L175 Restore Thread

Ever heard the old addage measure twice cut once? Yeeeeeeeah.....



Oops. I forgot the rather important step of checking if there was room for my temp sensor. So now I've got a large hole where I don't want a large hole.



I think we'll try a plug but if I want to remove the fan pulley without taking the head off we'll have to mill that down to the deck. Without a head and the ability to turn it I'd rather have it welded in place but I don't have the ability to weld aluminum and the heat would probably warp the plate anyway.

Instead I found a product called Alumiweld that is actually a soldering process that seems to hold pretty well. I found some at Harbor Fright for $14.



It melts at only 732°F which is cool enough warping should be limited. The contact area is cleaned thoroughly with brake cleaner and then began heating the plate and plug with a propane torch. Once both were hot enough to melt the rod I layered a bead down around the plug.

Now to get a good hold on the aluminum the oxide layer on the surface must be cleaned off, problem is it will reform instantly in an oxygen environment. Thus once the contact area is submerged under the Alumiweld it can be scrapped clean of oxides. A quick reheat and I scrapped it clean with the tip of coat hanger wire I hammered flat.



Once cool I milled either end of the plug down to the deck. The Alumiweld adheres just fine to brass.

I checked the plate with a straight edge and it had developed a slight warp, only a few thousandths. It would've probably held fine but I decided to machine it flat. Unfortunately something wasn't level and I couldn't get an even surface. I may try again but a new plate is only $40.

Thanks for the advice Robert. I can recall reading the thread back in December but I couldn't find it again. I'll try installing the temp sensor another time. I'll have to try the washing soda on the cooling system, I've got some on hand from the derusting vat.

Well lacking anything better to do with the head being looked at and the steering box rebuild on hold I figured it was time to start the reassembly process. The flywheel, clutch parts (minus the springs), and throw out bearing parts have all been cleaned in my electrolytic rust removal vat. I also threw a coat of high temperature paint on everything but the pressure plate and flywheel.



The first step is to get the rear main seal and it's housing back in place. I stuffed some paper towels in any holes in the holes in the bearing and it's cap to keep gasket material out of the engine. Then using my torch and chisel method scraped the gasket martial off the block and the bearing cap. I used a little bit of grease to tack the gasket to the seal housing and then installed it without bolts on the crankshaft end.

The bolts that hold the housing to the cap are secured by lock tabs that have ears which bend up and keep the bolts from unscrewing. I couldn't get these lock tabs but they're easy enough to make. I wouldn't recommend reusing the originals as you run the risk of metal fatigue (go bend a paper clip back and forth a few times) cracking off an ear and having a bolt unscrew.



I started with some 20ga sheet metal I picked up for change at the local welding supply store. A rectangle is cut out and then, after being hammered flat is clamped to the sheet metal. Then I trace the outline of the lock tab. Graphite pencils don't work on steel, the usual solution is to use a grease pencil or steel chalk but I didn't feel those were accurate enough. Instead I took a piece of coat hanger wire and ground it to a point til it was glowing and then quenched it to harden it. I then scratched the pattern into the sheet metal.



First I center punched the holes, making a nice dent in the metal for the drill bit to grab onto and drilled the holes. Then as much of the metal is possible is cut out using the sheet metal sheers and the remainder was remove with the bench grinder (a cup of water was necessary to keep it cool). Above is the first one I made before it's final grind and it would've worked just fine but I ended up replacing it with another I turned out. I made all 7 (3 for the flywheel) in just under an hour and a half (my right hand refused to speak to me for the rest of the night).

A fellow on another forum pointed out to me that I should be careful of stress cracking on the castle nuts I made. Square edges cause stress in metal to be concentrated, this is why crankshaft journals have fillets and airplane windows are round (look up the de Havilland Comet). The surface finish can also sometimes cause this but a grinding wheel usually leaves a decent enough finish for this. I went ahead and reground my castle nuts with the dremel and kept this in mind when making the lock tabs. These tabs aren't under a lot of stress but it's a little peace of mind. All the corners are gently rounded instead of sharply cut. Again I hadn't made the final grind in the photo above.



A photo of the same lock tab installed along with one of the originals.



Here is the rear main seal housing and starter housing installed with the lock tabs bent down. The starter housing went on after all the bolts had been snugged down on the rear main housing. The lock tabs are bent up slightly before installation. Then the bolts are torqued, bent over with a screw driver, and tapped into final position with a drift and hammer.

There are no torque values in the book for these bolts (or much else for that matter) so I had to use the calibrated wrist. A look up online of the bolt specs (all bolts on this tractor are marked 7 which I assume is about the equivalent of a grade 8.8) suggests 19ft-lbs for the 8mm bolts and 37 for the 10mms. This felt very light to me and I always prefer a little extra torque than too little as torque wrenches aren't a very accurate method of torque a bolt. On my wrench I exceeded these and went up to 25-30 on the 8s and 45 on the 10s.

The goobie is copper anti-seize. I went a little overboard with it here but it makes a nice rust preventative. All the holes in the block had corrosion in them. The bolts without lock tabs were given a dab of red loctite and the heads were then covered in anti-seize.



A little aside; Here are the fuel lines after a trip through the vat. They came out beautifully. After a day in the vat all the paint came off in sheets with a wire brush. I took a strand of copper wire and jammed in between the nut and nozzle to ensure conductivity.



They used to look like this. I figured I'd pull this plate off and run this through the derusting vat. I didn't realize the top of this plate is actually the injection pump casting. Should you remove it be very careful when you do, some of the shims can get stuck to both the block and pump and can get bent when removed. The shims control the timing of the injection which brings me to my next point.



I realized I forgot to mark the orientation of the flywheel and crankshaft when I first took it off. While should go on in any position without wobbling, assuming the bolt pattern line up, for the timing marks on the flywheel to be aligned it must be reinstalled in the original position. Here we see 1 | TC and 1 | FI which stand for cylinder 1 top dead center and fuel injection. The motor rotates counter clockwise viewed from the seat and fuel injection starts about 26° before TDC.



To correctly align the flywheel I first rotated the engine to TDC on the first cylinder. Which stroke it's on doesn't matter in this case but I set it to TDC on the compression stroke out of habit. When the first cylinder is at TDC 1 | TC should be visible in the timing inspection hole visible in the picture above.



Simply align the mark to roughly the 3 o'clock position and hump the flywheel up to the crankshaft. If I had to do this again I'd goto the autoparts store and get a M8x1.25 stud to help with alignment (actually I should've just cut the head off a bolt) but it's doable with just a flywheel bolt and some patience. If they flywheel gets stuck in the wrong position you should be able to wiggle it back off again. Once it's close enough to get a bolt started it should align itself the rest of the way as you thread the bolt in (don't force it if it doesn't want to go!).

Mark is aligned in the window. Looks good to me! I had to trace the makings in MS Paint for them to be visible in the picture. Run three bolts down as evenly as you can to pull the flywheel onto the flange then remove them and install all 6 with the lock tabs.



The book specs the torque to be 40-43ft-lbs so I went up slightly to 45. As before the tabs were bent up slightly before installation, bent up with a screw driver and then finished with a drift and hammer.



Next to reinstall the pressure plate into it's cage the springs must be compressed. The whole assembly is bolted to the flywheel minus the clutch disc and then the castle nuts are threaded in. Be sure the pressure plate is aligned with it's cut outs in the cage as you compress the springs. We'll wait to install the cotter pins til after I get it back together and have adjusted it.

Next the pressure plate is unbolted and thoroughly cleaned along with the flywheel surface. Use brake clean or acetone (brake clean is mostly acetone) for the final cleaning, this removes any skin oils and the like. Remove your clutch disc from it's package and carefully reinstalled on the flywheel with the pressure plate. Just lightly secure the pressure plate so the clutch disc can still move around a bit. We now need to center the center the clutch disc before the pressure plate is tightened otherwise it will be impossible to get it back together.



Get the two halves aligned close enough to get the input shaft into the clutch and then side it together as far as it will go. At this point you'll probably have something that looks like this. The gap at the top is smaller than at the bottom meaning both halves must be raised til this gap is roughly equal. The engine may also swing on the front axle's center pivot if you slung your pickup rigging like I did. As long as the horizontal axis is close the rest of the alignment can be done by hand. Adjust the vertical and rotational alignment as necessary and get four bolts started in opposite corners and run them down equally until the halves are mated.



The pressure plate bolts must now be tightened up some to keep the clutch from moving now that it's aligned. This can be done through the steering box hole or the clutch adjustment hole. As you can see I opted to do this without the throwout bearing installed. I wanted to be able to put the final torque on it without constantly rotating the engine and I was missing Woodruff key for the throwout arm. I was able to rotate the engine with my hands using the spring cups but if the head is still on this may be a bit tougher.

You oughta be able to rotate it by pulling the compression release (not necessary with the glow plugs out) and then bracing a screw driver between the spring cups on the pressure plate or by using a nut on one of pulleys up front.



I pulled the tractor back apart, and two at a time pulled out the pressure plate bolts and gave them a dab of red loctite and ran them down to 30-35ft-lbs. Up here is my arbor press (that is missing all of its dies) that I used to install the new throw out bearing.



The complete throw out assembly installed along with the last minute addition of some paint.



Tada!!! It's in one piece again! Other than what you saw me make I reused all the original hardware with the exception of the lock washers.

Before I called it a night there was one thing I wanted to do: see if the clutch actually worked properly. I just set up the clutch lever on it's shaft without any cotter pins to see if it worked properly. I made a little video of it to see how bad the videos on this little camera were. It actually came out ok other than the mic being on the wrong side and the camera being a bit shaky.



Finally tonight is a little idea I had while getting the Woodruff key at the hardware store. By the way if you lose the one in the clutch throwout shaft a 5/16x3/4 key works just fine. I'd noticed the big rubber bushing at the top of the steering column had worn on the bottom. A 2-1/2 foot shaft only supported by two bearing not 6 inches apart on one end is going to flex a bit. A solidly mounted bushing at the top of the steering tube would be ideal but I don't have a chunk of aluminum that big and it looks like a lot of work so I found a 1x3/4in (this may not work for your steering shafts) bronze bushing for $4. The inside of the rubber bushing is 7/8ths except for a tiny little strip at the top which is 3/4 to match my shaft. Why they didn't run it 3/4 all the way up I don't know but I simply turned the outside of the bushing down to .895 and stuck it in the rubber bushing. It should take the load off of the little strip of rubber and keep it from wearing out as quickly. A little super glue is used to keep it in place. I'll check it from time to time to make sure it hasn't dropped down into the tube but when it's compressed in the tube it should be fine.

That's all for tonight. I'll be reassembling the hydraulics, steering, and foot gear while I wait to hear what's going on with the head. I had a guy at an autoparts store tell me to bring it in after New Years and when I got in he basically told me he didn't want anything to do with it and shoed me out the door. Some people. Anyway decided to make the trek to the dealer to show them both the head and the problem I'm having with my steering bearings. They said that much coking was likely either the valve guides or the rings and said if I left the head with them they'd pull the valves and check the guides with their gauges and let me know.

Things have been busy, school has started again and I'm still waiting for the head to get finished. About the head. The dealer pulled the valves and two of the valve guides out..... by hand. The motor was definitely over-heated at some point and everything heated up to the point the valves were able to rattle them in their holes. This wore out the guides, valves and the guide holes in the head. The intakes seem to be fine but the exhausts are toast. Now the dealer tried to tell me all the valves/springs/guide had be replaced...... for $650. I asked what just the guides, two exhaust valves and a lap job would run they replied $450. I went and retrieved the head. After some more searching I found an engine shop and took it over there for an estimate. While waiting for the owner to come give an official estimate I talked it over with one of the machinists and he said he could replace the two bad guides in about 20 minutes. Ream the holes out and turn some new guides. He said one of the exhaust valves was too far gone but the other was probably saveable. The best part? $250. Support your small local shops.



Anyway I've been working but I can't stay up for another few hours writing these anymore so I've had to work time in when I could. I threw the starter back in and gave it a spin just to make sure it worked. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to turn over. After some multimeter time I decided the problem was with the trigger wiring running between the starter switch and the solenoid. Then after cutting off the remains of the old wire loom I discovered my problem. I'd forgotten I'd disconnected the clutch safety switch. Tonight's gonna be a good night. Since the switch itself was flaky I decided just to remove it and couple the connectors. Cranks like a charm even with 2 almost worn out brushes.

I'd noticed earlier the motor had a bunch of oil down it's front and I'd been pretending it was coming from the head gasket. While fiddling with the starter wiring I'd noticed a bunch of blue RTV near the alternator between the block and timing gear cover. After a little probing I discovered the problem.



That's a .010 feeler gauge and I can slide it all the way up that curve. Sigh, I'm starting to wish I'd looked at this thing closer before I bought it. I was looking for a fixer upper but every time I look at something on this thing I find more broken stuff. What the hell let's fix it I'm only a few gaskets away from replacing every single one on the engine. I'm ordering the oil pan gasket tonight as well.



Off comes the radiator and the wiring to the front is moved out of the way. Then the front is jacked up and a jack stand is placed just forward of the starter housing. With the front axle is supported by the jack the bolts removed. Some interesting things came out of them. A few had corrosion, a few were covered it oil and somehow there was a wasp nest behind one. I lowered the jack to break the front casting loose and then used a screw driver to pry it off it's pins.



Yummy looking stuff eh? It's mostly decayed grass covered in oil. Now you'll notice that the nut is freaking huge and that spline shaft prevents me using a regular depth socket. It's a 46mm nut which comes out to 1.811in. Since 1-13/16 is 1.8125 that will work just fine too. I couldn't find a deep socket in either size locally so I decided just to make a wrench.



By the way can anyone tell me what this little valve is? It's corroded shut and I want to take it off for cleaning/replacement. I can't tell if it runs into an oil passage or coolant passage but it's purpose eludes me.



A quick run up to the local iron supply shop and for $6 I walked out with a piece of 3/8ths plate. This is a rough drawing of what I want to end up with. The tool I'm making is called a crowfoot wrench with the modification of a closed end for rigidity since this is just mild steel. They normally have a square hole to fit a socket wrench but lacking the ability to make one I decided just to weld a nut on. I'd like to have about a 1/2in between features for strength but the only dimension that's really important is slot dimensions. The slot needed to be just over 2.125 inches long to clear the edges of the nut. I started by laying out some lines to cut by scratching them into the surface of the steel and then outlined them with steel chalk. I'm not very good with an acetylene torch so I left a 1/4in of clearance around the inside cutout.



I started by hitting it with a rather dull 3/4in roughing mill within about .050 of the final dimensions. I then swapped to a new 1/4in end mill since it was the only sharp mill I had. Since this was just mild steel and I'm only getting contact on two edges instead of all six I opted for a press fit rather than the slightly loose fit of most wrenches and sockets.



Remeasuring I decided under the paint the actual dimension of the nut was 1.806in. I cut the slot to 1.804 and pulled it off the mill. Unfortunately I was having problems with my TIG welder (which I just figured out was probably air in the lines) and was unable to get any penetration. Lacking another nut of appropriate size I had to cut a bolt down to use the head.



That welded up just fine with the old Lincoln Tombstone. I really need to buy an auto darkening helmet one of these days. Bend up the tab and a few taps with the hammer and the wrench was on the nut good and tight. Using my favorite tool (my brother) to hold the engine with a screw driver in the flywheel teeth I put the lean on the breaker bar and nothing happened. Too much torque, hummmm.



Hammer in hand and annoyed expression on my face I beat on the end of my makeshift wrench til it came off. It actually wasn't on there all that hard, probably wasn't any tighter than 100ft-lbs or so but the breakaway torque was probably 150ft-lbs plus I had a long extension on the breaker bar. I probably should have hardened the tool edges but I had a tight enough fit to get away with it.

I put the puller on the pulley but it wasn't on there very hard. What was in there was that stupid key. I had to nearly destroy the thing to get it free. It's a tight fit in it's slot unlike a woodruff key that you can get a screw driver under. I eventually took a chisel to the edge along the crankshaft axis and then pried it up.



Next I removed the oil filter block and the two springs from the governor and then took out all the bolts from the cover. Unfortunately the cover was glued on there pretty good thanks to corrosion on the internal water neck as I later discovered. It took 20 minutes of gentle prying and tapping on the fan bearing mount to get the cover loose enough to get a screw driver between the cover and block.



Here is all the sludge built up where air was getting pulled into the case and mixing with the oil.



Scarping gasket on steel is pretty painless. You can be pretty rough and not even scratch the block. My preferred tool is a mildly sharp wood chisel. A liberal application of paper towels keeps the majority of the debris out of the gears. They'll be cleaned anyway later but the less crap you get in here now the better. I also took the opportunity to clean out all the threads. There is no substitute here for a tap. I found a 1/4 drive extension chucked in a drill fit my 8x1.25mm tap nicely and makes running it down to the damaged section much less painful than with the t-handle. Flush it out with a little brake clean and the air hose and it's ready for antiseize on when it gets reassembled. At the same time I also cleaned the corrosion off the inner water passage neck and lower radiator hose with Scotch Brite.




And here is the missing chunk of gasket. The case isn't so easy to clean. It's aluminum and it's thin so the chisel can be easily be pushed off flat and scrape a huge chunk of aluminum off. My torch trick wasn't working as well as it had previously so I decided to give some gasket remover a try. It didn't work great but it did soften the upper .010 of gasket enough to scrape easily. Three applications later and it was clean. There are four orings that need to be replaced here. There are three that seal passages running from the oil filter (upper left) and one on the internal neck. All are fairly cheap from the dealer and considering the difficulty of access and odd ball sizes (as well as the problems if they fail) I opted not to try and cross reference to imperial sizes.



Finally I put the peddles and running boards back on after giving them a coat of hardware store blue paint. For whatever reason adhesion is great on the running boards and the paint comes right off the peddles despite identical procedure. It'll get a new coat of paint in the correct blue some other time anyway, this was mostly to keep the rust away after going through the vat. Antisieze grease was used on all the bolts, adjusters and joints in the brake and clutch linkage. New cotter pins and new springs all around.

I took a trip down to Summit Racing the other night to order some fittings, an oil pressure gauge, and some parts to build myself a nice vertical exhaust. The muffler and clapper oughta be here shortly and as soon as I get the head and hood back on I can start fitting it together. Til next time.

For painted parts I've been taking it right out of the tank and giving it a quick pass with a steel wire wheel on a grinder. Any paint that's loose enough to be a problem comes right off and anything still on there good stays put. For clean parts I've been scrubbing them under the faucet and then letting them air dry. It leaves behind a very slight sheen of surface rust which I passivate with some naval jelly. Yeah this is definitely the way to go though. Even though I'm finishing it with the wire wheel I'm not doing any rust removal with it and even the largest parts only take a few minutes to finish.

Thanks Bluegill, it's more the tools than the skills in my case. I've got nothing on some real backyard machinists and mechanics! Some of the real deal build scale steam locomotives from scratch in their garages with nothing but a knee mill and a good lathe.

I'd been wondering about a ROPS especially since we've got a rather hilly driveway and yard but it's not in the budget at the moment. Perhaps later in the year, I'll just be careful for now.

The cylinder bores are spotless (no vertical scrapes) and there is no discernible ridge at the top of the cylinders. I suppose it wouldn't be that much more work to pop the pistons out but there are no signs of problems with the rings. I wish I had an internal micrometer to measure the liners but with only 900 hours on it and clean bores I'm willing to take the risk.

Like all machines this one has quirks and design issues that need to be addressed by the operator. From the wear on the gears and from what I knew about the steering box going in I guessed the tractor probably had had an unknowledgable or uncaring owner\operator. There was no way of telling if there were further problems without some disassembly. The engine seemed to run well and the price and location was all I could ask for so I went for it. If I knew everything I do now I'd have talked him down some more but I'd still have gone for it. I was looking for a project and while it didn't exactly turn out like I'd planned I'm still glad I went for it despite already having around $2500 (including the head work, 5' back blade, and purchase price) in it. It'll probably top out around $2700 once I refill the transmission and replace anything else that's disappeared since disassembly. You're right though gurn, if I hadn't come along whoever ended up buying that thing would probably have ended up parting it out or scrapping it.

Yeah I agree it may be a bit big. It's actually just a scrape blade like this. They really don't make them any smaller though in Cat I implements. Besides it's only going to be moving snow and regrading the gravel driveway up to the barn. It oughta be alright.

Yeah school has me real busy at the moment. The little time I've been able to put into it hasn't been stuff worth taking pictures of, mostly scraping gaskets (did I ever mention I hate doing that?) and cleaning threads. That timing cover is a pain and a half to clean. I managed to get the timing cover, pulley, and front axle back on it over the weekend though. I also yanked the oil pan to install a new gasket (may as well) and that's sitting in the electrolysis vat right now. I'll try and have another post done tonight or tomorrow night.

And here we go again. Like I said progress has been slow, I've had very little time to work on it except on weekends. I have managed to get it back on four wheels but that's about it.



I removed the tappets from their bores and then stuffed every hole in the head with paper towels. All the threads were then chased with a tap, sprayed with brake clean, and then blown out with the airgun. I then cleaned any remaining gasket off the deck.



Here you can see the different wear patterns on the tappets. They are designed to rotate while running to even our the wear. There are a few different methods used but usually the tappet is ground very slightly off flat, usually no more than .003in. Visible on the far left tappet you can see it hasn't moved lately. I should replace that tappet but we'll see if I get around to grabbing a new one before the head goes on.

When I went to reinstall the tappets I realized they'd gotten jumbled and I wasn't positive where each one had come from. They all got a coat of assembly lube in case they need to wear in on a different cam lobe. The purpose of the assembly lube is both to provide extra lubrication during wear in and to keep them lubed until the oil pump can fill the empty oiling system in a new or rebuilt engine. It (should) dissolve in the oil after about 10-20 minutes of running.

After cleaning all of the gasket surfaces on the gear case (all those studs on the water passage cover are fun) with a combination of heat, gasket softener and the chisel I hosed everything off to remove as much of the debris as possible. Brake clean was used to remove the rest of the particles. A new front oil seal was tapped in and the orings placed in they're grooves. The orings seemed to be too large in OD but fit in the grooves with a little persuasion.



The internal water neck oring is slid on the neck before installation. The mating surface on the cover was ok but the neck itself was covered in rust craters. I used some RTV (copper high temp because it was what I had) to seal the oring.



Then after cleaning the gears and surface of dust with brake clean I installed the gasket. Before installing the cover I applied assembly lube to all parts of the gears. They're not going to get oil for a while and the brake clean removed any oil remaining on the gears. I could have just dumped oil on them but that would have made a mess and probably soaked the gasket. All the bolt holes have already been clean by passing a tap down them, spraying in some brake clean, and then blowing it out with the airgun. A little antiseize is packed into the thread holes, the surface wiped and the gasket applied.



On goes the cover as evenly as I can get it. Bolts were torqued with German Torque (gutten tight!). That was one of my dad's.



The new key is tapped into the crankshaft and the pulley installed followed by the lock washer and nut. I then got my brother to come back up and hold a screw driver in the starter teeth again while I hammered on my home made wrench. Again I'm not sure of the torque value but I hammered on it til it felt right. It occurs to me as I'm writing this that I forgot to bend over a corner of the lock washer so I'll have to do that next time I'm up there.



I got an oil pan gasket since it was the only engine seal I hadn't replaced and I figured what the hell. This gasket came off of both surfaces fairly easily. Here you can see the bottom end. Everything looks good, no signs of a spun bearing and no sludge. You can see the dip stick sticking down, the oil level seems to be about a 1/2in beneath the perigee of the big end caps and counterweights.



The oil pan fared almost as well. No appreciable sludge but there was a little rust on the pan so I threw it in the electrolysis vat and a day later cleaned it off and gave it a coat of paint. I'm still not sure why the paint didn't take to the peddles, everything else I've painted with that stuff is holding great.



After blasting out that pile of oil sludge and decomposed grass clipping with hose I cleaned the mating surface, hit it and the threads with antisieze grease and positioned it on the jack for reinstallation. It took some finagling to get it back on the pins since the casting kept wanting to rotate on the axle pivot. The very last bolt I tightened wouldn't fully torque. Felt like it's begun to strip. No good deed goes unpunished. I'll decide how to deal with it later, for now it's enough that the tractor rolls.



Finally I had a little time to chuck my steering shaft in the lathe and play with it a bit. I don't know what they made this thing out of but it turns like crap even with the procedure that usually works on mild steel. I turned .025 off 6 inches at a time moving the shaft farther in the head stock and holding the far end with a live center in the tail stock. The rest of the shaft looked like the left section there until I attacked it with a file. Not very precise but it doesn't need to be. I did spend a little extra time smoothing out the top of the shaft where it goes into the rubber bushing and my bronze bushing. To the right there is a section that refused to turn. It's part of the area that was heat treated to prevent the bearing from wearing out the shaft. It's so hard it was eating the grinding bit in the dremel without having a noticeable effect on the shaft. I eventually ended up using a big handheld power grinder while it was spun in the lathe to do the job. We'll see if the seal still fits tightly, doesn't much matter to me. It'll be stored inside anyway.

Til next time.