3 cyl 3000 main bearings

joe201

Member
I'm thinking about changing the rod and main bearings on my 3000 3 cyl ford tractor and wondering if I can change the main bearings without splitting the tractor? I used to work on big diesel motors and would change one main at a time and bend a cotter pin and put it in oil hole on crank and turn the motor by hand and spin the old one out. Thanks for your advice in advance Joe
 
You might get two out of the four changed, however the thrust bearing would be nearly impossible to roll out in my opinion, and I doubt you would get the rear cap off without splitting the tractor. Even if you could get it out, you would have a difficult, if not impossible time getting the rear seal area not to leak again once you pulled that rear cap out.

All that to say, I doubt it's worth the hassle to try and replace the main bearings with the crank in the tractor.
 

I don't think the rear main can be changed without splitting the tractor.
The bearings in these engines give very little trouble, Unless your having low oil pressure problems I wouldn't change them.
If you do have low oil pressure check the oil pump and drive first.
 
"I don't think the rear main can be changed without splitting the tractor."

I bought a '65 3000D with low compression (something I found out long after the sale). Also after the sale I realized that the air inlet tube from
the oil bath filter to the intake manifold was missing. Tractor hours were around 4000. Decided to do an inframe.

Pistons were shot: Alum pistons, ring grooves were wallowed out, rings shot. Miked the cylinders and were at the top of the limit but didn't figure
the intended usage would be need for a bore job; they just got a good ball honing. Popped the pan and dropped the rod caps and mains that
could be dropped......Rear and as I recall (15 years ago) front main wasn't accessible inframe. Put plastigauge on the things and met specs. Went
ahead and replaced the ones I could get to and didn't sweat the ends, nor the crankshaft front and rear seals. Figured for the cost and effort, I
could stand a little drip if it came to that......it hasn't yet.

As stated, been 15ish years, 1500 or so hours later, and had zero problems. Had the PO had the proper air filtration on the tractor, it probably
wouldn't have needed a wrench on it. Course in retrospect, I probably wouldn't have been the owner either as the PO probably would still be
running it.....low compression on a diesel as you know makes for futile starting efforts and from the sheetmetal reworking (Bondo and all) this guy
had a rough go of it in it's previous life.
 
I have 60 + oil pressure on start up runs around 50's when cutting or baling hay, hooked up mechanical gauge.The tractor starts and runs great uses no oil and plenty of power to cut and bale hay. I've had this tractor for almost 8 years all is good except when it sets a couple 2 or 3 weeks and I start tractor up kinda rattles for 5 or 10 long seconds oil pressure light goes out and rattle is gone and when I use it every 4 or 5 days no rattle at start up.Usually I just pull the throttle wide open and spin it over 4 or 5 times push the throttle up and fires right up all is good no rattle.I went with wix oil filters to eliminate filter it just drives me crazy to hear that rattle.I have posted about this a couple of times and a few people have told me the noise was due to wear and I was going to change main and rod bearings.Any thoughts or advice?
Thanks Joe
 
I had an '88 5 Liter Ford P/U I bought new and kept it serviced. When changing oil I always loaded the filter prior to installation, using quality multi-vis 10w-30. For a log time I had valve rattle just before the oil pump picked up the new oil on restart. One day I decided to try the same brand and vis. only using with full synthetic base stocks. Never had a rattle again. Figure that one.
 
I have a 73 3000 apart right now. You need to split the tractor to get all four.

Is the clatter possibly from the valves?
 
Joe, 50psi oil pressure while working seems a little high to me. Rattle at start up says oil is not pumping to where it needs to be.
What weight oil are you using? You may want to drop the pan and check the oil pickup and pump.
If your gauge is good, you have too much oil pressure to have worn out bearings.
 

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