Reviving a 1948 Allis Chalmers G

Three out of four ain’t bad, right? This may not be too sports-y but it certainly checks off the boxes for being related to grass, roots, and motors

In November of 2010 my uncle asked if I would be willing to get my 94 year old grandpa’s 1948 Allis Chalmers running. At that point it had been sitting in a barn for several years. Last February I got started on it and did the easy stuff; took it halfway apart and paid people to refurbish the gas tank, radiator, and starter.

Then I got busy with being newly married, running my region’s RallyCross program, and everything else that keeps one from working on a tractor located in a barn 40 minutes away. Days turned to months, and next thing you know, it’s been a year since I really made any progress on it.

That changes now. The goal is to get it running by Easter. For now I'm not concerned at all with how it looks.

The biggest known hurdle left to clear is installing the new electrical harness. The whole electrical system is pretty simple, but it’s all crammed into a sheet metal ‘box’ and the machine screws holding everything together have yet to relinquish their grasp. The next step is to give them some heat from the head of my tire grooving iron and see if that will get them to let go.

With the electrical box re-wired, I just need to reassemble the carburetor (it’s been boiled and cleaned), run the new cables for the battery and starter, put it mostly back together and see if it will fire up.

Your job is to bust my chops if you don’t see any updated progress in this thread.

I have the carb and electrical stuff at my house. Once those are ready, I'll head back over to the barn.

I saw you posted this elsewhere, I will be following as I am a fellow vintage tractor owner.

Always wanted to do this with my son. We have a few small ancient tractors for sale locally. Keep on it man!

What's the advantage to a rear-engined tractor? Wheelies?

In reply to davidjs:

Same as a rear-engine car: weight over the driven wheels.

It had 10 hp in '48 so it needs all the help it can get.

davidjs wrote: What's the advantage to a rear-engined tractor? Wheelies?

Traction, PTO access to the rear, better visability and... wheelies?

How'd you like to slip iff the seat backwards and land on the fan? (I'm sure it's shrouded when all back together)

With the engine in the rear, there was plenty of room in front of the driver for cultivators, mowers or whatever attachments being used. They were designed for use in small gardens or on truck farms, so the compact size was important.

The Allis Chalmers G was pretty much a Garden Tractor. It had very limited uses on small farms. It was made specifically to have implements mounted under the belly of the frame like cultivators and so you could see what was happening right below you.

In reply to stuart in mn:

Dammit you beat me

Done YET! Get to work.

Cool Project.

Very cool project. Dad's got a D10 that he uses all the time for his acre garden.

After you heat the screws, hit them with a shot of Freeze Off immediately and see if that does the trick.

It's the Porsche 911 of the tractor world!

Very cool project, I did some light work on one of these when still in high school, I also did a ton of wheelies.

Tractor pull is a sport, so you're covered.

I finally got the screws to let go

First I tried them all with a screw driver since I had soaked them in generic wd40 yesterday (for about the 5th time). Two of them actually were free at that point.

Then I tried the grooving iron. It wasn't successful at all, even followed up with a shot of 5 year old freeze off.

However, by removing the two screws that did come loose plus two other connections secured by nuts, I was able to move the remaining harness far enough out of the way to use the propane torch without setting the whole harness on fire. The torch followed up with quick blasts of freeze off finally did the trick. Hopefully I didn't heat up anything inside the cutout relay too much.

Tomorrow and Wednesday it should be warm enough to spray bomb the gas tank and radiator.

what engine is that.. the way the fan is mounted/run it almost reminds me of an old saab engine

There's an old tractor on my grandma's farm I wanna restore so bad. I dunno the year but it's a Massey Harris 33. I spent my summers on her dairy farm, so tractors are close to my heart.

I love old tractors.

Now, find me a Minneapolis-Moline UDLX. :)

BoostedBrandon wrote: Now, find me a Minneapolis-Moline UDLX. :)

Not five minutes ago I posted a picture of one in the hotlinks thread.

If I lived in the country where I had room to use one, I'd get me an M-M model U or Z just for fun.

mad_machine wrote: what engine is that.. the way the fan is mounted/run it almost reminds me of an old saab engine

It's a Continental engine.

The first vehicle I ever worked on was a 48' Ford 8N. You have to love the simplicity of those old tractors.

They're an interesting machine, and still quite popular around here. You see them quite frequently in the fields of the truck farmers.

Never owned one, but if I were to find one cheaply, I think it would readily enough end up on my place.

My father in law wants one of those in a bad way. I keep to Farmalls myself

My uncle had one and I always liked it. Looks very insect-ish. I wonder what happened to it since he passed?

I will be following this intensely, as my grandpa has one of those sitting out by his workshop, not quite sure if it's a 1948 model, but it looks as-close-as-makes-no-difference identical to every one that's been linked to thus far!