New to me MF 40B, some general questions and PTO addition

[farmgineer]

Hi all,

I have never owned a tractor before (besides a BCS ) and am a small market farmer on the side while my wife and I still work full time. We are off-grid (I built) and charge EVs and power our farm/house/high tunnel and a walk-in cooler I built. We sell veggies, starts, eggs, pickles and have kunekune pigs - all organic. We just bought a 1977 40B for next to nothing. It was running recently but the previous owner bought injection pumps a couple times and had a hard time keeping it running before he moved. I did operate it to load horse manure some years ago, but actually don't recall all the ins and outs of it. It doesn't start now but I bought a full set of manuals (4 books) that are on the way. My brother has diesel and tractor experience (unlike me) so we will deal with that issue when he comes to NM.

I have seen numerous posts on folks wanting to add a PTO to MFs and pretty sure I have instant reverse (still need to get manuals to know just what I bought) and thus would need an over running clutch. The PTO might only be used for mowing a couple acres in tight quarters once or twice a year if we buy an implement.

Below is a link to a photo album. I'm curious if anyone is able to comment on what this tractor has or doesn't have as far as options or modifications or any big warnings etc. The tractor won't see very regular use after getting it running, but would be used to repair diversion berms of sand and soil for our community irrigation ditch (acequia) if it works well enough, turning compost, smoothing driveways, pulling a no-till seeder for pasture, ...

A few things to note - I think a bushing is fully worn out on one steering arm, the bucket digging edge was welded on upside down, the box blade is missing teeth but does have built-in actuation and there are separate lines to control it (where to get shanks?), newish starter, pretty new injector pump, newish fuel tank but may not be right one, for some reason the oil filler neck? was off but I still have it - mounts to front left of block.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tNNQNrezskD95LS37

Thank you.

 

[Dieseltech]

If the tractor has the four speed torque convertor drive transmission I WOULD NOT use it for PTO work. The PTO is TRANSMISSION DRIVEN on that system and the PTO only works when either forward or reverse pedal is pushed down, and PTO will turn BACKWARDS when the reverse is used.

 

[farmgineer]

If the tractor has the four speed torque convertor drive transmission I WOULD NOT use it for PTO work. The PTO is TRANSMISSION DRIVEN on that system and the PTO only works when either forward or reverse pedal is pushed down, and PTO will turn BACKWARDS when the reverse is used.

Thanks for your reply, I have not received the manuals yet nor dived I to this enough yet. How do I know what I have?

 

[Dieseltech]

Thanks for your reply, I have not received the manuals yet nor dived I to this enough yet. How do I know what I have?

The left shift lever will be up for first gear and down for second gear. The right shift lever is up for lo range, center is neutral/start position and fully down is hi range making the tractor having four speeds total while using the forward or reverse pedals.

 

[farmgineer]

The left shift lever will be up for first gear and down for second gear. The right shift lever is up for lo range, center is neutral/start position and fully down is hi range making the tractor having four speeds total while using the forward or reverse pedals.

I have photos of everything in the photo album link if you have not seen, thank you again.

 

[MKinON]

I have photos of everything in the photo album link if you have not seen, thank you again.

You have the torque convertor driven instant reverse, with a 4 speed transmission, 2 speeds each (1 & 2) in Hi or Low. Your loader is a model 34. Perhaps it's possible to power a mower hydraulically from the front mounted pump. Perhaps Diesel Tech or someone else would know. With an instant reverse, it should be at idle when switching directions. Looks like the valve body mounted on the right fender might be supplied by the front mounted loader pump.

 

[farmgineer]

Thank you. @Dieseltech do you have any input on this? Thanks in advance.

 

[Dieseltech]

Thank you. @Dieseltech do you have any input on this? Thanks in advance.

The front pump would not be large enough to run any decent sized mower.

 

[MKinON]

You should address the issue with the front right spindle pretty soon. Looks like at the very least the bushings are toast, but it maybe more. An important thing on those industrials is to make sure the front axle pivot is regularly greased. I think there should be 2 grease nipples in there, one for the pivot and one for the pump drive shaft, at least one is on top, maybe both. Also often forgotten are the grease nipples on the brake cross-shaft under the transmission. Your fender valve bank is supplied by the front mounted pump through the loader power-beyond port. Those Perkins are often hard to get primed after the pump prime is lost.

 

[farmgineer]

Can't get her to fire. We drained all the old gas, cleaned tank, changed fuel filter, cleaned and repaired lines, pulled and totally disassembled injectors, pulled and 90% disassembled injector pump, bled filter and injector pump, still getting no fuel out of pump. Pump has less than 15 hours on it and it ran a year ago. Still getting no fuel out of pump. My brother worked on it for 2.5 days......arg. seems like we have to buy a pump but $800...

He has worked on several similar tractors and got them running. We have the fuel lever pulled for priming and purging and pushed in for starting.

Any suggestions? and also wondering if anyone sells a pump that I can get by Wednesday.

 

[Dieseltech]

Can't get her to fire. We drained all the old gas, cleaned tank, changed fuel filter, cleaned and repaired lines, pulled and totally disassembled injectors, pulled and 90% disassembled injector pump, bled filter and injector pump, still getting no fuel out of pump. Pump has less than 15 hours on it and it ran a year ago. Still getting no fuel out of pump. My brother worked on it for 2.5 days......arg. seems like we have to buy a pump but $800...

He has worked on several similar tractors and got them running. We have the fuel lever pulled for priming and purging and pushed in for starting.

Any suggestions? and also wondering if anyone sells a pump that I can get by Wednesday.

Sounds like the injection pump rotor plungers are stuck. The stop cable is pulled OUT to stop engine and must be IN for both bleeding air out of system and running. The fuel filters MIGHT be installed wrong too if they are NAPA/WIX brand, the filter TOP outer groove is the fuel INLET passage and must NOT be blocked with an extra O ring, I've made lots of service calls to correct that common mistake.

 

[farmgineer]

Sounds like the injection pump rotor plungers are stuck. The stop cable is pulled OUT to stop engine and must be IN for both bleeding air out of system and running. The fuel filters MIGHT be installed wrong too if they are NAPA/WIX brand, the filter TOP outer groove is the fuel INLET passage and must NOT be blocked with an extra O ring, I've made lots of service calls to correct that common mistake.

Thank you for the response. The manual says to have the shut off pulled when purging up to the pump so that air escapes at the pump body instead of going up to the rail I believe. Also there is a casting mark on the pump that says stop and that is with an arrow to the left which is pushing in the knob, which is the opposite of what you said and I have googled. So confused. We have tried both ways. We will pull the filter too but pretty sure it is not blocked but will double check.

 

[farmgineer]

The filter looked good. The plumbing looked wrong on the fuel filter but we are putting back to the way it was in a minute. We have one of the outputs from the pump disconnected and getting zero fuel out

 

[farmgineer]

The filter looked good. The plumbing looked wrong on the fuel filter but we are putting back to the way it was in a minute. We have one of the outputs from the pump disconnected and getting zero fuel out View attachment 106822View attachment 106823View attachment 106824

I did see that in the manual images the right line coming out of the fuel filter is on the back port, even though the arrow made us assume it should be front. My brother was able to take out the plunger on the pump without pulling the pump and indeed it is stuck. Cleaning now and fingers crossed.

 

[Dieseltech]

Thank you for the response. The manual says to have the shut off pulled when purging up to the pump so that air escapes at the pump body instead of going up to the rail I believe. Also there is a casting mark on the pump that says stop and that is with an arrow to the left which is pushing in the knob, which is the opposite of what you said and I have googled. So confused. We have tried both ways. We will pull the filter too but pretty sure it is not blocked but will double ch

I did see that in the manual images the right line coming out of the fuel filter is on the back port, even though the arrow made us assume it should be front. My brother was able to take out the plunger on the pump without pulling the pump and indeed it is stuck. Cleaning now and fingers crossed.

If the inlet pressure valve plunger is stuck then I'll bet the internal ROTOR plungers are stuck too. I have an MF 235 injection pump apart now in for repair for the same trouble, it's COMPLETELY apart and in my cleaner now...

 

[farmgineer]

So we got everything back together and it's still not starting We are finally getting fuel up to the injectors but actually I don't know how much should be coming out. It is just barely coming out and maybe when you crack those you should get quite a bit out if that's the case we have a low flow condition. Do you happen to have a diagram to show where those internal plungers are? I don't think my brother found those or took it apart enough when we had it off to inspect them. The previous owner it seems had some bad gas in there and it screwed up a lot of things that he cleaned but we just keep finding more and more issues. Also just to get everything in, does the pump have to be pulled to get to those internal plungers and clean them?

 

[Dieseltech]

So we got everything back together and it's still not starting We are finally getting fuel up to the injectors but actually I don't know how much should be coming out. It is just barely coming out and maybe when you crack those you should get quite a bit out if that's the case we have a low flow condition. Do you happen to have a diagram to show where those internal plungers are? I don't think my brother found those or took it apart enough when we had it off to inspect them. The previous owner it seems had some bad gas in there and it screwed up a lot of things that he cleaned but we just keep finding more and more issues. Also just to get everything in, does the pump have to be pulled to get to those internal plungers and clean them?

Pump must come apart to get at the rotor plungers. WHO's the wise guy that pried off the pump ID info tag?? That's my favorite PET PEVE when it comes to me repairing pumps...

 

[farmgineer]

Hi, I would to double check that the 40b does have rotor plungers. The drawings I have aren't detailed enough. We saw and cleaned the rotor vanes that cause the pressure (just like a mechanical oil vacuum pump) but didn't see any other plungers. Can you point out where they are or have a diagram ?

 

[Dieseltech]

Hi, I would to double check that the 40b does have rotor plungers. The drawings I have aren't detailed enough. We saw and cleaned the rotor vanes that cause the pressure (just like a mechanical oil vacuum pump) but didn't see any other plungers. Can you point out where they are or have a diagram ?View attachment 106879View attachment 106878

They are not shown in that picture as MF dealers were not authorized to repair that pump. They were to be sent to an authorized CAV pump station. As an OLD MF mechanic the dealer I worked for luckily had a fuel shop close by, and where I worked for awhile later.

 

[farmgineer]

Thanks, where are the internal plungers you refer to? What do they look like?