1964 Farmall 504 Diesel rebuild
 

Well once again, while plowing snow this winter I blew a head gasket on a tractor. This tractor is used quite a bit around the house and to mow the pasture just up from the house so it will be getting a mechanical overhaul as soon as I clear room in the garage for it.

Plans are to tear down the tractor, send the block and head to a machine shop along with the crank and have them checked. It is going to get a complete rebuild kit, new pistons, sleeves, gaskets, bearings, valves, springs, etc. While I am in it I am going to fix the gaskets that have been leaking in the transmission, replace/rebuilt the clutch and T/A, re-do the brakes that have never worked properly and fix the PTO clutch that has been slipping under heavy load since I got the tractor about 10 years ago.

I also have two different '51 Super C's that will get rebuilt at some point so I am in the process of buying all of the tools that I will need for these projects. The one tool I am debating on is a valve resurfacer/grinder. I have found a few used bench models for the $150/200 range but the in head valve cutters is where I can not seem to find any used ones. New kits that are of quality will run me about $1,000 and knock offs are about $500ish depending on what I go with. That is the hardest pill to swallow in my budget for this rebuild. If I buy all of the tooling new other than a few small tools I will spend $2,000ish just on the tools cutting out over half of my total budget for the rebuild.

I have the full set of manuals for the 504D and plan to get started on the tear down in the next few weeks. My goal is to have the tractor ready to bush hog by the time it is needed in the early spring/summer. I will update this thread as I make progress. I plan to document the rebuild the best that I can without slowing my rebuilding progress too much. It will not be getting a full restoration, just a mechanical and gasket overhaul, it sits outside so I do not want to dump time and money into a great paint job that is just going to go to crap in a few years of sitting in the sun.

Somewhat getting started on this. Made the frame for the tractor to sit on while it is getting torn apart yesterday and began clearing out the bay to work on the 504 in. Need the weather to warm up a little more before moving all of the wife's pots and plants outside for the summer. I spent the entire day taking care of things and never got to take any pictures of my stand. I made it adjustable so that I can use it for both my 504 and the super C's when I get to them in a few years. I already had all of the material that I used laying around and apparently I bought the casters four years ago for this, I sure must have had a premonition, or they were for when the other Super C gave up the ghost and it still has not been worked on.

I have been collecting tools for this rebuild for the last few months. Trying not to buy too many at once to let the wife know that I am spending on tools to rebuild a tractor she does not like anyway.

I have also made the decision to build a room off of my current garage to do this rebuild, I have all of the steel for the frame and the roof and walls, just need to pour a slab and buy some doors. I was going to make it work in the bay we typically store our lawn furniture in but I have a feeling with the third kid on the way in less than two months there is no way this tractor will get rebuilt before he gets here and even less of a chance that it will get done before we have to put furniture away for the winter.

Sounds like you need to start a shop extension thread in addition to this restoration thread.

Congratulations on the third kiddo.

Oh the shop extension will be nothing fancy, definitely not worth a thread.

Well work had a bunch of 2x material they were going to throw out so I snatched it up and plan to start a 20x30x13/14 with a 12x30 lean to open air on one side in the next few weeks. I found out that the local building requirements are under 1k SF no permit needed so that is what I am going to go with.

The goal is to have this building in the dry and power to it by November so that I can start on the 504 rebuild finally. The other day I was looking at a few things on the 504 and found a nice place that is hidden to stash a charger if I decide to turbo it....