Brought 57 cub home today

[ultrarunner]

Out of all the tractors the Cub is the crowd pleaser…

The restored Deere M has fans also and sometimes both are out like book ends… one red and the other green.

The cub is crank start which eliminates battery expense.

Many hundreds of family holiday pictures each season with the Cub.

It’s great you are keeping yours in service to help around the homestead.

 

[WinterDeere]

There are YouTube videos how to make real gas. Basically you add water, shake container and let it sit. The ethanol binds with water and you pour it off.

That's pretty cool! Never thought of that, but should be doable by someone who really needs it.

Just a note, the ethanol and water will settle to the bottom, so you'd do well to either let the fuel can sit and settle inverted, or put a drain valve in the bottom. That way you can drain off the water (with ethanol), before pouring any gas out of the can.

 

[DJ54]

Brought the 48 cub out for the Christmas Tree farm today.

My brother was not able to get it to run and it normally fires on the first or second crank pull.

Checked the carb and blocked with corrosion.

Used compressed air and a stiff wire for a quick and dirty fix while I had it apart and it worked.

It’s a shame one needs to be a carb mechanic now when you have old equipment on California pump gas… no pure fuel stations surround here.
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You might try adding some Stabil 360º to your ethanol laced fuel. It is a fuel stabilizer and fuel system cleaner all in one. We had problems with ethanol fuel here in Ohio years back, and at first I used regular Stabil and every few tank full's of fuel add Seafoam to keep the system clean.

Since the 360º does it all, that's all I use now. Been using it for probably 10 years now with no issues from small garden tractors, up to my IH 656 gasser which sets most years from Sept. until May or June since I only use it to make hay.

It only takes 1 oz. per 5 gallons of gas I add it to the fuel can when filling. Pumping gas in the can mixes it. A quart bottle is around $18 but will treat around 360 gallons of gas so it goes a long way.

It'd be advisable to make sure your fuel system is clean before using it starting from your fuel tank to carb.

 

[ultrarunner]

I use Stabil Marine at home but my brother will need to pick some up for the farm…

Mostly they use diesel and 2-cycle mix and had been running the gas equipment to empty either by shutting off the fuel valve or letting the tank go empty.

I showed him a corrosion ring in the bottom 1/4 of the fuel bowl…

My guess is enough fuel remained to go bad.

 

[wolc123]

We had planned on going up to my in-laws, for the tail end of the Holiday weekend, but my mother in law just called and said they are supposed to be getting 3-5 ft of lake effect snow from Lake Ontario. No unneccesary
travel is advised, now thru Monday.

Since I got a little spare time now, and we are also under some lake effect threat from Lake Erie, I figured I best get the chains on the Cub. It’s all set now. I also removed the knife disconnect switch from the battery because it was causing an intermittent no-start condition.

It started like a champ after I removed that switch and connected the terminal direct to the battery. I’m not sure why the extra disconnect was on it. I’m hoping that it does not have a slow draw that will drain down my battery when not in use. I got that problem with my Durango field car and I installed a new knife disconnect switch on that for that reason.

 

[wolc123]

It’s looking like the wind would need to shift pretty good for us to get much snow at home until about next mid week. I probably won’t be able to play on the Cub any more until then. As I was putting on the chains earlier, I noticed that I had forgotten about one little project I meant to do before I needed them again.

The tip is worn or broke off from one of the connector links on one of the chains. Last winter, I wired that link closed with copper wire, and I had to do the same thing today. I’m going to weld repair that broken connector as soon as I pull it off next spring, so I don’t forget about it again.

I’m also a little worried about the possibility of a slow electrical draw. I purchased the 6 volt battery, that’s on it now, new this spring. Until today, it’s always had the disconnect on it, and left open when not in use.

The old maintenance guy at the factory where I work and that owned the tractor previously was a bit of a tinkerer with antique cars and stuff. He put that disconnect on it and also rigged up a 6 volt horn which still works. I doubt the disconnect that he put in it was really rated for 6 volts. I also doubt that he would have put it on if there wasn’t a need for it (slow draw, etc). Since he passed away sbout 5 years ago, I can’t ask.

If it starts showing signs of a weak charge on upcoming cold starts, I’ll probably leave my 6-volt tender on it, and see if that corrects the issue.

It looks like there is a lot more copper on the knife switch disconnect that I put on my field car’s 12 volt battery. Maybe I’ll polish up the old one from the Cub and swap it out for the new one on the field car.

The field car don’t get much use over the winter anyhow. I used it a lot two winters ago when the cheap aftermarket starter I put in my JD 4120 was wearing out. The only way I could get it to crank when it was real cold was with jumper cables from the field car. That problem went away last year when I put another new cheap aftermarket starter on the Deere.

 

[DJ54]

Points can stick on the voltage regulator and drain a battery. If you find this happens you can always replace the regulator or go back to a disconnect which would be a lot less expensive.

Assuming your VR is working as far as charging I've seen a number of posts where guys have put this style disconnect on and has cured the battery drainage problem. But most are designed for a 12V or 24V system only fitting the negative post. I did a search and did find one that is large enough to fit either post. I'd much rather make the disconnect on a 6V system to the positive side, breaking the ground side rather than having an extended piece on the negative side that could possibly short out.

Just some food for thought.

 

[wolc123]

We are supposed to get snow on Wed so I’ll find out then. If it starts ok, I’ll likely be ok as is. If not, I take the disconnect off the field car and put it on the positive ground side where the bad one was.

 

[wolc123]

We had about 6” of fluffy snow in the driveway when I got home from work today. The old Cub fired right up and made short work of it. I plowed our driveways but not the neighbors on both sides.

I’ll get them tomorrow, maybe with my bigger tractor, because we’re supposed to get about double that overnight, and I need to fetch a load of firewood for the porch.

 

[wolc123]

I cleared another 6” from our driveways with the Cub tonight. Once again, it cranked over and fired up real good, so it definitely seems like there is no “slow draw” on the battery, as I feared.

I hadn’t cleared the neighbor to my east yesterday, but it looked like somebody else did. I did drive over to my aunts house, to my west, and cleared her driveways. She’s staying down in GA with my oldest cousin for the winter months. My younger cousins check up on the house every now and then so I try and keep the driveways cleared for them.

Two days accumulation left snow over a foot deep over most of her driveway, giving the Cub a pretty good workout. It’s well ballasted with loaded rear R1’s with chains, my 215 lbs in the seat, and the heavy steel plate bolted on the drawbar. It didn’t struggle much at all with the heavier snow tonight. I love plowing with the Cub and I don’t mind the extra “seat time”

I didn’t have enough diesel in my bigger tractor, to use that for plowing tonight, just about enough to haul up a bucket load of firewood to the house. I did that, after I cleared all the driveways with the Cub.

It took me about an hour to finish with the Cub (would have taken less than half that with my diesel), and I ran the block heater on the diesel that whole time. It started, just like it does in the summertime, after that. I probably used less that a pint of the maybe two gallons on diesel, that was left in the tank, to haul that firewood.

It’s still got the summer mix in it, and I’ll be filling a couple cans with winter mix this weekend. No rush on that because it’s supposed to get warm next week and there’s no more snow in the forecast.

I always run stabilized ethanol-free 90 octane gas in the Cub. Right now it has 5 fresh gallons of that and a little over a quart of 16:1 oil mix in it, leftover from one of my outboard motors. That little bit of 2-stroke oil is probably good for those old 1957 Farmall valves.