Reviving the old Massey 135

[Texas Blues]

Wow, thats some patina on that case! Been tryin to clean my case up slowly but surly. I wire wheeled alot of dirt and algae off. Your dash looks alot like mine cept with new gauges. TB

 

[flusher]

Hello Everyone!
What a wonderful forum you have here, so much information. Recently I acquired the familys old tractor, has not been run for many years. But I was hopeful, drained old fuel, checked and topped off all fluids, new battery, and it runs! Needs a lot of work as you can tell from photos. After all the repairs and new paint, believe all will be great. Will eventually be posting before and after pictures. Will be changing fluids and filters before any more usage. But for now this is what I have.
Billy

Nice 135. I had a lot of fun several years ago restoring a 1964 MF-135 diesel deluxe with multipower. Got the job done except for reinstalling the sheet metal.





Looks like your sheet metal is pretty rusted. Hope you can salvage it. I really dislike sheet metal work (mostly because I'm no good at it).
My 135 is in my shop right now--leaking rear pto seal, problem with the pto clutch and a coolant leak somewhere on the engine. Par for the course for this old iron.

 

[Mur386]

There is a funny green mold that appears to grow on most anything over at that farm, its growing on the caked oil/grease on the lower part of the case. there is even tree mold or fungus that will grow on old tires. The sheetmetal actually appears to be in fairly good shape. no large rusted areas found yet. Some of the panels are a bit tweaked because when the attaching bolts fell out. No one did anything about it. It will be okay. I replaced the oil pressure guage last saturday. Starts up at about 60 then falls to 40 at idle with a slow up and down fluctuation of about 5 psi. kinda weird. topped off tranny fluid with about over three gallons of fluid and it shifts tremendously better. Made a trip through the pasture and back with temp gun in hand checking radiator, yep no coolant guage yet. Texas Blues if yours looked alot like mine you have done a lot of work. It looks good.
flusher how hard was it to pull that stump up?
Billy

 

[flusher]

There is a funny green mold that appears to grow on most anything over at that farm, its growing on the caked oil/grease on the lower part of the case. there is even tree mold or fungus that will grow on old tires. The sheetmetal actually appears to be in fairly good shape. no large rusted areas found yet. Some of the panels are a bit tweaked because when the attaching bolts fell out. No one did anything about it. It will be okay. I replaced the oil pressure guage last saturday. Starts up at about 60 then falls to 40 at idle with a slow up and down fluctuation of about 5 psi. kinda weird. topped off tranny fluid with about over three gallons of fluid and it shifts tremendously better. Made a trip through the pasture and back with temp gun in hand checking radiator, yep no coolant guage yet. Texas Blues if yours looked alot like mine you have done a lot of work. It looks good.
flusher how hard was it to pull that stump up?
Billy

Not too bad--I did quite a lot of spade work and chopped the horizontal roots before yanking the stump. No sense in risking life and limb doing that kind of job.

 

[David Devuono]

Best thing I think I did with my massey was to move the exhaust vertical. It used to kick up a ton of dust and gas me out on the backhoe when it was exiting under the rear. Since mine was in a fire I replaced all the gauges except don't have a tach or hour meter. Off the shelf automotive Oil and water gauges bolted right in to the stock locations on the block. I still have yet to work out poor hydraulic performance issues, ie slow jerky 3pth raising. But if I am patient, it will still lift a ton or raise the front wheels trying.

 

[ToadHill]

Mur, speaking from experience one thing you will want to do is replace those old car tires with some good ribbed tractor tires. I can tell you under slippery conditions they will not steer well at all.

 

[beenthere]

Not too bad--I did quite a lot of spade work and chopped the horizontal roots before yanking the stump. No sense in risking life and limb doing that kind of job.

If you are going to pull stumps, hook high as possible to gain advantage (lever). And hopefully didn't "yank" on it (that is where things begin to break). A steady pull and cut more roots off it it doesn't budge.

Made me cringe a bit seeing the pic of the low hook-up on the stump
But hope it went ok this time.

 

[Mike476]

Good looking hoe Dave, was it with the tractor when you bought it or did you set it up yourself?

 

[Mur386]

Hi Toadhill, picked up the new 8ply three ribbed tires today, will be installing them on rims tomorrow, also found one of the hubs to be almost totally free of grease, someone somewhere is a stupid head. And of course those bearings are making noise, and the front axle pivot point has no grease at all and is making a really kewl squeaky noise, but luck be with me, there is very little slack/wear. Will work on that as well. Also a fire extinguisher is on top of the list before the next tractor work day, just in case. Also one of my wifes co-workers gave us a Massey 50 gas burner for free! We are now a two tractor family, when I get it running looks to be in pretty good shape.
Billy

 

[Mur386]

New tires installed, they look great, minor access problem with greasing the front axle pivot pin, because of skid plate, so sprayed it for the moment. will deal with that later. skid plate needs to come off anyway for cleanup, but not right now things to do! And very surprised at the front hub seal design. Had to replace a inner large bearing, and the rubber ribs appeared to be worn away, not so, they were just full of grime and old grease. So hurray, and after being in the automotive field for 27 years, have never seen a seal hold up as well as these have or designed this way. Just amazing to me.
Bill
Going to try and find the bushhog in the overgrowth tomorrow, may take pictures.