'61 Original Refurb Ser. #8213

[tbdavis]

Donald - going with 6" tru powers on the rear of the O and Speedway 4/4.80 tri ribs on the front. Going with tru power 10.5 on my 122. No money for the others right now.

Have a question about the gaskets on the steering units. So expensive for the metal gasket holder and curious if you ever make your own reusing the metal part. Every one I've taken apart has good metal and bad gaskets. The O looks more like regular gasket material whereas the others have more foamy looking stuff. Gotta be something I can use! Also, guy showed me rag joints made from semi mud flaps and looked perfect. Just uses a big hole saw and drills the holes. Have a good one!

 

[kmcconaughey]

Terry, I used a foam gasket that I made out of some 1/8" antistatic closed cell foam packaging material. No need for it to be the antistatic variant it's just what I had on hand. I did that back in 2006 or so. I finished the refurb in 2008. So far the foam gasket has held up well. I did my refurb before Charlie created the "Refurbish & Restorations ONLY!" section. If you do a forum search and use K4K as the keyword you'll find a ton of posts with lots of photos from back in 2008 during the main push of the refurb process. K4K is the name of my Original. I didn't take any photos of the steering column process however. I did post a little info on how I did a Super Steering Box mod though:

CLICK HERE and Look for my Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 02:18 pm post

 

[aaytay]

Terry-
To answer your question yesterday on the egg shapped bearing and retainer from the front of the clutch, YES, they ARE supposed to be that way. The off-center spacing allows them to be "cammed" back into place when you reassemble the tractor.

 

[tbdavis]

Aaytay - thanks for the heads upon the bearing/collar situation. Unfortunately I chucked the collar (kept the bearing) as I wrongly assumed that it was flat wore out! At least the collar is by far the cheaper of the two. I am curious if there's a particular way they go back together - line up the eggs or something? Anyway - I would have bet money it was worn out if for no other reason than the back side of the bearing is round and the front was oblong. Go figure. Rookie move on my part! Thank you very much for lending a hand.

Kraig - gonna try and find some of that closed call stuff. I know I've seen it, just don't having any laying around but shouldn't be too tough to find. The gasket on the O actually looked like regular old 1/16th or so gasket material but like the idea of the packing stuff since it will compress a little bit and form a good seal. At least it seems like it would. Thank you for the tip and gonna spend some quality time this evening checking out K4K.

 

[tbdavis]

Kraig - was looking at foam products on the Internet - interestingly one of the more common uses for closed cell foam is industrial gasketing!!

 

[tbdavis]

Well, just wanted to say that I haven't given up on the Original, just waiting on the engine to come back from being bored, etc so kinda at a stopping point. Did pick up a set of headlights and hopefully getting an original spring assist pretty soon as we'll. I'll post more pics when I have more to yak about.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Terry, do you have a Original spring assist located or are you looking for one?

 

[tbdavis]

Kraig - have one located but nothing firm yet. Have something??

 

[kmcconaughey]

Terry, I have an original spring assist bracket and a reproduction bracket and a couple of reproduction springs. With the fender mounting bracket installed the spring assist brackets don't fit too well and the seat spring has to be moved a bit farther forward than I would like to allow the spring bracket to fit.

The springs are made from truck brake springs. Forum member Mike Masheris came up with the springs and he made the reproduction bracket. He was at one point making an improved bracket that would allow use on Originals with fenders and would better fit the seat spring.

 

[kmcconaughey]

For reference, here's a couple of photos of an original Original Brinly Spring assist setup installed:

 

[kmcconaughey]

Here's a photo of Mike's modified bracket next to a standard bracket.

I may have to take one of my brackets over to my neighbor's 30 ton press and see if I can put a bend in it to make it fit better...

 

[tbdavis]

Kraig - thanks for the photos - really helps. The original setup looks dangerously close to that nice seat and I can understand the modification. Reckon they didn't intend to put them on tractors with fenders? Gonna have to ponder on this. Really want one but not gonna see much use and don't want to tear my seat up. I'm also 6'2" so I need the seat back as far as possible. May try to dig around on the web to see what options I might have insofar as springs and stuff. Thanks again.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Terry, kind of why I asked. The modified bracket solves both problems with the seat clearance and I believe it is welded onto the bottom plate closer to 90° to clear the fender deck. Mike would know. I wasn't kidding with the comment about taking one of my brackets to my neighbor to try his 30 ton press on. It's a fairly short walk across our yards but there's still about a foot of snow to trudge through so I'll be holding off on that. I meant to do it a few years back but kept getting busy and forgot...

 

[tbdavis]

Hey Kraig - was looking at some old posts and came across one you posted about Mikes shims. What did you think of those? I'll probably either go that route or the modified bracket. May touch base with him in the next few days.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Terry, yes, Mike also made some shims that tilted the bracket away from the seat. However, they wont work with the fender pan. As you can see, it's quite tight in there.

 

[tbdavis]

Well crappo. Definitely tight! Guess I'll wait till it's back together and stare at it awhile. Doesn't look too promising at this point. Did track down a set of correct headlights so excited about that. Thanks for you help Kraig - I really appreciate it.