Update: July 28- one lost bolt, one gallon of gasoline and metric vs. standards

 
"Well I  hate to tell you this, but there is rust in the gas tank"

THANK GOD I have my Brother in Law.  To him machines are breathing, engines are second nature,  and I would have never thought for two seconds to even look in the tank. 

WHY?

Because I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING. 

Thankfully I had both a Brother in Law and a  book.

"How to Restore Your Farm Tractor: Choosing a tractor and setting up a workshop - Engine, transmission, and PTO rebuilds - Bodywork, painting, and decals and badging".  He said to do... exactly what my brother in law had already told me to.  So you know $14.50 or listen to him. 

Luckily I also had the watchful eye of my Nephew. 
He is ready to roll, but we still needed to clean the tanks.  A few handfuls of nuts & bolts, lots of shaking later, we were able to knock most of the rust clean. 




 It was the cocktail shaker that I never knew I needed and made me very much crave a on the rocks margarita. But alas, the cocktails must wait! 

Trying to bolt it back in, we found out that I own only a metric wrench set.  Who knows why I don't own a standard set and this led to me fumbling one nut... that somehow it was eaten by grass. 
 Like Feed me Seymour but eating nuts and bolts.

One 11 year old and a magnet later, we still never found it. 

After getting it settled we looked at each other...
"Could she be ready for the gasoline and start up?"

Could Mabel Mae finally run?!

We checked the oil, greased the bearings, spent way too long on youtube trying to figure out how to do the oil change.  I do have an owners manual it was of ZERO help. 

So we finally added the gas annnnd....it poured all over the ground! 
Just poured out! 

Just gas going EVERYWHERE

Welp! 
Nope! 

We found several seals and filters that probably needed to be changed 

We also had (What we think) was a stuck spring the bottom of the carburetor. 

To the parts store! 
Thank God I work for a John Deere dealership!