a 2 tone paint on our Fergie.....it was all grey, so plain....the later ones were 2-tone, and it sure is tempting to put a later period paint job on it..they really come to life with 2 colors like your Ford.
Cheers,
jennifer

 

[duke7595]

JenniferBX ,

Thank you very much for your kind words, I had a lot of enjoyment bringing the 2000 back, sort of a love hate thing when your working on a project, however, the end result is well worth your effort



Sounds like you guys are making a little Fergie look and run new again , looking forward to the end result. Good luck and remember take your time and work at a pace which is comfortable for you both. Good luck and God bless.

 

[red85]

Nice Fergie! I have a 48 TEA 20. (the UK/Canadian version of your tractor). You shouldn't have much trouble getting parts for that Continental engine. Love seeing those pictures!

Phil

PS- There are tonnes of those tractors out there and the parts are relatively cheap. Also, please don't 2 tone the paint - Fergies are meant to be grey!:thumbsup:

 

[MasseyWV]

You shouldn't have much trouble getting parts for that Continental engine.

From my own experience during the process of restoring my Massey 135 tractor with a Continental Z-145 gasoline engine, I learned that parts for Continental engines are readily available.

 

[The kid]

More pix
Here you can see the 'shadow' of there the headlight mounting hardware was, note the high and low tail one side VS the other side

I noticed the shadows left by the headlight light wings. They have a backing plate that helps bolt on the headlights. Here's a picture of mine before I installed them. They are common to early ford and ferguson tractors. One was mounted upside down. There is a right and left wing.

View attachment 306442

I've seen these for sale on ebay with the backing plates. If you buy some make sure you get the small bolt that screws into the back rear of the wing for each side. -robert

 

[The kid]

Ferguson TO-20 Restoration
This project will take a long time to get done, as it will be a "here and there" effort as time and funds are available. I thought I would start by sharing a few photos I took of the Ferg today. We have already removed some parts to start cleaning and painting, but the bulk of it is still all together.

This is a 1950, according the serial number sequence list that I have.

I have some more details that I'll post later, and also some questions , so if we have some Ferguson experts out there, please stay tuned to this thread!

Jennifer [ and Mike ]

How about an update Jennifer. How is that tractor coming along? -kid