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