“Ernational”

This Project is a 1954 International 300 tractor. My good friend purchased it for use on his property. When he brought it to the shop it was quite disheveled but complete.  He was able to drive it off the trailer and into the shop. The problems were many but noneoverwhelming. The raditor fill neck had come loose from the radiator. A local radiator repair shop took care of that. There was no seat, I cut plywood to fit, attached foam and covered it with a durable exterior neoprene. It was leaking oil from an old repair to the oil pan, when we removed it, we found that it had been repaired on at least two different occasions . We discovered that a bolt connected to a ball joint on the front axle stabilizer was coming into contact with the oil pan and piercing it. The ball joint had wallowed out the hole in the axle stabalizer to an oval and it was allowing the movement. Had the ball joint been replaced before this occured it would probably not have needed the oil pan repairs. Replacing the axle stabilizer was not an option so we used steel wedges in the wallowed out hole and pressed them in using the bolt on the ball joint. To insure that the stem of the ball joint did not Come in contact with the oil pan again we used steel flat washers to lower the bracket away from the oil pan.

Some of the other problems included a poorly repaired brass carburator float (we replaced that), the exhaust consited of a muffler set atop the exhaust flange that had been turned over to exhaust up (we turned the exhaust flange over and ran the pipe out the back as was intended).

 

The remainder of the problems were inconsequential simple fixes. The result was an amazing work horse, almost 60 years old, ready to work another 60 years. On her first day of work, using a box scraper to grade a gravel road she blew her head gasket. I am happy to report that the repair was completed the following weekend and she finished grading the road and many tasks since!

The reason the title of this entry is “Ernational is the INT is broken off the emblem on one side. Someone observed this and stated;

“Ernational? I’ve never heard of  them!