Good job Matt! You might want to run a little Dawn dishwashing soap in the radiator before draining new antifreeze. It will help clean the cooling system of residual oil. Keep it between the ditches and enjoy the rewards of your work. Be Well!
Thanks Duke! Worked it hard yesterday grading the driveway in 85 degree weather with no problems. The new head gasket held up and no more oil in the radiator
Scrapers are all about the person using them.. a good sharp scraper is best.. gotta get under the gasket. Never scratched a head or block yet.. Important thing is, clean, smooth and flat
Nice sound as you Road test. I wonder if the lower rad pads are worn thin? If there is a next time maybe an idea to add thickness so rad sits higher to avoid the cap trim out. But a nice repair, if care is taken, that normally produces good results as we all heard in the road test run. Five weeks to first frost, we had our first frost five weeks ago. Be care full careful Mother Nature likes to play tricks on us all.
I don't disagree with Jim the machinist on some level, however you didn't get carried away with scraping off the old gasket. And honestly the whole point of using copper coat is to help "fill" the minor scratches and corroded spots on both the head and block surfaces. The rougher the surface, the more coats of copper coat used is how I was taught by some old timer. You do clean quality work and use common sense so your repair will be successful. I am still hoping for a Merc swap tho. Great job sir!
Thanks Mike. I don’t disagree at all with Jim. As Ed stated, it all boils down to the guy doing the scraping. In my case, whoever had the head off the last time glued it to the block with some kind of adhesive. I had a heck of a time cleaning up the head.
Lmao 🤣😂 Ford's better idea 👍 Yup, keep the plug wires tight together inside a metal loom.. with other wiring.. no wonder they always pop and sputter.. 🙄 Good plan trimming the cap! Otherwise you'd be doing a little radiator repair in a few hours.. Nice traffic 👍😎
You know by now that no matter what you do on RU-vid, someone is going to critique your work, your process, or your materials. So here goes...why didn't you clean and paint the topside of the head to make it look new again? Sandblasted and painted aluminum would have been sweet... Good job, Matt.
I hear ya George. When you put yourself out there, you’re gonna get some negative feedback once in awhile. In my case, I almost did wire wheel and paint the head, but I’m in the middle of a tree planting project for the wife and the head lost the coin toss 😊
I have a 1949 8n. When I start it up and run it for a minute or two, Antifreeze sprays out of the radiator cap as pressurized steam. I was told it needs a new head gasket. Got a hold of a guy that looked at it and never got back to me. Another guy has been too busy and has been holding off the last 2.5 yrs. I did my research and I just did it myself. Starts better, runs beautifully. Only problem is that the Antifreeze still comes out of the radiator as pressurized steam. Is it the water pump? Was I supposed to coat the gasket in something before putting it on the tractor? I don't know. If anyone has any ideas or can help me, I'd greatly appreciate it.
9n, 2n, and 8n motors are the same until 1951 when they changed the timing cover and front distributor to a side mount distributor. There are differences between the 8ns and the other models, but the big giveaway is the design of the battery tray. The 8n has a more robust battery tray to support the battery, which is an improvement over the 9n/2n. They did say with the wiring loom tube and used a single steel strap (fastened with one of the head bolts) to hold the spark plug wires with the change to the side-mount distributor
