This fall /winter project

Nogoingback said:
Is that the fuel tank perched up on top of the engine?
Click to expand...
Yep. The cowl goes over the top and swings forward on two pivots. Tank has two bolts to the battery box,(in front of dash), and rests on two spring loaded bolts at the front. Very easy to remove and provides good access to the engine. Here's a couple of shots with the cowl in place:
 

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I’ve seen pics of Ford flathead V-8 engine swaps in these.
Supposably fairly easy as engine swaps go.
This one looks ripe for one.
Yeah, I wouldn’t do that either.
Not to a workhorse like yours.
But it would be fun.
 
I noticed the engine had the head off, radiator out etc. Wow! Sounds like you really did do well if all the parts came with it. How is the tin? Cowl, grill etc.
Like Manual Mac I was thinking V8:
 
I've had an 8N since 1972. It came with the small farm that I bought. I have the original invoice from 1950. The tractor sold for $750 then. Nowadays, a 70 y.o. 8N can go for four times that.

The 8N is a sturdy little beast and with its low c.o.g., navigates our steep hillsides like a mountain goat. I hauled well over a hundred whitetails and several hundred cords of firewood off the hillsides.
 
Norseman C.B.
Have you plans to fit a ROPS? I've just got some steel to start on mounting plates and have some old gym equipment for the frame. Getting on I get nervous now when I see a naked tractor being used. Seems like every other month you hear about an injury or death from a tractor roll.
 
A good friends wife was killed on their Kubota while clearing manzanita on their ranch. It had a roll bar, but he said it sounded like she panicked and hit one of the brakes instead of the clutch when the front started coming up. So it ended up like corkscrewing, throwing her off and rolling on top of her. Such a tragedy. It’s why I’m always scared anytime I’m around any kind of machinery.
 
That is really sad to hear about your friends wife C-Bag. Even worse is hearing that a ROPS was fitted and she was thrown out, that means she wasn't wearing a safety belt. We now have training courses for farm workers because of the number of rural accidents. On the tractor safety course they teach to always wear your safety belt and if you roll cross your arms, curl and sit tight.
It may not be an automatic reflex in a rollover but with a bit of practice it can become automatic. A bit like riding a 'bike, you know you are going to drop it one day so playing a scenario in the mind ups the chances of survival.
 
I've owned an 8N for forty years. over that time every single part has been rebuilt. its almost a parade ready tractor now. Milady uses it as her little grey mouse to drive around the farm.

You mentioned the step-up-down tranny. One real weak point is there is no easy way to change or add oil to this unit. You can kind of get at it by pulling the steering tower to add oil. Need to split the tractor to drain it. I LEARNED THIS THE HARD WAY. Mine was low on lube and what was there had water in it. Burned the bearings out and seized the tractor up tight. This was a VERY EXPENSIVE lesson.
 
One of my summer jobs in high school was working for the local fairgrounds. I and another guy was tasked with moving and distributing 2,500 110lb bales of straw. Our “rig” was an old Ferguson tractor with a flat bed. So when I think about it I was driving that tractor before I got my driver’s license. The very first thing I was taught was you didn’t keep your foot on the clutch, but on the rest right above it as that was the very first thing you hit if you had to stop or if anything went awry. The old guys who ran the place would stop us whenever they saw us. Not until later did I realize they were testing everybody who got on that thing and not everybody was allowed. The second thing taught was it would flip up and over and kill you if you did something stupid like pop the clutch with a big load. That would also get you banned. That really sunk in. It was a really old tractor and of course no roll bar or seatbelt.
 
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