TO20 Oil Pan Access Welded On?

[GrayBlue2409]

Newbie here.

I just bought a Ferguson TO20, and discovered that the plate at the bottom of the oil pan for access to the oil filter has been welded on.

After a search of the forum, I've read that a few others have found this.

Is this a common practice? Is there a good reason for the practice?

Is it only necessary to change the oil, but not the filter, for some odd reason?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

 

[marloweg]

main reason is some people are stupid second is the pan got bent and it a easy fix to weld it your only option is find a new pan and cover

 

[marloweg]

Ebay $227.99

 

[marloweg]

this site has them 192.00 also

 

[JustIn Case]

(quoted from post at 15:51:16 07/12/23) this site has them 192.00 also

They can be a booger to get sealed again might be one reason for welding it. BUT, the oil filtration system on many of these old tractors is pretty lame at best. IT IS NOT A FULL FLOW OIL FILTRATION SYSTEM!. It is a bypass or shunt oil filtration system. Only a very small side stream of oil passes through the filter and only then if small bypass hole or orifice is NOT plugged with dirt or carbon. On more than one occasion I have found that hole plugged and other than making one feel better, changing the oil filter would be a waste of time because no oil would flow through it due to the plugged hole. If this is a play or parade tractor you d probably be just as well off without a filter and just change oil. Todays oils are better and the hassle of getting a sub par at best filtration system to "not leak" might be more work than just keeping good modern oil in it and changing it. I have encountered this plugged hole on a TO20, VAC Case and Gehl skid steer with Wisconsin VH4D. Just my 5 cents worth.

 

[GrayBlue2409]

Ok, seems like it would be more hassle than what it's worth.

I'll be doing some light gardening work, and occasional mowing, so it's not a seriously heavy use.

Thanks for the answers!

 

[Ericp351]

These are nice little tractors- way overbuilt and conservative tune. Glad yours survived a true BONE Head/ jerk. Drop your pan and fix or replace, otherwise
the Chinese got an orange one that will most easily fit in your barn.. Not that hard to treat it rite.

 

[Mule Meat]

Calling people stupid shows just how ignorant an individual can be in my eyes.

First and foremost these tractors have been around 70 plus years. LONG BEFORE anyone had even dreamed of a thing called the internet. Unlike now where you can punch a few keys on a device and find or get parts from all over the world. Back then about all anyone had was a dealer or a Sears catalog to get what they needed and then it may have taken a month or more for the part to be delivered if they even could find it. So they did what they had to do in order to get back to work.

In 1975 when I was 14, I worked all summer in hay to get a 1949 TE20 from a man. About a month later I hit a stump with it and and oil went everywhere. The stump hit the cover and broke the tube off. Dad called every dealer he could find and none of them could get the part. Finally one told him to remove the oil filter, install a pipe that would come close but not touch the cover, weld a plate over the hole and weld the cover on. Not really wanting to do that dad found a man that could braze the tube back together. He then found a rubber gasket that fit the cover and back on the oil pan it went. Dad was afraid he would break the tube where it was brazed. So he snugged the cover down until it stopped leaking oil then tack welded it to the pan to keep it from turning when the drain plug was removed. The tractor is still going strong to this day.

People back then and some even to this day will do what it takes to get a job done. And calling people stupid for doing something when you have no clue as to why they did it is not right.

They could have welded the cover on after breaking this connector.

Or the tube that screws into it to hold the cover plate on.

 

[olddavid]

Yeah that happened to my dad's TE-20. I ran it into a stump and bent the oil pan up. It didn't break the pipe though, thankfully. Dad hammered the pan out as best he could and I put it back on and installed the filter and siliconed the plate and seal and it held. After several years of being parked I am trying to get it going again. I took the plate off and will put in a new filter as soon as I get it and hope it will seal again. I used the orange stuff last time but couldn't find it at the auto store so I got the black gasket maker. I opted to do it but does the filter really have to be changed? The 235 engine in Dad's '61 Chevy 1/2 ton pickup didn't even have an oil filter. As my dad used to say "Poor folks have poor ways."

 

[docmirror]

I don't know of any ICE engine with a pressure lubrication that is full flow. AFAIK, every engine is a bypass filtration. This is because a full flow filtering system would destroy the engine it was designed to lubricate in the event of a filter collapse, or filter saturation.

The percent of pressure flow into the filter chamber is a design criteria of the engine builder. For modern cars, I think it averages about 15% when the filter is perfectly clean, and down to below 10% on a dirt saturated filter. The rest of the pressurized oil bypasses the spring and goes into the engine gallery to lube the engine.

A full flow system would need to be at the end of the oil circuit, and that will still by a 'partial' flow system as plenty of oil leaks out the side of the bearings in the various galleries under pressure.

For those choosing to eliminate the filtration process on their oil circuit it would be best to convert from the modern detergent oils which keeps some particulates in suspension to a 'mineral oil' without asheless dispersants. Mineral oils are often found in aviation use where aircraft engines do not have filtration and rely on oil changes to remove harmful particulates and carbon byproducts.

This post was edited by docmirror on 07/18/2023 at 12:23 pm.

 

[JMOR]

 

[olddavid]

Hello JMOR. I'm confused. What is it you are trying to show in this picture? Oil flow, certainly, but I don't believe this is even a TO-20 engine. :?:

 

[JMOR]

(quoted from post at 10:41:46 07/19/23) Hello JMOR. I'm confused. What is it you are trying to show in this picture? Oil flow, certainly, but I don't believe this is even a TO-20 engine. :?:

953 & on Ford tractor engine....sure looks full flow to these eyes.

"I don't know of any ICE engine with a pressure lubrication that is full flow. AFAIK, every engine is a bypass filtration. This is because a full flow filtering system would destroy the engine it was designed to lubricate in the event of a filter collapse, or filter saturation."

 

[olddavid]

(quoted from post at 08:51:00 07/19/23)

(quoted from post at 10:41:46 07/19/23) Hello JMOR. I'm confused. What is it you are trying to show in this picture? Oil flow, certainly, but I don't believe this is even a TO-20 engine. :?:

953 & on Ford tractor engine....sure looks full flow to these eyes.

"I don't know of any ICE engine with a pressure lubrication that is full flow. AFAIK, every engine is a bypass filtration. This is because a full flow filtering system would destroy the engine it was designed to lubricate in the event of a filter collapse, or filter saturation."

I see what you mean but I would think there is probably a bypass somewhere. Perhaps internal to the filter. The TO-20 certainly isn't full flow. It has a small dedicated port for the filter and just filters a small amount at a time. I may be wrong but I think that most modern filters ARE full flow and the bypass is just a fail safe.