Noise in axle of H

Seem to come here often for answers. I have received a 46 H my son bought as a restoration project. Engine runs great, etc, but when drving it there is a noise like a "thunk" in the left side, sounds as if coming from the axle. It makes the sound at the same place when I watch the wheel travel. I know this is difficult to diagnose from the limited description but does anybody have any ideas?
Thanks for any and all help

Jack it up one side at a time. Look for axle deflection. Turn by hand and see what you feel and hear.

Farmall s were well known for having the axle bearings go bad.

Don't use it until you figure out if it is an axle bearing. If one of the ball bearings pops out it will get caught in the bottom of the transmission housing and punch a hole. Very serious. Ellis

I have seen H's with a big chunk broken out of the bottom of the rear end right after hearing a clunking like you are describing. There's not a whole lot of room between the bull gears and the bottom of the housing, so if something gets between there, something has to give.

I disagree with your comment Farmalls were "Well Known" for axle bearings going bad.
Dad had a '39 H, '54 Super H, three M's, one SM-TA, and a 450. I still have the SH and the '51 M he bought brand new. We never replaced a single axle bearing EVER. We did replace two differential pinion shaft bearings on the 450, one when it was 10 yrs old, the other side at 11 years old. Never touched the axle bearings. The '51 M I have had a 2M-E picker mounted on it every fall for 16 years, picked over 300 acres every year, still has the factory axle bearings. The '48 M was bought to be only a picker tractor for 4 years. NONE of those tractors had patches on their undersides. Granted out of over a Million H's & M's my sample isn't large, but I'm not trying to exaggerate a small problem.

Co-worker started his M about 15 years ago on a 15 below zero winter day, only tractor he had that would start, needed to grind cattle feed, backed up about 3-4 feet and pushed the bottom out of the rearend under the bull gears with ice frozen into the bull gear teeth. NOT a bearing problem.

Loose wheel, or axle or rim bolts?

(quoted from post at 17:49:56 07/29/18) Loose wheel, or axle or rim bolts?

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That was my first thought also. Check the simple stuff first!

Also if it has wheel weights check that the bolts are tight. Last year I had a noise on my farmall 350. Found one of my wheel weights were loose.

I'm sorry Dr evil but Farmalls were well know around here to have axle bearings out. My father ran a tractor repair business for decades. A very common problem with farmall H-450 was having bearings go out! In my teen years I help him tear many many M's down to replace axle bearings.

Not saying it is impossible for just ice to push out the casting below the bull gear. Rather, I suspect a ball bearing was laying in the sump and froze in the ice and got drug into the tight spot. Bearings may have not been bad at the time but happened to be left behind during a previous bearing replacement. Just my 2 cents.

I agree, check all wheel bolts first. This would not be a minor tightening. Get out your biggest breaker bar. Sometimes a lock washer will split and fall out making the bolt loose.

Nope, your wrong, NO ball bearing, just ice. That's what you get by not changing rearend oil.

As noted check all bolts first. A bit of finger nail polish placed on the bolt head or washer can quickly determine where a loose fastener is located. To assure they get tight, loosen them first, lubricate the threads, then retighten. If the fastener does not tighten easily when running up to tight, replace it and the nut. Jim

I don't know where "Here" is for you, but 20 miles east of Moline is where I grew up, EVERYBODY had a couple M's, Super M's 400-450, quite a few 560 and 706's around too.

Guy that traded help with our one neighbor had a '39 M that had catastrophic engine failure, yeah, one out of dozens, maybe hundreds had an engine problem, Complete new 450 281 cid engine installed, so old C-248 ran reliably for 19 years, and still no axle bearing failures.

I find it actually IMPOSSIBLE that an H made enough HP to hurt it's rear axle bearings. Kinda like the 756, 766, 786, clutches and TA's wear out but not enough stress on bearings, they run FOREVER,


The rearend rebuild program IH conducted on the 460/560, they actually saw signs of that problem starting with Super M & SM-TA, 400 a bit higher incidence, 450 a bit higher, as I said, Dad bought a '57 450 gas spring of '65, replaced the differential pinion bearings on left side one summer when cultivating, did other side following year. Tractor did ALL the fieldwork on 200+ acres, ran duals any time we were doing fieldwork. Sold the tractor winter of '68/'69 with factory installed rear axle bearings still in it.

Was your Dad replacing axle bearings to pad the repair bill?

IH did find the problems with 460/560 was very localized, small area in Texas where furrowing or middle-busting with 4-row middlebuster where rear tractor tires were set out to run in the bottoms of the outer furrows had problems, all the rest were right in line with percentages of 450's with problems.

Dad and I did go into the rearend of the '51 M twice, once about '63, had a bearing outer race crack on the transmission input shaft, replaced that bearing and the transmission pilot bearing and some seals & gaskets, 2-3 years later the input yoke on that input shaft cracked at the keyway. Now the transmission pilot bearing on H's and especially M's IS a thing to watch, on hopped-up tractors, hard pulling in 4th gear really puts stress on the pilot bearing, has even been known to break the end off the transmission shaft the bearing sets on. Shifting to 2nd or 3rd gear out of 4th solves the problem. Super H and Super M both got much larger pilot bearings, like over twice as big. Problem solved!

Horse power has nothing to do with an axle bearing going out. You know what a skimpy little bearing IH put in the letter series? I attached a picture of one. IH Made tractor repairman a lot of money replacing those light duty bearings!

Some farmers ran their tractors so long we also had to replace the axle as they nearly sawed it in too with the bad bearing. While I'm on the subject again. Ice isn't what causes the hole in the bottom of the case under the bull gear. The hole is cut by the bull gear when the inside axle bearing goes out. We have patched many holes in the bottom of the case from bad inner bearing. Some people put a patch on the outside of the case on the bottom. Some braze the hole shut from the inside which is difficult. You stick your head under the backend of Farmalls at shows or auctions. You will find several with patches under one of the bull gears from the inner bearing going out.

I know two retired IH mechanics Both agree with my dad the IH should have put a much heavier bearing in the rearend.

When I bought my 48 M, I looked under the rearend and sure enough there was a weld! The seller said does that scare you, I said no that just tells me it had the bearings replaced!