1942 Oliver 60 Standard - New OIL/TEMP/AMPS Gauges and Clutch Adjustment

This old tractor still has one of its original gauges, the ammeter. I guess with maybe one moving part (the needle), there is little to go wrong. The replacement water temperature gauge doesn't work and the replacement 0-80 psi oil pressure gauge barely moves off the zero mark with the tractor engine's 20 psi operating pressure.

The below photo shows what I got from Amazon. They are sure spiffy looking. I just hope they work.

It's maybe an hour later and I got the three gauges installed. The oil pressure and water temp gauges didn't work. I ended up pulling out the oil pressure gauge and reinstalling the old one that at least the tractor had oil pressure. I then put 60 psi of air pressure to the new gauge and it registered on the low side of the blue "work range". According to the Oliver manual, correct working pressure is in the 15 to 20 psi range, so this new gauge reads way off.

The photo below shows the temp gauge not moving at all and the probe and engine are at 142 degrees. I would have thought it would have gone up at least a little. I pulled the gauge probe out of the engine block and dunked it in 190 degree water, and the needle moved up to just barely in the green, so something isn't right with this gauge either.

I've reached out to the gauge seller, so we'll see how that goes.

In the mean time, I decided to adjust the clutch, as the pedal rod seems to be adjusted such that the throw-out bearing is in constant contact with the clutch fingers. While trying to make adjustments to the clutch rod, I realized it just comes out once the pin on the back end of the rod is removed. Cool, I can work on freeing up the adjustment clevis at the bench.

It's a good thing the rod came out easily, as it took a lot of heat and leverage to get the clevis to thread off the rod. While I was at it, I also straightened the rod out (needing lots of heat and leverage there too), as it was bent in several places (straightened out in the photo below). The photo also shows that the small bent end of the rod is not parallel with the main long shaft. I remedied that.

 The below photo shows the clutch rod back in place. I shortened the rod by about 1/2 an inch, which is what it took to get the throw-out bearing some much-needed clearance. I wonder how long the throw-out bearing has been in constant contact with the clutch......

I think the new aluminum radiator is too efficient (not that it's a bad thing), and I don't think there is a thermostat in the engine (but I don't know if they all came with one). I do know these older tractors had a manually operated canvas radiator curtain to keep temperatures up but this one doesn't have one (yet). I've resorted to putting a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator to allow the engine to warm up more. After 15 minutes of driving around with the radiator air flow blocked, the engine block was in the 140-150 degree range and the radiator was 120 degrees, which still isn't great. It should be up at 160-180 degrees. I may have to resort to a thermostat but it's still too early to tell.

On that note, I think I'll end this blog posting here, but I'll leave a photo of exciting things to come...