Hi everybody,

My name is Jay. I've just inherited an old 8N tractor from my Dad. He used this tractor up until last fall when he fell ill. I did get it running good enough to make the 6 mile drive to my house uneventfully.

I am looking to keep the tractor and use it for mowing at the family property, and do some dirt turning for wildlife food plots. As of now, I have an old pull behind mower (not a 3 point hook-up), a disc, and a middle buster.

But the tractor is not without issues. Before driving it to my house we had to get her running. She was getting no fire. So I checked and cleaned the plugs, pulled the dizzy cap & cleaned the point contacts, the terminals on the cap, and rotor. Still no fire. So I checked the voltage to the coil (7 volts there). So I pulled the dizzy cap & manually opened the points while holding the coil wire close to the exh. manifold. It fired. So I opened the gap up on the points a little more, put it all back together, and she busted off and ran! Made me feel pretty good seeing how I'd never turned a wrench on this machine before in my life. I checked the oil (barely any on the stick). We also checked the water (none visible in the radiator). So I filled it with Valvoline 50w oil (what my dad's been using), and we topped it off with some water. And off I went.

Well, about halfway home I looked down and saw my right (brand new white Reebok shoe) was covered in oily liquid. But she was holding good oil pressure, I guess (around 30psi at almost wide open in 4th gear), so I just kept on going. She was also blue smoking pretty good going up inclines (burning some oil) mainly when the governor was working. After getting her home and shutting it down, I opened the radiator to find an oily looking mess in there. So I checked the oil expecting to find milk, but no, just less oil than was there 6 miles earlier.

My Dad had mentioned to me, a while before he passed, that the tractor was gonna need to be rebuilt. He had planned on having me do it. But then he got sick and we didn't worry about it. But it looks like it'll be that time now. And I do plan on doing it myself.

I'm a pretty capable fella when it comes to mechanics (I've rebuilt V-8's and older cars & trucks quite a bit). Just finished the first phase of a frame-off on my '71 Chevy 1/2 ton. You could say I'm fairly mechanically inclined. And from what I can tell, these tractors are about as simple as the internal combustion engine gets. I've even looked around at some of the rebuild kits for the engine, and they seem like their priced pretty good.

The only thing that even remotely concerns me about being able to complete this project is the cylinder sleeves. I'm sure they're pressed in right? At only .090" or so thick, how do you get the old ones out? And the new ones back in? Instinct tells me that putting them in the freezer would make installing them easier...Am I right?


But I'm kinda putting the cart before the horse I guess. First things I'm gonna need advice on are:

What numbers on the tractor will tell me what year model it is?
What size engine?
Any other pertinent info?
Any little tidbits y'all can offer up that'd tell me what I'm dealing with here, or make my life easier while dealing with this project (which I'm sure will be ongoing if it's anything like owning a hotrod)?


I'll take some pics as soon as the weather clears back up, and post them here.

Thanks in advance for any advice y'all can offer. I'm sure I'll be bothering y'all with questions about this thing for some time to come. But I love learning about new things, and old things too.

Jay