Dropped washer while installing new brakes on CA

I need some advice from someone who has been into the final drive housing of the Bull pinion shaft.

When I installed new brake linings on my '53 CA,  one of the washers on the anchor pins slipped away from me and dropped into the cavity on the right side final drive.  I found out the hard way the when it migrates to a gear, it will lock up the wheel "right now"!

It appears to me that I can remove the casting from the transmission and slide it off the Bull pinion shaft leaving the shaft connected to the transmission.  Once the casting is off, it looks like I could clean out the interior of the housing, find the washer and reinstall it to the transmission without disturbing the connection of the shaft to the transmission.

I should mention that the Lambert clutch evidently is froze up.  The hand clutch lever has been removed by a former owner of the tractor.

What do you fellows that have been in this area of the tractor say?  Am I thinking right or am I overlooking something?  I need to get this tractor back to earning it's keep. 

Dave

The I&T book says if you do that, you need to pull the final off to get the washer out......

Glenn,

Looks like I am going be getting some experience from my bad judgement.

You had the pinion shaft out or the outside cover off to put new brakes in?

I would guess if the bearing is shot that will be your problem with bearing parts caught in the gears.  The shaft could have been bouncing around and knocked the seal out enough for something to get to the gears but I doubt it. Once you get it apart you will see how dropping something down on the bands would not be able to get by the seal normally. If that was the case you would have all kinds of dirt and crap in the final drive gears as well as have final drive oil on the brake bands all of the tiime. 

If your bearing is gone, it is a lot more likely that bearing debris is in your gears rather than the brake washer.

I'm with Dick..my press is one of the most used tools in my shop.

There is a seal between the brake cavity and the final drive and it's impossible for the washer to get in the finals unless the seal is completely gone, very unlikely. Better bet would be a bad bearing in the finals and pieces are getting jammed in the gears. I just rebuilt both sides on my ca and it's not that tough if ya got the tools to do it right. The clutch will get a little spendy though. I just replaced both brake drums on mine cause there was no fixing them. I did learn a lot on here reading old posts on the subject before I tore into it.

Dave

Edited by GregLawlerMinn - 13 Mar 2012 at 8:43am

I bet the washer you dropped is binding between the hand clutch and the housing.

I thought you fellows might like to hear what happened about 3 weeks ago when the wheel first locked up.

I use this little tractor on my 45 acres to bush hog,  haul wood, and drag logs out of my 33 acres of woods.  A year ago,  I had the woods selectively cut and the loggers took out 44 semi loads of logs.  I netted $5000 more than what I paid for the whole 45 acres in 1982 and I still have lots of trees of 16" diameter and some even larger.

Anyway,  my neighbor and I have been cutting firewood to sell and also gleaning what short logs we can use to cut into pallet material on my band mill.  3 weeks or so ago,  I went down into the woods with a trailer behind the CA to pick up some firewood we had cut.  I loaded the trailer about 2/3's full and went to move to the next pile.

 I started to move and suddenly the right wheel locked up and the tractor made a sharp right turn.  I backed up and drove it about 600 feet, decided I could finish loading the trailer and started just into a trail to another spot and the wheel locked up again.  This time even going slow in 2nd gear,  I tunked a tree witht he right front wheel.  I backed up again and went about 10 feet further and suddenly the front end dropped and the wheels were on the left side of the tractor.  OH NO!

Here I am,  in the woods with a tractor that won't move and blocked with a trailer load of wood behind it.  So I went for my old fork lift.  This lift is an old one with 20 inch dual truck tires under the mast,  but the traction is lousy on and wet ground.  Fortunately,  it had been several days since rain and I was able to ease it into the woods on the trail.

First,  I put the forks under the back of the trailer,  looped a chain from the mast over to the front of the trailer under the tongue and back to the mast.  I was able to pick up the whole trailer that way and carry it up the the wood pile that we were stacking.  Half the job done.

Next I went back to the tractor and put my forks under the rear axle and looped the chain under the torque tube just like I did with the trailer.  And I was able to pick up the tractor that way and ease it out of the woods and up to my barn.  There the tractor has sat until the day before I posted my first post and question.

Just thought someone might get a chuckle out of my stupidity.  I have a friend who is a certified welder and last week I took the front end out to his shop and in a couple of hours of welding we had the front end back in good shape with only 2 pieces of 1/2 by 1 by 22 inches added to the round 1! bars that make up the support to the wide front end.

Don't laugh to hard at me now.

Dave

Fred,

I'm not going to tell you my story of tipping my WD over on it's side several years ago.

Dave thank the Lord for that old fork lift!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds like you got really lucky gettiing that brake drum off. When I removed mine it was the dick's way with the press. Hardest part besides that, is getting those snap rings in and out.

Fred,   I love that maintainer.