The goal
My grandpa gave me his Allis-Chalmers Model C. It had been sitting long enough that the engine was seized solid, so nothing else could happen until that was free again.
Getting the engine unseized
The engine wouldn't turn at all when I got it. That was the first job, and it decided whether the rest of the restoration was even worth starting. Until the crank moves you have no idea what else is wrong in there.
The heads
I pulled the cylinder heads and redid them.
Taking the play out of the steering
The steering had a lot of slop in it, which on a tractor this old is usually wear in the linkage rather than any one broken part. The fix was machining replacement pieces on the lathe, in bronze and steel, sized to take up that wear.
Turning parts for something like this is different from making a part from a drawing. There's no print to work from, so the dimensions come off the worn assembly in front of you. You measure what's actually there, work out what it should have been, and cut to that.
