Started Work on the Allis-Chalmers B...

The temps were pretty mild here today and that inspired me to go out to the garage and start working on my tractor. I'm pretty sure the reason it's frozen or locked up, is from water getting down the muffler and into a cylinder or two. When I first tried to turn the engine over it wouldn't budge. I pulled out the spark plugs, used my MityVac and sucked a bunch of rusty water out of the #2 cylinder.

Today, I started to dig deeper.

I first removed the muffler, air inlet cover and the hood. Next, I removed the valve cover. There was a bit of oil in some low spots in the head, but it was pretty clean. There are 3 frost plugs in the head. They have been known to rust through and when that happens, coolant will leak into the head and it will run down the oil return paths and mix with the oil. Not Good.... The 3 plugs in my B's head were in good shape! I cleaned them off, tapped on them with a heavy screwdriver, and they look good with no visible rust... They'll be replaced when the head gets serviced.

I kept taking things apart. I removed the carburetor, air filter, and started to remove the cast iron manifold. The manifold is a one piece unit that is both the intake and exhaust. When I got the bolts loose, clear water started to run out of the manifold and exhaust ports in the head. That confirms my thought of water down the muffler...

Once I got the manifold off, I could see the rust in the exhaust ports of the head.


I drained the antifreeze from the block, it looked to be in really good shape, bright green and not rusty. I have to clean a little spilled antifreeze off the floor before I can let the cats back out in the garage.
I'll be working on removing the head next. It will be interesting to see the condition of the cylinders....