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Massey Harris 55 on pto duty

12K views 26 replies 10 participants last post by  missouri massey man 
#1 ·

My much older brother picked up this 55 in boxes from a neighbor back in the '70's. After cleaning, painting and reassembly back then it saw moderate duty off and on for a few years into the 80's. No longer farming, it was retired and used occasionally and ended up sitting in a corner the last ten years ago where it drew moisture and stuck.

After a good soaking of the cylinders and months of bumping back and forth and subsequently some additional cleanup, its back in the saddle again ready to exercise its muscles.

What better way than pto duty to do a motor good...The compressor is a three cylinder, two stage and pumps between 104 cfm and 120 cfm at 125 psi and will work a MH 44 hard...but for a 55 it will be a cakewalk.

Having some stainless steel mesh from a jobsite trash hopper allowed him to fabricate a pretty nice grille screen. Not bad, huh ?

Hooked up and ready to go, gotta get him into my blast helmet and I gotta get my earplugs...

A shot from the rear of my scrap-built sandblaster....there's a post with pictures and the story somewhere in "I need to tell you all" if you are interested.

Time to get started, we have all four rims, rear rim centers, all the sheetmetal, drawbar, Saginaw 3 point assembly, four sets of wheel weights and well... just about anything that couldn't be dipped in the electrylosis barrel to blast.

Moving right along, my duty is just monitoring the engine temp, oil pressure and moving freshly blasted parts out of the way, moving rusty parts up closer and monitoring the belt tension and pressure on the blaster. The tank holds just around 800 pound of silica sand and will run full blast for 2 1/2 hours between refills. I mistakenly said on the other post it held 600 lbs. :oops: :oops:

A few of the parts laying in waiting...we can vary the pressure for thin sheet metal to prevent warpage, but there was no issue with it at all this time.

Some ready for primer....

Nearing the end, I think he's beginning to wilt a bit, because we ran out of the morning shade and its starting to toast up a bit inside the helmet... :lol: :lol: :lol: Boy, I'm liking this tooooooo much !! :lol: :lol: :lol: :D

Down to the end... all in all we used about 1600 pounds of sand and total time consumed with the blaster at full speed was less than 5 hours. Of course, we started around 7:00 a.m. and finished up around 1:30 p.m. but hey, we had to stop for lunch and sand tank refill.....plus you gotta remember we are just a couple of retired old worn out former members of the work force just hobbling around with our walking canes trying to find youngsters to do our work for us !!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
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#6 ·
Stephenscity said:
Are you able to reclaim any of the sand?
No Mike, not at all. Sometimes when we do a small project and stretch out a huge tarp, we can recover some of the sand. The second use is about all you can get as it becomes powdered quite quickly and loses its abrasive quality. The more the powder, the more the dust... :cry: :cry:

4imnotright said:
Wendell Is that a Farmall grill I see in one of the Pics?
I accidently deleted the picture and comment that says we were doing his '56 Farmall propane parts. I'd posted the painting etc of that on the Farmall forum and did not get too many replys so I thought I'd try the Massey forum for this portion of the project. :lol: :lol: :lol: The other grill way in the background is an AC CA with bellymower.

bettyp said:
What a story .you make work so much fun or least it is fun to read. :lol: See you hobbling around on that cane. :lol: :lol:
Yes ma'am, but I sure wish you'd a stopped by for a visit so you coulda helped us tossing around the bags of sand !!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

caseman said:
Love the pictures and story
Thank you Jr. It's always a pleasure hearing from the NUMBER ONE man of ATF !!!!! Glad to see you well, my friend... :D :D :D
 
#10 ·
JJ. in B.C. said:
Thanks Wendell, I enjoyed the pics and thanks for taking us through the process,
must be real handy having a "much older" brother to do the grafting for you ;)
Yessir JJ, he is a pretty good guy to have in your corner when you need him, that's for sure. By the way, JJ did you see the odd steering wheel center on the 55?? I don't recall ever seeing one besides this one...and it IS a factory piece.
 
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#13 ·
missouri massey man said:
[quote="Ernie N Ky":3jqczpuu]That looks like a good days work!
Yeah Ernie, 'twas a bit of a workout...for my brother. For a change I got to be lazy guy... :lol: :lol: :lol: I think I can get used to watching him do all the work !![/quote:3jqczpuu]

Better be careful Wendell or Mike will start on you with "being the camera man" while everyone else does all the work. Not saying it WILL happen but I've seen it somewhere's before :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
#14 ·
missouri massey man said:
[quote="JJ. in B.C.":3bcp0p1b]Thanks Wendell, I enjoyed the pics and thanks for taking us through the process,
must be real handy having a "much older" brother to do the grafting for you ;)
Yessir JJ, he is a pretty good guy to have in your corner when you need him, that's for sure. By the way, JJ did you see the odd steering wheel center on the 55?? I don't recall ever seeing one besides this one...and it IS a factory piece.[/quote:3bcp0p1b]

Yes, I have seen a few of those though not in person, I don't know enough about them as to which models carried that type of wheel.
 
#15 ·
JJ. in B.C. said:
[quote="missouri massey man":34kupk8s][quote="JJ. in B.C.":34kupk8s]Thanks Wendell, I enjoyed the pics and thanks for taking us through the process,
must be real handy having a "much older" brother to do the grafting for you ;)
Yessir JJ, he is a pretty good guy to have in your corner when you need him, that's for sure. By the way, JJ did you see the odd steering wheel center on the 55?? I don't recall ever seeing one besides this one...and it IS a factory piece.[/quote:34kupk8s]

Yes, I have seen a few of those though not in person, I don't know enough about them as to which models carried that type of wheel.[/quote:34kupk8s]

I was enlightened on that particular wheel by my much more knowledgeable and older brother. He said because there is no power steering to help hold the wheel in one hand easily when you hit something that spins the front wheels back straight, this is like a torsion control that takes up the rapid movement. Keeps from getting your knuckles knocked real hard by the steering wheel spokes. Never heard of such a thing.... :oops: :oops: :oops:

petra79 said:
missouri massey man said:
[quote="Ernie N Ky":34kupk8s]That looks like a good days work!
Yeah Ernie, 'twas a bit of a workout...for my brother. For a change I got to be lazy guy... :lol: :lol: :lol: I think I can get used to watching him do all the work !!
Better be careful Wendell or Mike will start on you with "being the camera man" while everyone else does all the work. Not saying it WILL happen but I've seen it somewhere's before :lol: :lol: :lol:[/quote:34kupk8s]

Oh, I am treading softly Ron, treading softly....don't wanna awaken the sleeping dragon... ;) ;) :lol: :lol: :lol: Now I'm just TRYING to remember WHERE I saw that happen... :? :? :? :? :? My memory is still clouded by that last bus.... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
G
#16 ·
missouri massey man said:
petra79 said:
Better be careful Wendell or Mike will start on you with "being the camera man" while everyone else does all the work. Not saying it WILL happen but I've seen it somewhere's before :lol: :lol: :lol:
Oh, I am treading softly Ron, treading softly....don't wanna awaken the sleeping dragon... ;) ;) :lol: :lol: :lol: Now I'm just TRYING to remember WHERE I saw that happen... :? :? :? :? :? My memory is still clouded by that last bus.... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: Must have been a cloud from another forum :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
 
#18 ·
That is a awesome setup. I remember when you put the post up on how you made it. I would love to see that thing work. Maybe we could come see it sometime and we could get someone to take pictures of you showing me how it works if you could just remember who. :D :D :D Just joking thats a fine outfit you got.
 
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#19 ·
gordon1121 said:
That is a awesome setup. I remember when you put the post up on how you made it. I would love to see that thing work. Maybe we could come see it sometime and we could get someone to take pictures of you showing me how it works if you could just remember who. :D :D :D Just joking thats a fine outfit you got.
Boy oh boy, y'all got helpers everywhere :roll: :roll: :roll: I'm starting to feel like Charlie Brown gettin kicked around by Lucy :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
#20 ·
petra79 said:
gordon1121 said:
That is a awesome setup. I remember when you put the post up on how you made it. I would love to see that thing work. Maybe we could come see it sometime and we could get someone to take pictures of you showing me how it works if you could just remember who. :D :D :D Just joking thats a fine outfit you got.
Boy oh boy, y'all got helpers everywhere :roll: :roll: :roll: I'm starting to feel like Charlie Brown gettin kicked around by Lucy :lol: :lol: :lol:
It will sure work the fire out of you on a hot day, I guarantee Gordon. You can stop by anytime and help MissBetty and myself load the sand while Ron's photo-journeling the story.... Maybe we can get him to dump the gas cans into the tractor too... :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
G
#22 ·
missouri massey man said:
petra79 said:
gordon1121 said:
That is a awesome setup. I remember when you put the post up on how you made it. I would love to see that thing work. Maybe we could come see it sometime and we could get someone to take pictures of you showing me how it works if you could just remember who. :D :D :D Just joking thats a fine outfit you got.
Boy oh boy, y'all got helpers everywhere :roll: :roll: :roll: I'm starting to feel like Charlie Brown gettin kicked around by Lucy :lol: :lol: :lol:
It will sure work the fire out of you on a hot day, I guarantee Gordon. You can stop by anytime and help MissBetty and myself load the sand while Ron's photo-journeling the story.... Maybe we can get him to dump the gas cans into the tractor too... :lol: :lol: :lol:
DEAL :cool: :cool:
 
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