Cub Valve Tappets

Today I cleaned off the valve access cover and the side of the engine where the cover was. It took me two hours to get that old gasket material off. There was also some squeeze tube gasket material along with the cork. I used a stiff wire brush, sharp pry bar and a dental pick to get it off, then primed and painted the cover. The tappets are adjusted by using two small wrenches. The #1 spark plug is removed and the engine cranked (I have a Ford crank) until compression is felt, then the pointed on the left side of the engine is aligned with the notch on the fly wheel. At first I did not follow that plan exactly and the valves were open at #1 cylinder so I could not get the .013 feeler gauge in place. After a while I figured it out and found most of the tappets were close to where they should be. I tweaked a few. One of the nice things about these old Cubs is the firing order is cast into the engine – 1-3-4-2. The engine is revolved half a turn following the first cylinder. I just followed the firing order and completed the adjustments.

While doing this section of the tractor refurbish, I discovered the engine serial number – in the 60,600 range – and the casting date. The year was coded with a letter. My old Cub engine was manufactured in October 1948. I believe the tractor was assembled in mid January 1949.  

Since I was waiting for paint to dry, I removed the access covers to get to the commutators of both the generator and the starter motor. They look okay to me so I just used compressed air to blow out dirt, then I proceeded to clean up the threads on the small screws and nuts which hold the access covers together. At this point I am waiting for paint to dry on the cover for the starter, and making a new liner for the generator cover. The old one fell apart in my hands.

The new battery is in the refurbished battery box. It is sitting on a piece of 4X4 so I can remove it easily. As soon as I can get to a suitable store I will get some flat tie down material to cut it for a means to remove the battery when it is all the way down in the battery box. This particular battery and another I saw have no lifting handle – so I will make one.

Tractor Boy

Battery Box Reassembly

The paint is dry on the battery box and tool box so I reassembled them to the tractor. The tool box was easy, just one bolt which I greased well. The battery box was almost easy. Since the ground wire from the battery attaches to the side of the battery box, I used a Dremel tool to remove the paint around the bolt holes in the box. A different bit was used to clean and polish the lock washers. One of them fell and is still hiding so a flat washer was drafted to replace it. Dielectric grease was applied to the bolts and washers before putting them through the bottom of the battery box into the tractor. Next the ground cable was removed and cleaned along with its bolt and nut. It will go on once the paint dries which I sprayed where the cable had been after masking the hole itself so a good contact could be made. The ohm meter was attached to the edge of the ground cable bolt hole and then to a bare place on a bolt elsewhere at the rear of the tractor. The reading tells me there is a pretty good ground pathway. Once the paint is dry where the ground cable goes, it will be put on with dielectric grease too and checked for continuity with the ohm meter. There is a wooden piece which goes beneath the battery in the battery box. I brushed it well with a steel brush and then primed it.

 

The negative battery cable goes from the battery, beneath the tractor platform, through a holding clamp at the base of the right side of the instrument panel, and connects to the started switch atop the starter motor. The cable I have is thirteen inches too short to go where it is supposed to so I will try to buy a longer one today along with a good six volt battery. Although I have not yet cleaned the commutator of the starter motor and the generator, I want to find out whether the starter will turn the motor (which I can turn with the hand crank).

 

The Cub still needs the valves checked for adjustment, the distributor needs a once over, spark plug wires may need to be replaced (I have a generic kit for that), and the commutators need cleaning. I bought a well used small fuel tank which needs some sort of fuel shut off. Somewhere in this process I will make a frame to hold the tank which will bolt to the hydraulic lift area. Most of the hydraulic lift and its pipes still need to be cleaned and painted. I think that is about it and the tractor will look good, smell good, and hopefully run well.

 

Tractor Boy

Sand Blasting

 

Today I used my sand blaster for the first time. Yesterday I removed the battery box and broke off two bolts in the process. Since I had some 3/8-16 bolts, I cut off the ends of two and made replacement bolts. Getting the old bolts out was a challenge so I used a 3/8 drill bit to enlarge the holes so The bolts would move freely through the riser blocks and not get stuck again.

 

As soon as I started sand blasting I realized a full face mask was necessary as well as a breathing mask. A NIOSH 95 mask works just fine for this fine sand. The full face mask protected my face, and I placed my glasses at a safe distance so they did not get scratched. The sand blaster works pretty well. Perhaps with aluminum oxide instead of fine sand, the rust would have come off faster. Still, I got it done. I even brushed the rust from the platform and back of the tractor then painted it red.

 

Once the parts were blasted, I wiped off the dust, primed with a rust inhibitor (except inside the battery box where I forgot to do that) and painted with the high quality Tractor Supply rattle can IH Red. One of the pictures shows the lever of the Touch Control. The rest of the Touch Control parts are not going to be sand blasted because I do not want to risk getting fine sand into the orifices and wear the hydraulic parts. I will use a steel brush and maybe a brush on a rotary tool to remove rust then prime and paint.

 

www.TMtractor.com is a great place to do business for Cub parts! The site is well designed with easy movement between sections and lots of good pictures. They even have pictures showing where some parts go on the tractor. The best surprise was the speed with which my order was processed and in the mail on its way to me. You order on line and they send an invoice via email. Once I paid for the products they sent me an email stating payment received AND the package was in the mail. I will definitely buy from them again!

 

Tractor Boy

Sand Blasting pics

 

hot day

I removed both the tool box and the battery box from the Cub today. My air wrench removed the head from two of the four bolts. I actually got them off the tractor and removed one of the broken off bolts. I am soaking the other with penetrating oil before putting it in a vice and seeing whether I can get it off without too much more trouble. They each broke off in a flat steel riser so I could turn that off the tractor body. J

I am getting ready to sand blast for the first time. That could be interesting. I have a breathing mask to wear and will wear leather gloves too. No sense in cutting myself to ribbons with the sand blaster gun. Air compressor is working just fine today. Of course it is hot here in Central Texas so I am perspiring profusely.

 

Tractor Boy

still to come

The Cub:

Nearly done!!!

I could probably reinstall the steering wheel any time now.

Today I bought a set of proper spark plugs ( Champion D-21) and gapped them .024 which is close enough (I have seen anywhere from .023 to .025)

It is time to build a platform for the auxiliary fuel tank I got used today so I can test the Cub without installing the hood. I will make the platform of wood and mount it to the location where the hydraulic system should go. I need a shut off valve for the fuel and a means to attach to the carburetor. Not a difficult task to complete.

The commutator on the starter as well as the generator need cleaning, I am sure.

The valve gap needs to be measured and adjusted if needed.

The points want to be examined. I have replacement points and rotor.

I can buy a six volt battery from Car Quest. It will just fit and is a 650 CCA power house. It means getting a different ground wire and grounding to a different location than inside the battery box although it will just fit in there with the present location of the flat ground wire (inside the battery box).

The battery box is hoping for a sand blasting and new paint inside once I figure out how to remove it from the tractor.

The cable from battery negative to the starter switch needs to be re-routed beneath the platform where I sit. Now it is on top and was placed in the loops which are for the starting crank.

The bottom of the instrument panel seems torn and could stand to be brazed. I may let that go for now since it would mean disconnecting a lot of stuff to get it free of the tractor.

Once it is running, I will clean and install the hydraulic lift, called a Touch Control by IH. The touch control itself needs sand blasting and painting. The rest must be done by hand to prevent any fine sand from entering the hydraulic system which would eventually spell disaster.

 

Tractor Boy

Cub wiring

The wiring harness of the ’49 Cub is now replaced along with two other wires. One of them went from the GEN terminal of the Cutout Relay to the A terminal of the generator, while the other went from the distributor to one side of the coil. The first was too thin, about 20 gauge so I replaced it with ten gauge wire. The second was old and also seemed thin so I replaced it too with a bit thicker wire. When I put on the ends to the wire, I do what I learned from my father which is to solder the connection in addition to crimping it.

 

The wiring diagram in the owner’s manual did not match what was actually on my tractor. It seems the old Cub has a Cutout Relay instead of a Voltage Regulator and all my standard sources displayed the VR. Once again the Farmall Cub Gurus of www.yesterdaystractor.com helped tremendously. The best help was to a site set up by Farmall Bob which had diagrams of the electrical system of old Farmalls. One was exactly what I had in front of me. As I replaced each wire, I cleaned each contact and added a washer wherever there was none, then I used my ohm meter to verify that every wire was making good contact at each end of the circuit.

 

In 1949, at least some Cubs had a four position light switch just like mine. The positions were labeled L H D B which stands for “Low charge”, “High charge”, “Dim” and “Bright”. I have now color coded my diagram to match the color of wires on my wiring harness. It has been a good two days. A bonus was referral to another helpful site www.farmallcub.com which has helpful information in its forum, including a “book” on line with helpful hints. I started reading there and have learned something already.

 

Tractor Boy

Thursday

Today I began the wiring adventure. It is going to be a slow process. I verified the ignition switch is good, using a trusty ohm meter. Since it is good, I will make a knob for it. I have some thick plastic and can cut a piece, turn it on my lathe, drill and tap it for the thread size (once I determine that). I was going to use aluminum but decided plastic was safer; however, I may go back to aluminum as I have plenty of that too. I cleaned the wiring connections for the one pole of the switch using emery paper. Then I verified the next wire was good too so will likely not replace it, just clean the contact surfaces. All this took me a half hour. I am confident that, one wire and contact at a time, this job will be professional when I am done.

Tractor Boy

Cub wheels

The past few days I have been working to remove the steering wheel of the ’49 Cub so I can replace it with a new steering wheel. First, I tried squirting it with Parts Blaster (PB) for a few days, several times a day. Then I tried striking the forward side of the spokes with a brass hammer. Finally I got some washers to protect the center of the steering column and used a two pronged gear puller and still more PB. The wheel is almost off. It is soaking in yet more PB. Later I think I can get it off.

 

The wheels are held on by 7/16X20 wheel bolts. Half of them are corroded near the hex head. If I can buy replacements, I will replace them. The better ones were all refurbished with a proper size die. I also used a tap to clean all ten bolt holes on the wheel hub. The lower set of bolts in the pictures shows the corrosion.

 

I used one of the bolts to provide leverage with a wooden 4X4 so I could remove the center cover and get to the cotter pin and nut holding the bearings in place. By removing the cotter pin I could easily unscrew the hex bolt to clean the inside of the hub as well as the bearings. The bearings, both inside and outside look good. The gap apparent on the inside bearing is the same on both right and left sides of the front wheels so I know it has not lost a roller. I watched how my father repacked wheel bearings by hand and used the same method to repack the bearings. Then I reassembled both hubs with bearings and plenty of grease, cleaned it all with kerosene, and painted with IH red from a rattle can. I am pleased with the work.

 

There is one place left to lubricate. It is the fan hub. The screw circled in the picture is supposed to be a hex head bolt. It will be removed if I can get it out. Then motor oil is inserted through the hole closed by the screw. The engine is rotated using the hand crank 9for my Ford tractors) until the hole is down at the bottom and any excess oil will drain out. I will replace the screw with a proper bolt and lubrication is done for now. Next will be to replace all the wiring.

 

Tractor Boy

Farmall Cub greasing efforts

Today I continued progress on the ’49 Farmall Cub. This morning at six a.m. I was out in my Tractor Building making a new gasket for the right rear wheel pan which I had removed, cleaned, and painted yesterday. This time, learning from the previous attempt, I used sharp scissors to cut out the gasket from the pencil marked material. Again it was glued to the metal using rubber cement. Also, yesterday, I removed the small plugs in the distributor and found that 1/8X27 NPT (fine?) grease zerk was just right. I bought one, greased the two parts, and replaced the plugs.

Before putting 90 weight gear oil in the two rear pans, I lay under the tractor and inserted the grease gun tube into the clutch housing then put several squirts of grease in the zerk located there. I hope I put in enough as I am not sure I saw where it came out. Once that was done I used a big half inch wrench to remove the filler plugs from the wheel areas above the pans. I made a filler funnel using some clear plastic tubing with ½ inch ID (shown in the picture with the filler plugs). Each pan received 1 ¾ pints of gear oil. The right one probably had ¼ that amount in it and it was again black as could be, just like the oil on the left.

It was a good day. I finished by removing the steering wheel nut and soaking the threaded portion with PB. So far it is stuck fast. There is a key that holds the steering wheel in one place on the shaft. A day or two of PB and brass hammer strikes may free the wheel so I can put on the new one. Once I get the old one off I will paint the new one red on the metal parts. Tomorrow is probably a good day to start replacing the electrical wiring. I have a new wiring harness and plenty of other wire, plus I have an ohm meter and confidence I can do this part well.

Tractor Boy

 

pan gasket

Yesterday I bought some rubberized gasket material to make home-made gaskets for the rear wheel pans. I decided to work on one at a time and this is the left side. Rubber cement was used to hold the gasket to the pan, and a sharp knife cut the gasket. As I started to put it back on the tractor there was some old gasket material clinging to the tractor which needed to be scraped off. Everything went on as smoothly as can be while I am lying on my back beneath the tractor and reaching around the gear wheel and the pan itself to insert and tighten the bolts. Ten bolts later, I snugged them a bit at a time to get fairly even compression all around. This pan is ready for gear oil. It will wait until I get the other off and cleaned up.

 

Tractor Boy

Farmall Cub rear wheel pan

Today I decided to start cleaning the rear wheel pan. There are two. I started with the one on the left side. Ten bolts hold the pan to the tractor. It is supposed to be filled with gear oil to a point about an inch above the joint where the pan joins the Cub rear end. It wasn’t that full. The liquid was black just like the gear oil for the steering. This was a dirty, dirty job. After I got it off and dumped, I used a kerosene spray to begin cleaning the pan. Also, I flushed the inside of the area where the pan goes. I have a cleaning tank with some sort of corrosive liquid. The pan was immersed in it and scrubbed. After dipping in water to dilute the cleaner, I wiped it off, scrubbed it with a stiff steel brush, and primed it then painted it red. Somewhere in the process the bolts were cleaned of old dirt and crud.

 

The last picture is the tan colored grease that came from the transmission. Since I have found no other evidence of water in the system, I am concluding the Cub was not dunked or driven through water. I have to wonder though whether the grease was changed since 1949. The gasket fell apart so I will buy some gasket material (it looks like thick paper), A 5/16 inch hole punch to cut the bolt holes, and make my own gaskets. I was successful making a cork gasket for the air cleaner. Earlier this afternoon I added engine oil to the air cleaner cup and put it on the tractor. It has been a good Cub day.

 

Tractor Boy

Farmall Cub greasing

Replacing gear oil and greasing the ’49 Cub ought to be a straight forward task(s). Well it hasn’t been.
The transmission fluid was tan, looking like tan paint. Folks on Yesterday’s Tractor Farmall forum said it meant water had got inside the transmission. I wonder whether this tractor was under water at one time. I bought a Spectricide brand insecticide pump, put kerosene in it, and flushed the transmission, then refilled with 90 weight gear oil. The gear oil looked like and had the consistency of thin honey. Pic 1300 shows the transmission filler plug. A lot easier to reach than the plug for emptying the transmission. Note it has a square head. All of these plugs are square headed. Three and a half pints later, the transmission was back together.

After the transmission, I decided to check the steering gear oil. It was not tan. It was black as could be so I flushed the housing with kerosene again and refilled with ¾ pint of 90 weight gear oil and replaced the filler plug. Pic 1301 shows the easy access to that filler plug. The final place to add gear oil is at the back of the tractor where there are two pans inside the rear wheel area. They seem to be held by ten bolts each. Given how grimy the fluids have been so far, I will remove them and clean out the old stuff before refilling with fresh gear oil. If I am fortunate, I can get to them using an air wrench while lying on my back under the tractor. The inside and end bolts will be easiest to access, of course. If the grease is tan colored, then it will confirm this tractor tried to swim or was used to cultivate a rice paddy.

Next it was time to grease the zerks on the front end and the PTO. All of them were painted over so I scraped the paint off the end and went at it with my grease gun. I used a lever actuated gun. I bought an air operated one from Harbor Freight, but found it wanted to make noise as though it were working, but without sending grease down the tube. I gave up on it except for perhaps using parts; however, today I found the two grease guns are incompatible because one is SAE and the other is metric. I will throw it away unless I can easily remove the parts for steel to make other things. Anyway, I found there was no zerk on the right front. Pic 1297 shows the hole. A few minutes with a 1/4X28 tap refreshed the threads and then I put in a new zerk (pic 1306). It was then I struggled for about 30 minutes to get the grease into that column. The nozzle on the grease gun did not grab the end of the zerk and grease kept sliding by the opening. Plus, it became quite a struggle to hold the nozzle hard against the zerk and operate the pump handle. Once it became obvious I could not swap parts between the two grease guns, I disassembled the nozzle on the old gun, cleaned it out, and reassembled it. Now it worked like it was supposed to. It took quite a few pump actions before old grease began to emerge from the top of the column. That part has been pretty dry for some time. If I do not own a bottoming tap in 1/4X28, then I need to buy one. The normal tapered tap did not refresh the inner-most threads and firm wrench action was needed to get the new zerk in as far as it was supposed to go.

The last place to grease is on the distributor. I need to remove two plugs, fit grease fittings, then add grease and replace the two slotted plugs. They are two different sizes. The larger is 3/8 fine thread (I did not measure the pitch as I was too hot already). Pic 1304 and 1305 show the two grease access plugs. I was able to remove the larger and saw no sign of grease in there.

Yesterday I began putting the refurbished air cleaner back on the Cub. Pic 1299 shows it in place. That air cleaner is not easy to put on. There is little room to operate a wrench. Fortunately I have some fine SEARS stubby ratchet wrenches which make the job possible. I made the gasket seen on the bottom of the air cleaner. Once I am sure the wire that holds the base is working correctly (which is isn’t right now) I will put the requisite amount of engine oil in the bottom of the air cleaner and be good to go.

Tractor Boy

Farmall and 640 Ford

WEATHER!!

Last year we had a very wet Spring. The wind blew the tarp off the 640 Ford in the side yard and I ignored it, forgetting that the air cleaner had been removed for refurbishing. This Summer I removed the carburetor to refurbish it and discovered that water had entered it through the air cleaner air tube. Pic 1277-1282 show the sad condition of the old carburetor from that ’55 Ford tractor. I spent hours cleaning it inside and out. Pic 1283 and 1284 show the carburetor cleaned and ready to reassemble.

 

While waiting for the Ford 640 carburetor to get cleaned in the carb cleaner stuff, I worked on the ’49 Farmall Cub some more. The fuel tank came home cleaned and re-lined, but certainly needed painting. The shop used a torch to heat the metal so the liner goop would adhere better. Pic 1285 shows the hood and integral fuel tank as it came home. Pic 1296 shows the hood after some high quality rattle can paint from Tractor Supply. It looks very much better. I used the less expensive paint on the underside of the hood after using a steel brush and then some primer to prepare the surface. I used the steel brush on the back of the hood where the paint had been burned off.

 

The Cub air cleaner was removed (pic 1286). I cleaned it inside and out using kerosene and brushes, repainted it, made a new gasket from cork, and it is ready to return to the tractor.

 

Pic 1288, 1289, 1292 show the Cub without the hood and ready to be primed and painted. I actually used grey primer because I have a lot of it. I painted with the high quality Tractor Supply IH Red paint.  Pic 1293-1295 show the after paint work. The Cub looks good. It needs new wiring harness, more fluid change, and probably electrical tweaking. It is getting there!

 

Tractor Boy