I recently bought a 1957 Massey Ferguson F-40. I don’t know a lot about it’s history, but it had no spark when I got it. I replaced the battery, points, condenser, rotor, cap, plug wires, plugs, and coil, and changed the oil, oil filter, and fuel filter. It fired right up after I finished all of that, and the engine sounds great. But I haven’t run it much because it has no oil pressure.
I tried attaching a new oil pressure gauge, but still no pressure. I’d really appreciate any advice you can give me. Since it sounds so good when it does run, I wonder if it would be worthwhile to drop the pan, replace the oil pump and the main and rod bearing. July 6, 2014
I would suggest doing a compression test on the engine to see what condition it is in. If that indicates a problem I would suggest doing a complete overhaul including rebuilding the oil pump and turning the crankshaft. If the compressions seems good you can drop the oil pan, pull the oil pump and rebuild it, and replace the main and rod bearings.
Unfortunately not everyone rebuilds the oil pump when they overhaul the tractor and that can cause the oil pressure to be low. The pump is easy to remove once you drop the oil pan. There are aftermarket kits that contain everything you need to rebuild the oil pump, including the pressure control spring. The oil pressure control spring can also be replaced without rebuilding the oil pump once you drop the oil pan. The oil pressure can be increased by placing 1/4″ flat washers between the bottom of the pressure control spring and the cotter pin that holds it in place. It usually takes just 2 or 3 washers to raise the pressure. There is a special spacer available for this purpose but the 1/4″ flat washers work just as well and are much cheaper.
You may want to pull a couple of bearing caps and inspect the bearings if you drop the oil pan. If the crank looks good and they are not badly worn you can probably get by with just replacing them. If the crank shows wear I would consider doing a complete overhaul and grinding the crank. If you pull the rear main cap, remember to install new packing material to seal it.
The packing material is very similar to cotton string. These blocks did not have camshaft bearings originally but as you have learned, the block can be line bored and camshaft bearings installed. The camshaft bearings are usually hard to find but I am going to check out the website noted on the facebook post and order some just to have them.
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