Greetings from the odd guy with the odd dog at the Cub Tug
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:25 am
Greetings and many thanks to the Buckeye Cub Tuggers, from the strange guy,
with the strange family and the strange dog. We apologize for dashing off before
the dance, but the kids were getting a little antsy, and after absorbing some
inspiration from the tug, I wanted to get home and take a crack at firing up
our latest foray into insanity - what turns out to be a 1948 Cub, which I've now
owned for 2 weeks (more on that shortly).
Since introductions seem to be in order, we're the Ray family - William & Joan,
with kids Sage and Will, and either the world's most boring dog, or most
interesting footstool, Pokey. For the record, Pokey's an AKC Pembroke Corgi,
but we think that his previous owner just didn't finish payments on his legs.
Professionally, I'm a - get this - Professor of Pediatrics - at The Ohio State University
Medical School department of Pediatrics/Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus
Ohio. I don't believe it either... Still, they pay me to develop new bleeding-edge
technological/computational approaches to biological problems, and to teach
bio/med students how to do it, so what the heck - it's a fun gig while it lasts.
More functionally, I'm a raised-in-the-country computer geek - grew up in Ohio's
2nd largest school district, with the state's 2nd lowest population. My family
wasn't a farming family - my father's an engineer (roll-design, for US Steel, retired),
and my mother's an elementary school teacher - so I never learned "farming"
per se, but I'm a heck of a lot more country than city.
Joan's a research system administrator specializing in computational-biology
software and hardware support - which mostly means that she keeps my machines
purring for me, or tries to, when there's time between the myriad of other
system administration tasks around the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's.
She's a New-Orlean's born city-girl, and never imagined living anywhere other than
a city-center apartment before we met. Unlike the normal direction such stories
go, she's eagerly adapted to life with a guy who thinks that scrounging old iron
from an abandoned factory is the epitome of a fun evening out. She does own
probably 20 pairs of shoes - but they're just about all hiking and work boots that
she bought on close-out, so I guess that's OK. To keep up with my expenditures
on tools, etc, she does her part collecting high-end electronics, AV equipment,
and DVDs. I bought her a vacuum cleaner for St. Valentine's day this year - a
5HP vacuum cleaner. No, not one of those "5 Sears HP" vacuums - a real, 5HP,
powered by a 220V 3-phase motor that draws 45 starting amps, and 18 running
amps @220V/3P. She thinks it's cool... God, I love that woman...
We've got a house in Columbus OH, where we've been stuck for many more years
than we care to think about, and about 5 years ago we bought a small farm on the
southern border of Hocking County (just North of New Plymouth OH), that we're
slowly trying to rehabilitate from 100 years of neglect, and the rather bizarre
"improvement" notions implemented by its previous owner.
Since we're cheap, and my upbringing has me convinced that A) ancient iron that
still works, is likely to keep working for far longer than modern iron, and
B) I'm reasonably likely to be able to make an arbitrary chunk of ancient iron work,
we're trying to do this rehabilitation with relatively inexpensive old tractors and
whatever other bits of equipment we can keep running. Our workhorse tractor is
a neglected, leaky, Massy Ferguson 65, with the Continental gas engine. Probably
could use the mains and rod bearings replaced sometime soon, but for now, it
chugs away running the loader, brush-hog, etc, without complaint. For where the
Massey can't safely get on our hilly property, we've got a bizarre Italian vineyard
tractor - a CAST. It's a low, wide, articulated 4wd crawler, with independent
4-wheel suspension (dual A arm suspension - just like a sports car :-). If the
tuggers aren't offended, I might try to bring it to the Tug next year - I'd rather
like to know what it can really do - unfortunately something just went awry with
the transmission, but I'm hoping it's an easy fix, because now I need it to go get my
pickup back out of the ravine (took some friends on a quick tour of the farm this
afternoon, and found a spot a the bottom of one of our ravines that previously
did not have a 4' deep hole in it. The poor old Ford can usually get itself out of
most jams that it gets into, but with the front frame sitting on the ground, it's
a bit out of its league). For little stuff, we've a passel of Gravelys - I think
there's a "red paint" theme going on here somewhere...
Which brings us to the Cub. SN 14689, if Sage wrote the numbers down
correctly. Bought it from a fellow that I got to know as the factory he was
working at got closed down and gutted. One day while forklifting an old
bandsaw out of the wood shop for me (hey, it's a 36" throat bandsaw - it
needed a forklift), he mentioned that he had a cub he was interested in
selling. I figured that with his impending unemployment, he needed the
money more than I did, and hey, I can always use another tractor. Didn't
know diddly about cubs, other than the name. Always kind of thought of
them as overgrown lawnmowers. Cub Tug handily disabused me of this
notion, but I still can't say I know much about them...
So, we finally picked it up (first time we'd seen it) 2 weekends ago. Wasn't
running, so it was a winch-on, push off affair with the trailer, and we didn't
have time to try to start it that weekend. Last weekend, I had wrist surgery
for carpal tunnel, so I wasn't in the mood for wrenching. Finally this
weekend, after watching the Tug, we chased some wiring around, decided
that it looked like a 12V conversion, and tried to get it to start.
Nothing. Ok, yeah, yeah, connections, connections, connections. Yank
the starter loop a little harder, and now it's turning. So far so good.
The connections can wait.
Still doesn't start. Doesn't even cough. Doesn't even hiccough.
Mildly bizarre, but maybe it's not getting fuel - who knows how long the PO had
it, or whether it was even ever working for him. Pull the intake hose
off the carb, and feed it some ether.
Still doesn't start. not a pop, not a peep.
More bizarre. Maybe I bypassed looking at the connections too soon.
Let's see about spark. Well, with the plugs out, we've got fire.
There's a little pointy doodad on the front of the block, and lookit
that, a notch it points at in the crank pulley. Pull the valve cover off,
(so who thought that burying that behind the hydraulic lines like that
was a _good_ idea?), find TDC, yup, the pointy doodad points at the
notch on the pulley. "Snap" - huh - it's got a coil, _and_ the remains
of a magneto - never seen that before. Still, it goes snap, and we
get a spark, just as we round TDC, so it doesn't look like a timing
issue.
Pull the wire from the coil off the distributor and dangle it by the
block - snap - spark - at least a good 5/8ths inch. So it's probably not
that the spark is too weak.
Pull the carb, and feed the intake manifold ether directly, while
cranking it.
Nothing. Zero, zilch, zip, nada.
Grumble, grumble grumble... Something is worse wrong here than
I'd hoped. Spin it with the plugs out. Ruuuh, ruuh, ruuuhruuhruuuh...
Noisy starter, alarmingly slow for spinning an engine with no
plugs in, but more alarmingly, no "chuff, chuff" from the plug
holes. The !@#$% thing has got zero compression, on at least two
cylinders. So, I guess I now have another project... Have a BMW
diesel engine sitting in the shop already waiting for me to find the
time and room to work on it, a couple Gravelys that need help, and
now the CAST with it's weird knock in the transmission, and here comes
another project. Still, it's cute, and it looks like I can probably strip
it in an afternoon, so it'll probably float to the top.
Had it for 2 weeks, it doesn't work and appears to need a whole-engine
teardown, just to get it to speak to me, and what am I doing? Now
I'm trying to buy a 2nd one...
Time for bed, crazy science stuff waits in the morning.
Will Ray
I'll try to get some pictures posted sometime in the not too distant future - probably
after next weekend, practically though.
with the strange family and the strange dog. We apologize for dashing off before
the dance, but the kids were getting a little antsy, and after absorbing some
inspiration from the tug, I wanted to get home and take a crack at firing up
our latest foray into insanity - what turns out to be a 1948 Cub, which I've now
owned for 2 weeks (more on that shortly).
Since introductions seem to be in order, we're the Ray family - William & Joan,
with kids Sage and Will, and either the world's most boring dog, or most
interesting footstool, Pokey. For the record, Pokey's an AKC Pembroke Corgi,
but we think that his previous owner just didn't finish payments on his legs.
Professionally, I'm a - get this - Professor of Pediatrics - at The Ohio State University
Medical School department of Pediatrics/Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus
Ohio. I don't believe it either... Still, they pay me to develop new bleeding-edge
technological/computational approaches to biological problems, and to teach
bio/med students how to do it, so what the heck - it's a fun gig while it lasts.
More functionally, I'm a raised-in-the-country computer geek - grew up in Ohio's
2nd largest school district, with the state's 2nd lowest population. My family
wasn't a farming family - my father's an engineer (roll-design, for US Steel, retired),
and my mother's an elementary school teacher - so I never learned "farming"
per se, but I'm a heck of a lot more country than city.
Joan's a research system administrator specializing in computational-biology
software and hardware support - which mostly means that she keeps my machines
purring for me, or tries to, when there's time between the myriad of other
system administration tasks around the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's.
She's a New-Orlean's born city-girl, and never imagined living anywhere other than
a city-center apartment before we met. Unlike the normal direction such stories
go, she's eagerly adapted to life with a guy who thinks that scrounging old iron
from an abandoned factory is the epitome of a fun evening out. She does own
probably 20 pairs of shoes - but they're just about all hiking and work boots that
she bought on close-out, so I guess that's OK. To keep up with my expenditures
on tools, etc, she does her part collecting high-end electronics, AV equipment,
and DVDs. I bought her a vacuum cleaner for St. Valentine's day this year - a
5HP vacuum cleaner. No, not one of those "5 Sears HP" vacuums - a real, 5HP,
powered by a 220V 3-phase motor that draws 45 starting amps, and 18 running
amps @220V/3P. She thinks it's cool... God, I love that woman...
We've got a house in Columbus OH, where we've been stuck for many more years
than we care to think about, and about 5 years ago we bought a small farm on the
southern border of Hocking County (just North of New Plymouth OH), that we're
slowly trying to rehabilitate from 100 years of neglect, and the rather bizarre
"improvement" notions implemented by its previous owner.
Since we're cheap, and my upbringing has me convinced that A) ancient iron that
still works, is likely to keep working for far longer than modern iron, and
B) I'm reasonably likely to be able to make an arbitrary chunk of ancient iron work,
we're trying to do this rehabilitation with relatively inexpensive old tractors and
whatever other bits of equipment we can keep running. Our workhorse tractor is
a neglected, leaky, Massy Ferguson 65, with the Continental gas engine. Probably
could use the mains and rod bearings replaced sometime soon, but for now, it
chugs away running the loader, brush-hog, etc, without complaint. For where the
Massey can't safely get on our hilly property, we've got a bizarre Italian vineyard
tractor - a CAST. It's a low, wide, articulated 4wd crawler, with independent
4-wheel suspension (dual A arm suspension - just like a sports car :-). If the
tuggers aren't offended, I might try to bring it to the Tug next year - I'd rather
like to know what it can really do - unfortunately something just went awry with
the transmission, but I'm hoping it's an easy fix, because now I need it to go get my
pickup back out of the ravine (took some friends on a quick tour of the farm this
afternoon, and found a spot a the bottom of one of our ravines that previously
did not have a 4' deep hole in it. The poor old Ford can usually get itself out of
most jams that it gets into, but with the front frame sitting on the ground, it's
a bit out of its league). For little stuff, we've a passel of Gravelys - I think
there's a "red paint" theme going on here somewhere...
Which brings us to the Cub. SN 14689, if Sage wrote the numbers down
correctly. Bought it from a fellow that I got to know as the factory he was
working at got closed down and gutted. One day while forklifting an old
bandsaw out of the wood shop for me (hey, it's a 36" throat bandsaw - it
needed a forklift), he mentioned that he had a cub he was interested in
selling. I figured that with his impending unemployment, he needed the
money more than I did, and hey, I can always use another tractor. Didn't
know diddly about cubs, other than the name. Always kind of thought of
them as overgrown lawnmowers. Cub Tug handily disabused me of this
notion, but I still can't say I know much about them...
So, we finally picked it up (first time we'd seen it) 2 weekends ago. Wasn't
running, so it was a winch-on, push off affair with the trailer, and we didn't
have time to try to start it that weekend. Last weekend, I had wrist surgery
for carpal tunnel, so I wasn't in the mood for wrenching. Finally this
weekend, after watching the Tug, we chased some wiring around, decided
that it looked like a 12V conversion, and tried to get it to start.
Nothing. Ok, yeah, yeah, connections, connections, connections. Yank
the starter loop a little harder, and now it's turning. So far so good.
The connections can wait.
Still doesn't start. Doesn't even cough. Doesn't even hiccough.
Mildly bizarre, but maybe it's not getting fuel - who knows how long the PO had
it, or whether it was even ever working for him. Pull the intake hose
off the carb, and feed it some ether.
Still doesn't start. not a pop, not a peep.
More bizarre. Maybe I bypassed looking at the connections too soon.
Let's see about spark. Well, with the plugs out, we've got fire.
There's a little pointy doodad on the front of the block, and lookit
that, a notch it points at in the crank pulley. Pull the valve cover off,
(so who thought that burying that behind the hydraulic lines like that
was a _good_ idea?), find TDC, yup, the pointy doodad points at the
notch on the pulley. "Snap" - huh - it's got a coil, _and_ the remains
of a magneto - never seen that before. Still, it goes snap, and we
get a spark, just as we round TDC, so it doesn't look like a timing
issue.
Pull the wire from the coil off the distributor and dangle it by the
block - snap - spark - at least a good 5/8ths inch. So it's probably not
that the spark is too weak.
Pull the carb, and feed the intake manifold ether directly, while
cranking it.
Nothing. Zero, zilch, zip, nada.
Grumble, grumble grumble... Something is worse wrong here than
I'd hoped. Spin it with the plugs out. Ruuuh, ruuh, ruuuhruuhruuuh...
Noisy starter, alarmingly slow for spinning an engine with no
plugs in, but more alarmingly, no "chuff, chuff" from the plug
holes. The !@#$% thing has got zero compression, on at least two
cylinders. So, I guess I now have another project... Have a BMW
diesel engine sitting in the shop already waiting for me to find the
time and room to work on it, a couple Gravelys that need help, and
now the CAST with it's weird knock in the transmission, and here comes
another project. Still, it's cute, and it looks like I can probably strip
it in an afternoon, so it'll probably float to the top.
Had it for 2 weeks, it doesn't work and appears to need a whole-engine
teardown, just to get it to speak to me, and what am I doing? Now
I'm trying to buy a 2nd one...
Time for bed, crazy science stuff waits in the morning.
Will Ray
I'll try to get some pictures posted sometime in the not too distant future - probably
after next weekend, practically though.