saving a 682....

[mlhsierra99]

This 682 was sitting for years in a field with a bunch of other tractors, both garden size and larger. My boss was cleaning, scrapping or selling off most of the bad stuff along with a whole lot of other machinery and scrap metal that had been hoarded over the years. His wife's dad had spent decades 'collecting' and hoarding all of this stuff, but would never sell any of it or get it to a good home. So most of the stuff set uncovered for years. he passed and left it all without doing much of anything with the stuff......
I wasn't interested in most of the tractors, ( I collect wheelhorses) but the 682 really caught my eye. I was worried about maybe picking up something that wasn't any good except for parts, and really didn't want to get into another brand of tractors, especially something I couldn't get going without sinking a bunch of money into it. I worked a cash deal on some wheel weights (IH) and made a verbal deal on the 682 for some work getting a k241 on a portable Lincoln welder going for him, that sounded better to me.....
It took a month or two to finally get it home. I checked it over for any bad wiring and hooked up a battery to see what would happen. All the wiring looked OK, so I thought I'd take a chance and kick it in the guts and see if I hear good things or not.......
Well, I wasn't able to get it running just yet, but there was no funky noises going on in there when turning it over either....
I got to the stage where I think the starter was jamming up and the Bendix needed some work. It turned over by hand fine, very tight though, just used to buying loose motors that will spin over quickly. I put a torque wrench on the PTO end to see how much force it took to spin it with the plugs out and it was about 150-200 in lbs..... seemed high. There was a crap load of mice nest in the blower housing and first of all I wanted to clean out all the crap, maybe pull the heads and check out the cylinders, mess with the starter, and put it back together and hopefully fire it up.......







That's all on the 682 story for this morning, I need to go to work...(it does have a happy ending though)....

[Cubcrazy]

Glad to see you saved it!
Sounds like with a little work you will have it going in no time!

[dag1450]

Well for a happy ending the way i see it there r two options: one being you got so mad at the dumb thing u listed it for sale and someone paid u big money for it ? or YOU GOT IT RUNNING ? Great job. Dave

[Methos]

Great post and pics! Looking forward to how this turns out for you.

[ACecil]

Good luck with your 682! Please keep us updated.

[Sam Mac]

I HATE MICE! Glad you cleaned that out before you cooked the engine.

[mlhsierra99]

i hate mice too!
anyway, on to the 682......
next up i got heads off the engine, bores looked ok and valve seats looked ok, minor play in guides, its probably one of the better condition engines ive pulled down that wasnt running....... because this engine spent so much time in 'storage', sitting in a field, there was rodent nests and crap everywhere inside the air cooling paths of the engine. flywheel and stator covered in junk and this combined with the stuck pto was causing the tightness in engine rotation.
just reinforces the fact that these kohlers, and any air cooled engine, that has sat for some time, really need to at least have the tins pulled and cleaned out prior to running them.....



sorted the rotational problem, was a tight pto. got it off and engine seemed to turn over nice. dismantled the starter and pulled the carb. carb was full of gum and varnish, bad......
soaked it and put it back together. had a hard time finding a basic walbro carb kit, seems the 2575708 has been discontinued and you need to buy the more comprehensive 2575711. $35 for not much more than a float needle, plugs and a few different gaskets. cant just buy a basic kit like on the small kohler carter carbs. i just wanted to get it back together and see if it ran, not wanting to sink money into it until i knew for sure it didn't have a knock. everything i pulled from the engine was in really nice condition internally. this thing didn't look like its had a lot of hours on it....... even the carb except for the crap in the bowl and passages, looked like new inside. the throttle and choke shafts freed up nicely with just a good soaking of pb blaster. i soaked the carb in cleaner and put it back together. at that stage i just needed to check out the fuel pump and ignition and we should be good to go. the starter needs bushings, but for now i just cleaned it out and relubed the bushings to buy me some time....it will get rebuilt at a later date.

gave the rest of the tractor a bit more of a clean and freed up the hydro shift linkage, once the engine is back together it will be time to see if everything works.
if the engine and hydro is good the tractor will get rebuilt and the horses will have to share space with the 682....

right now i have zero $ in it, so not much to loose......

fast forward a couple days.....







getting closer to (hopefully) running. spending 4 to 5 hours a night last week cleaning and fixing all the problem areas on this thing, finally its just about back together. went to the local case ih dealer and got a filter and rear case gasket and drained the hydro before trying to start it. engine is done, just needed to hook up the drive shaft and clean the gas tank out.



changed out the filter and refilled with new case hytran type fluid (farm and fleet version). wanted to make sure all is ok with the trans before dropping near $45 on the genuine fluid......
the old fluid and inside the rear looked really clean, just a little dark streaking in the fluid that was left in the bottom of the carrier, but no moisture and no chocolate milk in there......
found some small amounts of metal like material in the bottom, a small amount about 1/3 the size of a penny in total. just hoping thats not a sign of trouble ahead.



just need to clean the garden out of the gas tank now and some new gas line and a filter and we should be ready to see how it runs, will it run??

well, not quite yet, it seems we now have an ignition problem.....
got engine ready to start, gas was hard to get up to the carb, even with pressurizing the tank. eventually got it up there. i had spark at the points, but it still wouldnt fire. pulled a plug lead and no spark... just couldnt get any at all at the plugs so time to investigate......
sure enough, testing the coil primary and secondary circuits revealed 4.5 ohms on the primary (spec 4 to 5 ohms) and 0 on the secondary. subsequent testing has given me 1 to 2 k ohms, but no where near spec (9.5k to 11.5k). so i sourced a 65-79 (5 ohm primary) harley twin fire coil (for points ignition without magneto). the kohler coil was just a little out of my price range...
while i was waiting for the coil to get here, i went through some more of the electrical, cleaning grounds etc at the dash etc. one area where this thing was really bad was electrical grounds.

also did a compression test just to see where its at after replacing the head gaskets and cleaning things up a bit. left side gave 75 on the first push and 100 on the second and wouldnt budge from that. right side pushed 75 on the first and 105 on the second and that was it. so we have 100 and 105. 5% difference between the two sides.
next i did a wet test as the first was dry, squirted a small amount of oil in each cylinder and spun it over a few times so my compression tester wouldnt end up full of oil. left side up to 110 and right up to 115. i think once we have spark there it should be a runner!
i didnt do a leak down test on it......
and i also picked up a oil filter adapter so i could mount an oil filter on the engine. pn # 52 181 03. it hasnt been installed yet.

so the coil came in and i worked out a quick but secure way of mounting it on the engine. also installed an oil pressure gauge in the hour meter spot to see if it was making any oil pressure when i first started it up...
then it was time to see if this twin was going to run like it should or end up a bunch of parts for me to sell off.....

i wasnt just hoping on the engine being good to go, but the hydro as well.

well im happy to say that it all worked out good. runs like a champ, and drives real nice too. ran it this last friday for a good half hour or so, just to see if the hydro was going to change its drive as it got hotter, but no it seems to be good. took it inside for the night, in the morning, pulled the tins and retorqued the head bolts.
ran and rode it around saturday for a good hour and ran awesome, great driver except for the heavy and loose steering (which is next on my list) then my boy rode it around for another good hour as well.

so it looks like the horses are gonna share space with the 682.....

heres a couple videos from when i got it going.....