Barn Find
 

In 1997 I built this barn for one of my customers. It's a pole barn with creosote treated hemlock poles, 1 x 12 native pine wall and roof sheathing and an attic truss roof system. The roofing is 18" red cedar perfections and the walls are 16" white cedar extras. The slab is for heavy equipment, 2' steel reinforced concrete at the perimeter and 6" steel reinforced at the body. We used antique granite for the form work to give it that historic look. All work was hand nailed. :ThumbsUp:

https://i.imgur.com/eWkZ2Nw.jpg

I built it shortly after I built this barn on the same property. This one is post and beam construction. I spent 6 weeks cutting and assembling this structure in a series of 5 vertical stations, each assembled lying flat on the first floor deck, one on top of the other. It was kinda funny as the neighbors had no idea what I was doing. And then, in one day, with the help of some friends and a crane, we raised and assembled the entire structure.

Shortly after the work was complete on the pole barn, my customer and now good friend Ed, stuffed his Ford tractor in the back. And there it sat, all this time. Lately, I've been seeing the need for a dedicated mowing tractor so I decided to drop in on Ed and check out his old Ford.

On initial approach, it looks like we have Cat 1??? rear lift, rear PTO and dual hydraulic ports. That's a good start! :beerchug:

Well, this says a lot. Ford 4000 with non louvered tins, I would guess 1968 - '75. Three cylinder diesel. Internal wet disc brakes. Power steering pump mounted reservoir.

One thing that I notice is alot of yellow paint under the blue...:bigthink:

And over the ID tag too!!!:bash2:

It does have the 3000 front end and steering and I was able to make out what looks like "D1414C" on the model tag.

So, I'm gonna say its a '68 - '75 Ford Special Utility 4000

Drained all the #&*NASTY!#* smelling fuel from the tank and changed the filter. Despite how rusty the tank is my magnet would not pick up any of the brown crud in the old filter.

I checked the Wix site to confirm that the filter #33166 was compatible with the C.A.V. injector pump... :ThumbsUp:

This swing out battery tray is cool!:ThumbsUp:

Unfortunately, despite clean fuel, new filter and plenty of cranking amps... no smoke and no fuel when I cracked the injector fittings.:crap:

Time to pull it out and order a manual.

Nice barn find !! :beerchug:

Thanks Darrell! :beerchug:

Looks like a nice summer project, so it has not been used since you built the barn?

They were both great summer projects! :beerchug:

According to Ed, he used to mow the bottom field with it until he realized it was less work to just use the riding lawn mower but that was a long time ago. He did say that he let the neighbor use it a couple of years ago to pull the one bottom plow around the garden but that story has changed a bit. Ed's got a few years on him now.

Not that you need any validation mister Ton but damn you’re quite talented. Apparently you were almost 50 as well and made that happen. That’s a lot of work even for a young man and those beams are pretty thick. Always liked the way that some construction is done in the north east. Looks old even though it’s rather new. My brother is a restoration architect up there and has projects that turn out looking that way. (Funny that he just built a garage a couple years ago to match his 1920 house and has some of the very same dimensions on the slab, 2 foot cement perimeter and 6 inch base. That might be a thing because of frost? Anyway, looks Very Massachusetts-ee if that’s a word. I know it’s not but you get the idea. Now a days the trend is using reclaimed wood to make such buildings which I’m also a fan of

Good luck with the ford. Cool little diesel that looks like it will run again soon, and cool story too!

Thank you Mr Alvy for the kind words. I have had the pleasure of working on many interesting projects over the years with the support of great customers. I have been blessed in that and many other ways in my life.

I think that I must have contributed to a false sense of how old I am and I think it may be based on this thread in "Jokes and Humor";

https://www.onlycubcadets.net/forum/...577#post405577

I am the kid in the center of the right hand picture in post 2. The older gentleman with the hard hat is a neighbor that came over to help on the day of the barn raising, old Fred,..may he rest in peace.

By the way, looks like I’ll be in your neck of the woods early Monday morning. I’m flying into Tampa early to jump in a car and run it back up the east coast. :beerchug:

Nice work on the barns, and good luck with the Ford!

Thanks! :beerchug:

The barns are awesome! Nice find and thanks for the pics.

Thanks Allen! :beerchug:

I wouldn’t mind finding one of those barns on my property... :biggrin2:

You and me both Steve. Seems there's always something else soaking up the cash for my barn project, like three kids going to college!

According to the Operators Manual, the Ford Model 4000 three point lift is Category 2. :ThumbsUp:

So, I made some time today to mess around with Ed's tractor. I figured I would try bleeding the fuel system again before I condemned the injector pump. As with previous attempts, I checked to make sure there was adequate fuel in the tank. Opened the valve at the bottom of the tank. Loosened the bleed screw on the top of the filter housing until a steady flow of fuel, free of bubbles flowed and then tightened the nut. I then loosened the bleed nut on the side of the injector pump and cranked the engine till a steady stream of fuel sprayed from the fitting. All good so far, but now, I loosen the fitting on one of the injectors, crank the engine and nothing. No sign of any fuel. Throttle lever is wide open. Fuel shutoff is pushed into the dash. Fuel is returning into the tank. But no fuel to any of the injectors. I even added an electric fuel pump between the tank and the filter and still no fuel at the injectors. :bigthink:

And here is something that's a bit confusing, the service manual says to open the bleed screw on the injector pump and loosen the injector lines at the injectors while cranking the engine to bleed the injector lines..
:bigthink:

Any thoughts on this?

I was gonna say loosen the lines at the injector pump to the injectors and see if any fuel comes out.
Maybe you should remove those and see if the are clogged.

I should pull all the lines and make sure they are all clear.

David before you do anything else you should loosen all the lines at the injectors. It’s been dry for a while. Don’t just crack them but loosen a couple turns on all 4 or 3 or however many injectors it has. Crank it and you should have fuel start to flow. Tighten when ALL are leaking fuel and you should get it to fire. It sometimes needs all to bleed if they’ve sat forever not just one.

I did Mike. I soaked 'em all down with PB the other day and opened them all, like disconnected, cranked for a while and nothing. I opened the injector line fittings at the pump end too and got nothing. With the addition of the electric boost pump the fuel really flows well out of the bleed fitting on the pump and through the tank return but nothing out of the injector lines.

I find it odd that the service manual would say to bleed the lines with the injector bleed screw open...

After several unsuccessful attempts to get fuel out of the pump I decided that it was time to move the Ford to a location where I could more easily work on it. So, on Thursday morning one of my boys and I dropped by Ed's and dragged the tractor out. I gave the kid the option of driving the unregistered, uninsured truck or ride and steer the busted tractor. He chose B. We successfully towed the blue beast to another customers property where we have been working steadily for quite a few years, luckily without any interference from the Ol' Bill. :beerchug:

I have been working on this property since 2001 and the first project that I did here was to build these two equipment sheds. They are actually pole barns, of sorts. Originally they were to be built on utility poles but I was able to convince my customer to let me make a few modifications to those plans.

The base of the buildings is a 12" x 36" steel reinforced concrete strip footing that extends to 5' below grade. The 12" diameter steel reinforced poured concrete columns are tied into that footing, and into the 12" x 36" steel reinforced concrete grade beams whose tops are 6" below grade. This all ties into the board formed 8" thick steel reinforced concrete end walls.

The roof structures are attic trusses and the roofing is clear anodized aluminum, standing seam, all hidden fasteners.

The wall systems and gates are all chain link on galvanized steel pipe frames with weather block fabric under.

Each building is 60'.

And there's a bridge too. I designed it to handle a loaded 10 wheeler. :ThumbsUp:

And oh yeah, this is right across the street from the first two barns.

Same brown slime algae that was in the filter...

Hello!

Are the walls on those buildings block? You do some nice work for a 70 y.o.
That roof musta cost a bit, no wonder you have been working there.:biggrin2:

On to the gunk, is that the inside of the injector pump?

Hello to you sir!

No block here. All concrete is poured. The walls are just the chain link panels with the weather block fabric, flow through design.

And on to the gunk! There's lots of it, everything inside the injector pump is coated with it. Yum.

A fun little project! :ThumbsUp:

Today’s project was to replace the injectors. Luckily they were held in with bolts and not studs like some of the Fords. This allowed me to put a wrench on the top hex and gently turn the injector body in between rounds with the slide hammer ‘cause these ol’ boys were stuck! Some ATF and acetone, some patience and some (not so) gentle persuasion and I finally wrestled them from their home of what looks to be the last 44 or more years. I think these are original issue!

After quite a few rounds of scraping, scrubbing, vacuuming and chasing threads, I finally felt that the top of the head and the injector bores were clean enough to accept the new injectors.

But not before I adjusted the valve lash.

That's done.

When are you going to try and start the tractor?