44 partial lock up with head pulled off

rduttonks

Member
before i get to my question i will give you a little background on what is going on then ill get to the question.

i have a 1940's Massey Harris 44 wide front end with a 260 engine in it. i bought it about a year ago. i used it for a couple of months. i was using it just backing it into my shed when is stopped running and locked up.

I have tried dragging it in gear with the clutch in and then releasing the clutch but only the tires dragged. If i push the clutch in the tires spin freely. Also if i put the transmission in gear and push clutch in then it will also move freely.

There is a shaft running from the transmission to the crankshaft that you can see and spin. i can put a pipe wrench on the shaft i can get it to turn but not all the way. i decided to pull the head off of the tractor and when i did you can see that the shaft would turn just far enough to let the 1st and 4th piston to reach top dead center with 2 and 3 at bottom. i then turn the shaft the opposite way and it spins until the 2nd and 3rd piston reach the top and the 1st and 4th are at the bottom.

There were 3 bent push rods on the top of the engine block but not extremely bent.

I have also removed the starter and hydraulic pump from the tractor to eliminate that from the possible problems.

i do not know where to go next. it doesn't have anything to do with the top of the head. where should i go from here? Any ideas?


also if i can not get it fixed i have an original char lyn power steering pump that works and an aftermarket 3 point hitch what would those be worth if i was wanting to sale them? I included a picture of the 3 point and also the power steering pump to help.
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think you started on the wrong end of the engine. did the engine knock at all? could be a rod bolt came loses or a bolt out of the pressure plate,i see it has a hyd pump on it [left side of engine] and the shaft could have broke and the gear is jamming the cam shaft. seeing you have most of the tractor apart i would pull the engine out and pull the pan if nothing check in the bell housing and at the hyd. pump on the left also your started nose cone could have broke and got in to the clutch housing
 
also if and when you pull the motor under the front of the motor where it bolts down there are shims MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT MIX THEM UP and they MUST go back in the way they came out
 
thanks for all the quick replies.

I ahve pulled the hyd. pump off already and it was fine, spun freeely and it didnt change the tractors situation at all.

I have also dropped the oil pan before pulling off the head. it all looks normal under there and there was no metal shavings or chunks when i drained the oil/ pulled the pan. I will try to get pictures poseted of the oil pan that way you guys can see what im possibly missing.

I just dont understand what would allow teh tractor to spin both ways just not all the way over. When it stops its not a hard stop its just that it gets too hard to turn over.


also if it helps anything i use a pipe wrench with a 2 ft cheater bar on the pipe to turn it doesnt take all my might to turn either if that helps you rule out anything.

Thanks in advance
 
Certainly helps to have another person looking up
from underneath the engine and listening when you
turn it over. Where are you located at?
 
then it is in the bell housing could be a bolt coming or came out or the clutch face is slipping out from the fly wheel and pressure plate. seeing you have the pan off you should have the front inspection plate off look in side
 
I would be interested in the bracket that holds the power steering motor. Wish I had one close by that I could just copy, would not be hard to make.
 
here are the pictures from underneath looking into the underside of the engine with the oil pan off. i also took a few looking down into the clutch but its hard to tell anything from them. Any more ideas would be great still havent figured out whats going on.


And when i get a chance ill take a few of the bracket holding the power steering pump on and get you some measurements if that would help any
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I do not see any smoking guns. Can you reach up and wiggle the rods where they attach to the crank?
 
Maybe I shouldnn"t say this, but if that first picture is all the scarring and chewing up on a drive shaft, I"d be worried about fatigue cracking later down the road; sudden catastrophic failure from a crack growing under repeated on and off torsion.
 
Pull the timing cover and check the crank gear meshing with the oil pump gear also if it has the thrust washers behind the front crank gear, it can wedge the engine.
 

are you talking about on the left side of the tractor where the hydraulic pump attaches to? I have pulled the hydraulic pump but not the gear cover where you add the oil. I did turn the engine over with the pipe wrench on the shaft when i had hydrualic pump off and it spun and stopped same as always but i could see the gear inside the oil add place ( dont know actual name) spinning with the rest of the engine. So i dont know if that would help anything but seeing as i have no other ideas i might try that tonight.


The shaft does have some scaring on it now from the pipe wrench its not deep at all just from the teeth of the wrench gripping in. i just figured id grind it down if and when i get the tractor back up to running condition



Any more thoughts or ideas are great im willing to try just about anything now to get it going.


Also i havent had any replies on how much that power steering unit or the three point would be, so any information on that would be great too.
 
I saw a power steering unit sell for $300 on ebay. The guy said it worked well as it came off of a running tractor. I might be interested in it - my email is open. The 3 point can go pretty high if original but don't know about an add-on unit.
 
Is the camshaft turning with the crank? If not, there may not be enough clearance on the cam lobes to pass the big end of the connecting rod.

If the piston will go to TDC then stop from both directions, I would think possibly a broken top ring (but that would not kill it while running). A camshaft breaking just behind the front cam bearing would though...

Regards,

Goldsburg
 
I purchased a 44 that was assumed locked up. Tried pulling it and tires drug as well. I pulled the start off and found some chips in the rear, found out a small piece was wedged between the flywheel and the bellhousing.

I would check that, if would be loose and hit hard in my case as well.

Matt
 
It is also possible that a piston pin snap ring came off.
I have seen that, but the engine locked up so fast that the crankshaft bent.
 
Alright thanks for all the help but now i got something even more confusing.

We were working on the tractor yesterday messing around with it looking at the diffrent stuff like the camshaft as i was spining the shaft back and forth with the pipe wrench. Id turn it all the way forward until itd stop then spin it in reverse til it stopped like ive done a million times since its froze up. well one time i was going forward it got a little less stiff when it hit top dead center then all of a sudden it broke over and made a full revolution, ( someone was looking up at the camshaft when it happened and no chunks of metal fell, no large sound or thud or snap). So i then started spinning it full revolutions with the pipe wrench and it kept getting easier and easier til it spun free like it was suppose to foward and backward.


I did this quite a few times making sure it was free, mainly becuase we couldnt believe it happend. we were then talking for about 15 minutes and we decided to see if it was still un stuck. So i spun it foward ( the way the engine should run) and it was fine. I then spun it backwards and it got stiff and finnaly stopped at top dead center, like it use to get stuck. I then spun the shaft forward and it was a little stiff but it did break free agian and spun free for a couple revolutions. I then spun it backwards agian and it got stuck top dead center agian, tried spinning it forward to break it free agian and it got stuck at top dead center too.

So i went from having a stuck engine, to a freed up engine with everything spinning great, back to having the same exact stuck engine i had before.


So i wonder if that changes anythign for anyone, any ideas agian would be great........

Also wheres the best place to buy push rods for the 260 engine and also teh rod bearings for the pistons on the cam shaft..

Thanks
 
like JJL ask have you pulled any bearing caps rod or main that is about all that is left. sound like a spun bearing as bearing half is running over the top of another. good luck
 
No i havent pulled any bearing caps. Those are the hings on the bottom of teh piston shafts connecting it to the crank shaft right? there are in two seperate peices held together around the shaft with two bolts?

Does anyone have a good step by step on how to remove them or do u just unbolt take half off then turn the engine over til you get the other half off, then just reverse to put back on or is there a special tip and trick to it?

I will try that either today or tommorow and let you guys know what happened.


Thanks
 
I think the bent push rods is the clue. Something is locking up the cam at a point in rotation. Pull the distributer and shaft out, examine the gear drive...same with the front hydralic drive gears...something is in there somewhere.
 

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