Here are some before and after pictures from our 1959 Farmall Cub restoration project.

Nothing ads the final touches to a antique tractor restoration project like nice looking emblems. Sometimes replacement emblems are not available or are very expensive. So the one of the few options you have is to make your old emblems look new again. Sometimes this will involve straightening ones that are bent up, having them re-chromed or just a basic clean up and repainting.

With our Farmall Cub restoration, the hood emblems were a little bent up and pitted and the paint in the lettering was either gone or badly faded. I figured the first option was to look for new or reproduction emblems. I searched all my usual places online, parts suppliers, auction sites and found one. It was priced around $60 and in no better shape than the ones that came off the 1959 Farmall Cub so the idea of new emblems was abandoned.

That left the next option, which was straighten the ones we had and make them look new. This wasn’t nearly as hard as originally thought. All it took was a little for thought and patience. First things first. clean up the old emblems and make them straight again. The straightening part was actually quite simple since these emblems were thin aluminum and it didn’t take much more than a little push against a flat surface to restore the original shape.

Once we were working with a clean flat surface we painted the emblems with some aluminum paint (we could have polished the aluminum instead). Now, the problem how to paint the black lettering on these Farmall Cub emblems. I did some research and read numerous articles on how to paint them. This involves a steady hand, a good quality modeling paint brush and some paint. If you don’t have a steady hand like me this can involve quite a mess and lead to a lot of clean up work with messy results. One day just by chance I was watching a television show about how golf clubs were made and I noted how the lettering was done on them. Brilliant, they used nothing more than a syringe filled with paint. Easy to do and mess free. Since we didn’t have a syringe and did have something we could substitute with, we went with the easy way out. Using an empty glue bottle and the needle from a sewing machine oiler we rigged up our painting tool. I would have preferred using a syringe but this worked just as well and does not require a real steady hand or very much clean up.

The process is simple. Make sure you are working in a cool room (around room temp) with un-thinned paint. Fill the syringe or whatever you devise on your own and simply trace the inside of the letters as you fill them with paint. Let the paint flow in and you have a professional looking final result. If you are unsure of your skills on something like this find something to practice on until you have the hang of it. This one is easier than you might think.

As many of you Farmall Cub owners already know the steering shaft support arm bracket is a real weak point. If the tractor has had a lot of use in the past it is more than likely worn badly. I’ve seen replacements on the market that cost anywhere from $30 to $35 plus shipping. This can end up costing almost $40 to replace. With a little thought you can use the old part and restore it back to near perfect condition for almost zero cost. I did not take a before picture so I took a picture of the repair and blacked out the wear area.

A few ideas were tossed around before we came up with this and it works quite well. First we visited a friend of ours that owns the local auto transmission repair shop and he gave us some bushings out of his scrap pile that were a close fit for what we needed. Next the bushing was cut in half and spread to fit the steering shaft.

Now that we had a piece that fit the size of the steering shaft and the wear area it was set inside the support arm bracket. Then a socket that was slightly larger than the diameter of the steering shaft was inserted and it was all held in place by putting a screw into the grease fitting hole. Tighten the screw just tight enough to hold everything and not actually make an indent into the bushing. Now we are left with a void area that needs to be filled. We cleaned up some old wheel weights and buttered everything down with some soldering rosin and used a propane torch to melt the wheel weights (solder can also be used) into the opening until everything was filled. Once everything cooled off, the socket was removed and any excess lead was filed flush with the surface as was the screw head. NOTE: You might want to lube the socket with some vaseline or something similar as it was a bit of work removing it.

Once you have done that, take a small brake hone or something similar and hone the opening to the proper fit. Drill a new hole for the grease fitting. You just saved yourself almost $40 and it took less than an hours work!

If you do not have a small brake hone, you can take a small piece of wooden dowel and cut it partially to insert some emery cloth or sand paper. Attach to a drill and use as a hone. The bearing surface is more durable than the original cast aluminum and should last a very long time with proper lubrication.