Inherited a '49 Allis B- for FREE!

[Greentored 3,200]

Some of you may remember seeing a shot of this in another thread, just before I got it. My buddy purchased some land and this old B was sitting in the weeds- he says "Want an Allis Chalmers? Guy mowed with it up til about a year ago. If you dont want it it's going to scrap." Well eff yeah I do!   

And so it began.......  "Adventures with Allis", and if you're interested in a lot of boring rambling but cool content, its on Youtube- might make for some good toilet reading

Ol Allis has gone from prying the flywheel with a breaker bar to get it broke loose (yeah- running a year ago- more like 20 ha), to a somewhat freshened bottom end, modified cylinder head and governor spring, and 'half slammed' to Industrial B stance- about 9" lower than the original row crop design.

Oh, and it runs, drives and works- quite well I might add!

Heres some random photos- whatta fun project this has been....and continues to be, as they all are.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Greentored

[Greentored 3,200]

And a few more- trying to keep the patina look, including trying to make the freshly repaired and painted fuel tank match the rest of the battle scars.

 

[Greentored 3,200]

....but wait, theres more!  Knocking some air out from under her- after a quick trip to the local watering hole

[squonk 38,902]

My Father had a 39 B. I have pictures somewhere in here where I converted it into electric start.

 

Found em!

 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2023 by squonk

[pacer 3,159]

Gotta love this shot of the often heard before --  "it ran when I parked it"

Geez, what a mess!!

But, more times than not, as you've shown, even that big a mess can be brought back --- with a good bit of elbow grease!!

Nicely done...........

 

39 minutes ago, Greentored said:

Guy mowed with it up til about a year ago.

 

[Pullstart 59,644]

Wow, that valvetrain was BUSTED!  Cool project Scott!

[Achto 26,545]

Awesome project. It looks great!! 

 

Be glad that it is electric start. My family has a crank start only Allis B, AKA "The Arm Breaker". We start it by pulling it with another tractor now.

[Greentored 3,200]

Theres a short clip in one of the first youtube vids of this thing running before disassembly. I drained a gallon of water out of the crankcase and another cup out of #2 and 3 spark plug holes. It actually sounded somewhat ok! Found the stuck exhaust valves when I pulled the valve cover- think I jammed them into the pistons when trying to bang them loose- theres no way it ran with those valve heads laying in there.

Cylinder 3 had so much rust, pitting and 'swelling' I dont know how it spun over at all! All that mess and the bottom end was perfect. I purchased a used cylinder, one set of rings, shoved the pistons down to BDC and ball honed what I could, slapped a new set of exhaust valves and 2 springs in- bout as back yard as it gets, and the ol girl runs like a watch!

[ebinmaine 63,079]

Nice work Scott!! 

[mrc 727]

hi greentored,

  how far is that watering hole from your shop?   what a great town to live in!   wish i could do that!!!

  nice work on the tractor

[Wheel-N-It 2,967]

I hauled many trailer loads of firewood out of the property where I grew up, to feed the family wood stoves. My grandfather had a 1948 Allis B. 

You will enjoy yours. They can get some work done 

[ACman 7,505]

Love the stance on the tractor . I’ve been around orange tractors my whole life as my family farms with them and also sold them at our dealership . I want to discuss the water in the engine issues on these tractors and for many others . The issue is where the muffler clamps onto the exhaust manifold and that’s where the water gets in . These aftermarket mufflers don’t have a shroud around the end that keeps the water from going past the threads on the muffler so even if it has a flapper or you put a can over the top of the muffler the water just runs down the outside of the muffler into the manifold . If you have some old iron outside that you don’t want to ruin remove the muffler and put a can directly over the manifold and notch if you have to so it fits .

 

Edited May 23, 2023 by ACman

[wh500special 2,053]

22 hours ago, Greentored said:

....- bout as back yard as it gets, and the ol girl runs like a watch!

That's one of the beautiful things about these old low compression tractors.  The low relative precision makes them very tolerant to less than NASA level machine work.  Excellent job!

 

Allis made some cute little tractors.  Those little B's are adorable.   The industrial version even moreso.

 

Regarding being stuck....

 

We had a JD B that would stick if the engine sat unturned for more than a few months.  So we formed a habit of giving the flywheel a spin any time we walked past it.  When it DID stick it never took much to free it up.  That sucker always ran great and started easy no matter how long it sat.

 

Steve

[ebinmaine 63,079]

8 minutes ago, wh500special said:

Allis made some cute little tractors.

Yessir. 

I do likes me a Model G....

 

[T-Mo-(Moderator) 4,337]

I almost traded for a Allis B a couple of years back, but couldn't pull the trigger.  The B is the wide front version of the C, same basic tractor.

 

I almost bought a WD, but the rear tires were both shot, and it would have been too much of a project for me at that time.

[Sailman 1,129]

Great work on the restoration. Can't resist telling my Allis Chalmers story...growing up on a working farm in Iowa I began driving tractors at a very early age. One of the first jobs I had other than driving my grandpa's Jubilee was on our C Allis Chalmers. It would be to pull the rake in the hay field to make the rows for my dad to follow up with the baler. One day I was finishing up the raking for the next days baling with Dad, hired man and brother doing the milking. I was left alone to bring the "rig" back in from the field. Was probably about 10 or 12 years old. Now the rakes back then were "offset" so bringing it across the pond dike, through the gate and along the chicken coop was  tricky. I was so focused on looking behind so I didn't hit the gate with the end of the rake that I didn't realize I had gotten too close to the chicken coop. As the tractor rubbed against the coop I panicked and forgot how to stop the tractor...cleared the end of the coop with big black circles all along the side of the coop from the back tires! No damage other than the black marks, corner trim on the coop and my ego. Those marks stayed on the coop for years!

[Greentored 3,200]

On 5/19/2023 at 8:48 AM, ACman said:

 These aftermarket mufflers don’t have a shroud around the end that keeps the water from going past the threads on the muffler so even if it has a flapper or you put a can over the top of the muffler the water just runs down the outside of the muffler into the manifold . 

 

Yes sir, was thinking the same thing! The threads look pretty bad on this manifold- someone clamped a pipe adapter over the outside then clamped a section of pipe to that, then to the muffler. It got a good slathering of orange high temp RTV at all connections for some extra insurance, inside and out. 

This is my first 'big' tractor- there is a hole in the manifold near that threaded outlet, maybe 1/2"dia- what was that for?  Someone made a sheet metal shield to cover it, clamped to the pipe to hold in place. I filled that with the RYV as well and 'glued' the sheet metal to it on top of clamping it.

[Greentored 3,200]

She went to her temporary forever home this weekend and went straight to work dragging logs all day. Aside from a little chunk of dirt in the fuel inlet which was quickly resolved, she never missed a beat. I cant get over how much grunt and capability these little buggers have! I put her up to a couple dang big logs and she dragged em around just off idle like nobodys business- will easily dig a hole before it runs out of power!

 

[Greentored 3,200]

On 5/18/2023 at 8:06 PM, mrc said:

hi greentored,

  how far is that watering hole from your shop?   what a great town to live in!   wish i could do that!!!

  nice work on the tractor

Thanks!  Its a nice 2 mile back country ride- farm equipment is not uncommon. 

Course they're probably not supposed to be parked at a bar either  Just gotta go real easy on the refreshments and enjoy the ride instead....

 

[ACman 7,505]

[ACman 7,505]

@Greentored I do see you have a large hole in the hood . This is what an original muffler with shroud should look like . This is a high quality restoration part . I’ll give a plug to DJS tractor parts . He’s actually a local guy and ex Ford engineer with many connections in the parts manufacturing world . He’s actually gotten a few nos parts from my dad had them reproduced and are now sold through many companies. 

 

[Greentored 3,200]

Very interesting!  

...and no water ingestion haha