JD. 4400 is over there but the part to be Repaired is over Here!!

[Riverlandrobo]

JD.4400 intermediate case that couples the bell housing and the Rear end is in my shop and the Rear end is tilting back on the drawbar 30 miles away...the bearing on the rear end that holds the shaft for the front wheel drive failed....in the intermediate case the shaft is held inside of a cast iron bridge which houses a needle bearing...this bridge is now egg shaped and 4 times bigger due to the rear bearing going bad....the rear bearing sits on a perch that sits about 2 inches farther out than the casting...problem is how do you transfer the center of that bearing to the intermediate housing 30 miles away to do the repair??....I will try to explain as best as I can...I first took a stiff wrapping paper and taped it to the mating side that couples to the rear end.....here is where you have to work like a heart surgeon.....with a small ball pein hammer tap all around the casting....there were extensions that stuck out that acted like dowel pins and measured .625...make these cut outside very accurately with an exacto knife as your accuracy will depend on it!! Theres one at the 1 o clock position and another at the 6 o clock position I believe....once you have the template cut out transfer it to a 1/4 sheet of polycarbonate stock....locate and drill all the holes after cutting the sheet to size on a jig saw or thin bladed band saw...pick up the centers of the dowel cutouts using a wiggler and center drill, then drill in steps to just under .625 then Ream these 2 holes to size.....now how do you duplicate the bearing standoff and transfer the center of the bearing on the rear end to the intermediate casting 30 miles away?? I marked the approximate location and went slightly larger....then made stand offs using 1/2 all thread rods with washers and nuts in 4 corners to hold another polycarbonate plate to the distance the perch on the rear end was approx. 2 inches....now how do you transfer the center of the bearing to the polycarbonate plate?? I made 2 plugs to tightly fit the .625 dowel holes to fit an attachment I made to hold my 24 inch digital caliper. Made a tight fitting center to fit the bearing on the rear end....put my caliper with the plug at the 1 o'clock position and adjusted the caliper by eye looking at different positions then lock the beam using the thumb screw.....carefully withdraw the plug from the casting and insert it into the 1 o'clock hole on your polycarbonate reamed hole, carefully swipe an arc onto the poly. Perch with the centering point....do the same procedure at the 6 o'clock dowel location this will give you the center as X Mark's the spot!! Now take the polycarbonate plate to the Bridgeport, locate center with wiggler pointed tip, center drill, drill to just under 1 inch and ream both holes to 1 inch...install 1 inch to 3/4 inch flanged bushings to hold a 3/4 drill rod pointed at one end...I had to slip the non pointed end thru the flanged bushings first and put a wrap of electrical tape on that end as the far end of the intermediate case has a slightly larger metric bearing the drill rod had to fit into......slide your polycarbonate plate over the dowel pins put a couple of bolts in to hold it to the housing....slide your drill rod into the bearing against the angle plate and pick up center with a co-axial indicator...points in the pics are for show....LOL.....I machined off the cast iron bridge inside the casting to make a flat perch to hold a 4140 bar stock...used a porta power cylinder piece of pine to hold temporary bridge in place so casting could be stood up and drilled and tapped to hold the new bridge....had to use an endmill to make flat bottomed pockets on the outside of the casting for the socket headed cap screws to seat up on and center drill for tapping.....picked up center and bored the new bridge to accept an oillite bronze bushing instead of the original Wimpy Needle bearing....this bushing has more contact area than the needle bearing....we had to slightly flap wheel the bushing to get everything slid together....owner is one Happy camper....one word of advice....I picked up the new bearing that holds the front drive shaft at the rear and the owner said that's new right out of the box..I spun it on my finger and it was rough feeling like it had sand in it....asked him if he wanted to do this all over again in a year or so....he said Hell no!!! Told him to take that RUSSIAN bearing back and go to motion industries aka. Wisconsin bearing and buy a timkin...no kidding take the Russian bearing spin it on your index finger in the bore and maybe 8 to ten seconds of rotation....timkin 25 to 30 seconds...no Comparison!!!!

 

[C-Bag]

I love seeing the creative way you repair this farm equipment. I spent 2yrs on a rice ranch in the Central Valley early on working on farm equipment and all I had was stone knives and bear claws to work with. Having the combo of brains and the right equipment you can do almost anything. 20yrs later I worked in a fruit packing house and had expanded my knowledge but had little better equipment but accomplished a lot. I hope these farmers appreciate what you do because the guys I worked for didn’t. Having the right equipment, even a shop to work in, was seen somehow as cheating.

 

[Riverlandrobo]

I love seeing the creative way you repair this farm equipment. I spent 2yrs on a rice ranch in the Central Valley early on working on farm equipment and all I had was stone knives and bear claws to work with. Having the combo of brains and the right equipment you can do almost anything. 20yrs later I worked in a fruit packing house and had expanded my knowledge but had little better equipment but accomplished a lot. I hope these farmers appreciate what you do because the guys I worked for didn’t. Having the right equipment, even a shop to work in, was seen somehow as cheating.

First off you have to do the best with what you have on hand, and you can hold your head up high because you got Er done....I have used a 4 inch grinder in the field on a combine, the end of the shaft was worn bad and the pulley wouldnt fit, 5 days to a week to get a new shaft...the farmer had another pulley same belt size but smaller bore....the shaft was spun by an inboard belt....marking the distance I had to go in on the shaft first with a score mark, I carefully took off .100 in to that mark off of the OD. With the grinder...finished the last .025 with a file and Emery cloth with the shaft driven by the engine.....shut the machine down and marked out the keyway and used a cape chisel to cut the majority of the keyway but to finesse the bottom sharpened a 1/2 piece of square HSS. And kept driving it in. When nearing the shoulder the chip would bunch up and I took it out with a die grinder and pointed carbide....the farmer couldn't believe what I had done in the field...he called me the mobil machine Shop...took me around 4 hours to do that .....the guys that impress me are the guys in caves in the middle east and in the Philippines who have nothing more than hammers, chisels and Files....they are putting out weapons of Unbelievable Quality!!! There was a Thompson submachine gun that they made next to a manufactured one and the only way you could tell the difference was the bolt charging slot was slightly crooked on the cave made one.....Unreal what they can do......personally I am thankful of the machine tools I've got.....but if I had to give me a well lit cave, a good vise with Soft Jaws and a hammer, sharp chisels and sharp files and I'll get Er done too

 

[C-Bag]

My grandfather was a IH mechanic for 40yrs. There's a reason they call them corn binders. And he started as their field mech and when he go promoted to lead in the shop he threatened to quit if they didn't give him the field position again. He specialized in cotton pickers and crawlers and fixed whatever it needed in the field. It was no big deal to him to put a set of clutches or rebuild a transmission in the field. Out on the West Side of the valley is all clay and alkali. Nasty stuff, suck the boots right off your feet. And the machines were always stuck and that's why they broke. He was particularly suited for the work being apprenticed as a blacksmith in Oklahoma before coming out during the Dust Bowl. Tough as nails and grateful for any kind of work no matter what it was. He was the hardest working man I ever saw. After he retired I used to maintain his old IH service truck and his Buick and I heard a belt slipping and asked him where his tools were. He told me the garage and I looked in his box that was his field box and it had a few hammers, chisels, bent bars and homemade wrenches at odd angles. No chrome anywhere. I asked him where's the rest of your tools? and he said they are all there. ? Wow. Get er done indeed.

 

[Riverlandrobo]

My grandfather was a IH mechanic for 40yrs. There's a reason they call them corn binders. And he started as their field mech and when he go promoted to lead in the shop he threatened to quit if they didn't give him the field position again. He specialized in cotton pickers and crawlers and fixed whatever it needed in the field. It was no big deal to him to put a set of clutches or rebuild a transmission in the field. Out on the West Side of the valley is all clay and alkali. Nasty stuff, suck the boots right off your feet. And the machines were always stuck and that's why they broke. He was particularly suited for the work being apprenticed as a blacksmith in Oklahoma before coming out during the Dust Bowl. Tough as nails and grateful for any kind of work no matter what it was. He was the hardest working man I ever saw. After he retired I used to maintain his old IH service truck and his Buick and I heard a belt slipping and asked him where his tools were. He told me the garage and I looked in his box that was his field box and it had a few hammers, chisels, bent bars and homemade wrenches at odd angles. No chrome anywhere. I asked him where's the rest of your tools? and he said they are all there. ? Wow. Get er done indeed.

Those are the guys you can Learn from!!! When welding at the papermill the man that was certifying me for code welding with the aws. Procedures Said....if you want to learn cast iron welding go see nolan he worked in the blacksmith shop when he first started...that was damn close to 40 years ago...I went and saw him and he kinda grumbled as he barked there isnt any Cast iron here that has to be welded...I mentioned that instructor Billy Rae said that you were the best in the mill with cast iron....he kinda guffawed at that.....I passed my certifications and was tig welding some big stainless steel piping about a month or two after asking nolan about the cast iron welding.....he stuck his head in the shop and asked me if I still wanted to learn about cast iron welding.....I stopped what I was doing and spent about 3 hours with him listening and Learning.....the best schooling and 3 hours spent in his shop.....and he wasn't an ole crab like I thought he was!!! We had a metallurgist come to the mill this guy was older...I asked him some questions about what ole nolan had told me...he pulled down his bifocals and asked me point blank....Where did you Learn That??? I told him....he said do exactly what that man told you to do he knows his stuff and it's in no schoolbooks either!!! A couple of the things I can pass on was when you've got the casting all warmed up dont stop till the brazing is done!!!..brazing is like soldering but hotter....you have to grind to clean parent metal use a carbide burr.....an Emery wheel will contaminate the area....you also have to use the borax flux to prevent the oxygen from contaminating the area....you have to run the casting or as nolan put it you have to butter up the parts before laying down the beads.....and if the part is super critical build yourself a hardwood fire and bury the part in the hot Coals and cover the whole thing with ashes.....might take 2 days before you can touch it.....I can still hear him Saying That!!

 

[C-Bag]

Very relevant stuff as I‘m prepping to braze a big chunk of cast iron thats the main body of the ‘20’s Manley mechanical press I’m fixing up.

So do your clean the area to be brazed with the carbide bit before or after you chuck it in the coals?

My grandfather had to quit school in 2nd grade to work their farm. So he was long on practical experience but would not back away from the books. He went to IH school when they came out with the hydrostat for the cotton pickers. He was the first west of the Mississippi to be certified to fix them. He valued learning but did NOT suffer fools. He could not supervise but if you really wanted to learn he was the perfect teacher. Because he didn’t have a huge vocabulary he could convey complicated things in few words, just blew my mind. But he’d only tell you once.

I was the oldest and every time another kid was born I was shipped off to live with the grandparents for months at a time on their 40ac in Dos Palos. So I spent a lot of time with him. That’s where I got to respect the old guys and seek them out where I worked. And so many times their plain speech hid their deep knowledge. I know it’s also where I got that I can’t really supervise but I can work with a small crew who really want to learn and will do what I say.

 

[Riverlandrobo]

Very relevant stuff as I‘m prepping to braze a big chunk of cast iron thats the main body of the ‘20’s Manley mechanical press I’m fixing up.

So do your clean the area to be brazed with the carbide bit before or after you chuck it in the coals?

My grandfather had to quit school in 2nd grade to work their farm. So he was long on practical experience but would not back away from the books. He went to IH school when they came out with the hydrostat for the cotton pickers. He was the first west of the Mississippi to be certified to fix them. He valued learning but did NOT suffer fools. He could not supervise but if you really wanted to learn he was the perfect teacher. Because he didn’t have a huge vocabulary he could convey complicated things in few words, just blew my mind. But he’d only tell you once.

I was the oldest and every time another kid was born I was shipped off to live with the grandparents for months at a time on their 40ac in Dos Palos. So I spent a lot of time with him. That’s where I got to respect the old guys and seek them out where I worked. And so many times their plain speech hid their deep knowledge. I know it’s also where I got that I can’t really supervise but I can work with a small crew who really want to learn and will do what I say.

Use the burr to clean up the areas prior to brazing....you can use a grinder but go over where you ground with it with the burr to clean and rough up the area as the stone smears contaminates into the cast iron.....preheat and when it reaches dull red start fluxing then tacking your parts....Remember your brazing...not welding....your basically heating the metal up to open up the pores so the brass can soak in...flux the area and Tin it which is spreading a thin layer of brass on all of the surfaces to be joined BEFORE doing any build up of brass...keep fluxing as you lay down your beads....you have to use a welding tip big enough to put out enough heat as big thick sections draw the heat away fast....if you have welding blankets or Ceramic wool you can cover the big areas... even fiberglass will work in a pinch.... you can get a bunch of charcoal briquets ready in a grill or length of stove pipe with holes in the bottom to create the draft...your sole purpose for this is to allow your brazing job to cool as SLOW as possible!!! Do not cool it with water or air or your job will fail miserably.....done Right brazing is just as strong as the original casting

 

[Riverlandrobo]

Use the burr to clean up the areas prior to brazing....you can use a grinder but go over where you ground with it with the burr to clean and rough up the area as the stone smears contaminates into the cast iron.....preheat and when it reaches dull red start fluxing then tacking your parts....Remember your brazing...not welding....your basically heating the metal up to open up the pores so the brass can soak in...flux the area and Tin it which is spreading a thin layer of brass on all of the surfaces to be joined BEFORE doing any build up of brass...keep fluxing as you lay down your beads....you have to use a welding tip big enough to put out enough heat as big thick sections draw the heat away fast....if you have welding blankets or Ceramic wool you can cover the big areas... even fiberglass will work in a pinch.... you can get a bunch of charcoal briquets ready in a grill or length of stove pipe with holes in the bottom to create the draft...your sole purpose for this is to allow your brazing job to cool as SLOW as possible!!! Do not cool it with water or air or your job will fail miserably.....done Right brazing is just as strong as the original casting

Thick sections have to be bevelled,cleaned, preheated,Fluxed and Tinned before build up....wear at least a #5 gas welding Lens and a respirator for fumes....wrap your parts to let them Cool Slowly!!!

 

[vocatexas]

I don't comment very much on posts here, but I have to thank you for posting this. I've learned a couple of things by reading it that I can use the next time I have to braze cast. Thanks!

 

[Riverlandrobo]

I don't comment very much on posts here, but I have to thank you for posting this. I've learned a couple of things by reading it that I can use the next time I have to braze cast. Thanks!

Your very welcome....i learned from some of the best tradesmen and a few of them have passed on....anytime I can be of help just give me a holler