Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

Well I stopped by a good friend of mines house yesterday with my plugged up booster in hand to see if he had any ideas. And I’ll be darned, he has an ultrasonic cleaner! So I’m leaving it with him to throw in next time he runs parts through it. Finger crossed it works!

Then he walked over to the shelf and dug around for a bit and I’ll be darned again! He pulled out an early motorcraft 2100 carburetor and said take this with you to use in the mean time! He’s thinking it came off of a 352 FE so it might be jetted too big for my 272 I don’t know. Don’t even know at this point if I’ll put it on the truck before he’s done with my parts. Too much going on right now as usual!

It was a rainy day so we spent the afternoon working on a late 1960s Massy Ferguson tractor he picked up that had been sitting for at least 10 years. It had a stuck valve and a very rusty gas tank. We got the valve free and moving and bolted on a temp tank. That thing fired right up and sounded good! Great compression and oil pressure for something that was obviously neglected for a long time. Wish I would have gotten some pictures. What a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon.

The jetting should be close enough. It is more about if it is close to the same CFM of the carb . I don't think there will be enough difference between those two carbs to be a problem . Now if you went from a 2 barrel to a larger 4 barrel with much bigger CFM than the engine can use you will have issues .

Chilly day around here, good time to turn the heat on in the shop and play around with this carburetor.
I went ahead and grabbed a rebuild kit and 2 clear fuel filters. I’m going to put one before the fuel pump and one after. Hopefully that way I can keep an eye on it and keep this from happening again.

I did a quick spray and wipe down on it. The opened it up. It looked pretty crappy on the outside but it’s pretty clean on the inside. Judging a book by the cover I guess! I made sure all the passages were clear and replaced the accelerator pump and power valve along with gaskets and seal and slapped it back together.
I was going to take it out to the truck the. I noticed this huge vacuum leak that’s about to cause an issue! The other carburetor doesn’t appear to have this port and naturally I don’t have a plug around here to fit it so non point in going further today. I’ll have to get a plug then I can stick it in and see if it works!

I’ve had the carburetor on the truck for awhile now but hadn’t run it much. Well last week I hopped in with son to head into town. We made it about 2 miles down the road and it died I was able to start if after a bit and with a lot of chugging along and restarting I got into a friends driveway. I had a half a tank of gas but none of it was getting to the carburetor I used my friends air compressor to blow back in the line from the fuel filter to the tank. I could hear the plug in the line clear. That gave us enough gas flow to get back home. I was a bit upset that Herbie. Rome down but I think son enjoyed the adventure!

We just got home and it quit again.

Today I was able to look at it. The problem is in the tank for sure so I pulled it out of the truck. I had the tank out when I first got the truck going I sealed a leak and cleaned it out then but it has deteriorated since then. I can see inside it has a lot of rust now. And whatever the stuff was the previous owner used to coat it is flaking off.

I’m gonna try and clean it up. I went out to the driveway and got a couple shovels of gravel and put it all in the tank.

I used rope to make a kind of cradle and tip the tank in every direction over and over again. I want to strap it to one of the tractor tires and drive around but the tank is too big for that. There was a lot of junk in there. I guess I don’t wonder what happened to the other carburetor. Here is some of what came out. I got all the rocks out and flushed it with water. The grabbed vinegar from our kitchen and dumped that in. I probably diluted it too much but I’ll dump it tomorrow and see what it looks like. My first thought was maybe I need to stop by a junkyard and see if I can grab another tank. Then It dawned on me that it’s 2025 and they stopped putting the gas tank behind the seat of trucks sometime in the 1970’s. I bet I’ll have a heck of a time finding a good tank out there. We’ll see what happens! On a positive note when the truck was working it was running great!

@JSinMO
Get this stuff
CRC Evapo-Rust® Heavy-Duty Rust Remover, 3.78L follow directions .
and then use this kit
Por-15 Fuel Tank Repair Kit

Good stuff and works great , but it is all about the prep .

If the fuel pickup is part of the tank you will need a long pipe cleaner like used for guns to make sure the tube is clear before the stuff starts to setup .

Well here is a look inside the tank after dumping out the vinegar. I know it looks like crap but it’s much better than before I started. I’m surprised at what the vinegar did. I should have got a picture before I started. You can see where it was sealed before and some of that rusty stuff appears to still be sealed by what ever product the previous owners used.

@DavidBarkey ive heard about but never used the products you listed. This is 20 gallon tank. I thought evaporust was for dunking parts in. Have you used it in a similar circumstance as mine? Looking at the inside of the tank I’m also not sure how a new sealer would do? I know I have to do something to it or it’s just going to rust again. I guess I have some homework to do

JSinMO wrote: ↑Sun May 18, 2025 2:06 pm Well here is a look inside the tank after dumping out the vinegar. I know it looks like crap but it’s much better than before I started. I’m surprised at what the vinegar did.
IMG_5880.jpeg

I should have got a picture before I started. You can see where it was sealed before and some of that rusty stuff appears to still be sealed by what ever product the previous owners used.

@DavidBarkey ive heard about but never used the products you listed. This is 20 gallon tank. I thought evaporust was for dunking parts in. Have you used it in a similar circumstance as mine? Looking at the inside of the tank I’m also not sure how a new sealer would do? I know I have to do something to it or it’s just going to rust again. I guess I have some homework to do

Yes you can use like this . , just takes longer as you won't have enough to fill tank . Pore in a gallon of the stuff and seal off the holes . Let it sit in the bottom for a day , warmer room temp better it works . Then rotate to one for a day . Then the other side , and then the top. repeat if neasasary . As long as there is 1/4 " of liquid it will work , but more will work faster .

Can you see if there is any of the old sealer left in there ? I not sure but it looks like there is . If there is ,you may want to try getting crushed stone ie. sharp edges Granite if possible and set tank up on spit like you would roast a pig on . Pore in couple gallons of cleaning vinegar ( highest acid content you can get ) and let it tumble away . Depending on results you may not need evaporust before sealing the inside of tank .

@DavidBarkey Im taking your advice, can’t think of anyone I’d listen to more than you on something like this.
Hopefully I can get started on it tomorrow.

JSinMO wrote: ↑Wed May 28, 2025 9:02 pm @DavidBarkey Im taking your advice, can’t think of anyone I’d listen to more than you on something like this.

IMG_5895.jpeg

Hopefully I can get started on it tomorrow.

prep is the key to success. follow instruction to a tee .

Well now I can say I’ve maybe learned how to seal a gas tank.

I started with the Evaporust letting each surface soak for at least 24 hours. Looking in the tank it did clean it up quite a bit. The stuff you see in there that looks like loose rust appears to actually be the old sealer that is stuck hard to the surface.
I moved on to the sealer kit and followed the directions as closely as I possibly could. After the each step of the prep work your supposed to dry the tank with a heat gun or hair dryer.
I should add here that the was not happy about it. But no harm was done to her dryer and it was cleaned and safely returned to her possession.
The directions on one of the bottles clearly says the tank should be “bone dry”. Don’t think I’ve seen that in a set of instructions before.

After that was achieved it was time for the sealer.
All surfaces coated and the excess drained. This is not a good picture but it looks pretty good to me. I still had the bucket of rust I got out of the tank when I put the rocks in and rattled them around. Some of the excess I drained leaked into the bucket. It turned the rust solid in a short time. I decided to leave it as an experiment to cure the same amount of time as the tank to see what it does.

So now we wait. Cure time is 4 full days but it might be longer before I actually have time to reinstall the tank. Fingers crossed I did everything right and Herbie can get his original gas tank back.