42 H: This can't be good

DD in WA

Member
Got my wife's late uncle's '42 H (that he bought new) and have been working on getting it back into reasonable shape. Today I was going to change the differential oil assuming it had been a long time since it was replaced. Drained from the two plugs (a fair amount of water in the back area) and after it drained slid my finger in the hole and pulled out a bunch of metal pieces. Looks like parts of a bearing but want your opinions. Next big question is what to do next?? Any and all advice welcome.
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Double D,could be crap left in from an early repair(doubtful,but possible)If you get to start,see how it sounds with clutch in, clutch out, and in gear. Best thing is to lift off the top cover and look inside. Post back with your findings.
 
That is definitely part of a bearing! The only thing to do is to remove the top off the transmission/rear end so you can look inside and find out which bearing went bad.
 
Top right item looks like a clamp for a set of remotes. Don't know what it would be doing in there. Not been in one before. H had a belly pump with all hoses and tubes external, didn't they?
 
Looks like a bearing cage. The bearing is going out. Farmalls were good for having the rear end bearings out.

I have seen many farmalls with patches and holes welded shut on the bottom from the bearing going out and the bill gear cutting a hole in the bottom of the housing.

To remove the top cover. Remove all the bolts around the top cover. Disconnect the steering rod, wiring and remove the top cover with the steering post and seat as one unit.
 
Fuel tank, steering pedestal, rear fuel tank support, belt pulley/cover and seat. Take the steering shaft loose at the U-joint and leave the wheel and upper shaft assembled with the steering pedestal. After that it's just the cover bolts themselves.
 
And when you replace the top cover be sure to seal under the bolt heads. We had trouble with water getting into the transmission and rear end and found that someone had replaced the copper seal washers with lock washers. Put the copper washers on and no more water.
 
just one of those things....I saw it, I can't un-see it, gotta go in there. I'd be most concerned also about the balls. They might have come out on a previous oil change that wasn't magnet checked.....but I don't know that for sure.
pretty easy, you'll see what needs to come off as you are working to get the cover off.
Since you are fixing the tractor up for use, good time to check for bad teeth, that little pilot bearing in the front carrier, etc.
When you are in there, check the whole case not just the bottom.
The oil directing channels up on the side will probably have more small broken bearing pieces hiding there.
 
They really look like remote clamps to me. It is a long shot, but someone may have had the cover off, dropped them in, and not want to fish them out.
 
My bet is that it isn't a bearing cage. A bearing wouldn't have a hole in it to accept a carriage bolt. Besides that there are a lot of things coming off of that piece that wouldn't be on a bearing (ie-- that piece that looks like it comes off at a right angle between the 2 humps).
 
There are a lot of ways to make a bearing cage. Look at figure 3, not the same design but similar. There probably would be less confusion on the identity of these pieces if there had been a ruler in the picture.

Sorry about the image size, too lazy to copy and resize.

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Odds are the cage has been loose in there for many years. Unless there is a definite problem or you need to do a lot of heavy work with the tractor, I wouldn't worry about it for now.

If you can estimate what size ball bearings fit inside the cage, and how many bearings the cage held, you might be able to track down which of the tractor's bearings the cage is from without opening up the transmission. If you don't have access to the tractor's bearing list it might be faster to just open up the tractor and look around inside.
 
Got my MTA back together about 3 months ago, when I pulled the PTO unit I found exactly what you found plus two bearing balls split in half.

My guts were churning on what I would find when I pulled the cover off. I was sure I would find bull gears chipped or the axle shaft burred up.

I got lucky no damage anywhere but it would not have taken many more turns before the axle would have been affected.

What I did after I got all the pieces out I could see I layed them out to "reconstruct the bearing" to make sure I had all the pieces.

When you pull the axle whats left of the bearing pieces will fall in a cavity in the end of the axle housing. Make sure you get everything out of there.

Trust me those are bearing shells you found--I hope thats all thats wrong Good Luck
 

IMO, you would be crazy to just assume that foreign objects just happen to fall in the tranny, lol. Drain the oil, pull the top asap. One chunk get in perfect spot and you could be shedding tears, haha.

With that said, don't just yank the top off like its a beer tab. Yahoos that owned my M before me did that and it had twisted and bent forks. It was useable but it actually made the forks wear prematurely from the twist. Unnecessary roughness the chuckle heads, lol. I found I nice used set on eBay and it shifts smooth as silk now, statically atm that is. Good luck

C
 

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