A lot of old tractor restoration projects come with a little history. This is one tractor I know almost nothing about. Our neighbor came home with the Farmall Cub for whatever reason and decided it wasn’t going to do what he expected. A little negotiation and we purchased the old tractor from him.
It really did not take a lot of work to at least get this tractor running. Some gas and jumper cables brought it back to life. It was obvious right away that there were problems in the valve train as the engine ran rough, lacked any power and the signature popping sound out of the exhaust.
The only other mechanical problems noted was an internal leak in the hydraulics. Fluid was leaking past the pump into the engine and the lift would eventually bleed down as the fluid went into the engine. Other than that the rest of the needed repairs were fairly obvious from just walking around the tractor. The steering shaft support was badly worn as was the steering box. Also on the steering end, the tie rods were badly bent and the ball sockets were worn. The hood and grille were bent, a small leak in the radiator, the battery box was pretty much non existent and just a few other basic wear items along with some surface rust. With all these items noted it was time to start taking this thing apart and start the restoration process.
Most of the sheet metal came off with ease. The hood was only held on with two bolts due to the damage on the front end of the Farmall Cub. The fenders came off with ease and what was left of the battery box was taken off with an air chisel due to the bolt heads being badly corroded. The first real problem encountered with the tear down of this restoration was removal of the radiator. At the time we were thinking the radiator could be saved or at least re cored. The problem being, the bolt heads that mount the radiator were corroded so badly a socket could not grip them enough for removal. (See how we approached this problem in the tips section of this website.)
The rest of the tear down was uneventful. Everything came apart as it should and was set aside to be rebuilt one piece at a time. I highly recommend using a digital camera to take pictures of everything during disassembly of your antique tractor. They are invaluable later in the restoration process.
First up after the disassembly was the engine. After tear down, the only real problems other than normal wear was the valve train. There was some valve guide wear and a few burned valves. The block was check and the cylinder walls were in perfect condition. The block was sent out to have new valves and guides installed and the engine was re-assembled with all new pistons, rings, bearings and seals, cleaned up, primed and a coat of paint to keep it from rusting. NOTE: removal of the front crankshaft pulley has given some people nightmares. It will come off without breaking it if you use a heavy-duty puller and make sure you pull from as close to center as possible. I did not think to take pictures of this, but you want a puller that can get behind the pulley. If you try to pull from the outer edge, you will break the pulley.
Part 2 coming soon in the meantime you can see some pictures of this tractor during restoration. Click Here To View Gallery
Tags: Farmall Cub, Restoration
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.
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.
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!