Super 55 steering question

ed in cny

Member
Question on the steering for my Oliver super 55. Getting this back together and changing out the tie rid ends and
pitman bearings. Have parts purchased, parts off and they all don't match. Ordering parts when your not by the tractor
is my problem. I have a long tie rod tube on one side and a short 10" or so tube on the other. In other words they
don't match. I'm not sure this is correct. Is this a marriage of parts to make this work? I'm not seeing a long pitman
arm only small short ones. Also I haven't found any short tie rod tubes either.

Are they suppose to match? If not what and where do I get the long pitman to replace the one I have bad? I though I
would have this back together but one thing after another.
 
Ed, if they are the same as a 550 they both should measure about 36 5/8". the front tie rod ends are about 6" long and the rears are about 10" long. When you put them together the left side should be about 47 1/4" over all in length and the right side should be 46" long. The left side has to be about 1 1/4" longer than the right side so it turns the same in both directions. Hope this helps, Chuck
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Chuck, thanks for the picture of the 550. Great looking tractor. Mine is far, far from looking this nice. As to the tie rod tube, the left side (from the seat) looks similar to yours. Lengths look right and like mine. The right side is not even close. From the steering box to the tie rod tube (without measuring) the distance is bout 30-36 inches. Then the short tie rod tube and then the tie rod. I'll try to take pictures of the two for comparison. They look so much different. I think if they are to match I'm in the market for a long tie rod tube it looks.
 
Early Super 55 tractors had the short tubes. The long tubes replaced those in 1955 (without looking it up) How about if you post the Serial number of your tractor? There were many small changes in those tractors from when they started building them in 1954 till the last one rolled off the assembly line.
 
Serial number is 16-678-518. I take that to be a 55 if I am correct. The parts manual I have show the short tube for both. Listed as part number 1E-6958 and 1E-6958-A Rod, Intermediate Tie. Assuming one is the earlier and one is later. So what I bought to replace it were the ends only not the long pitman arm shown here. Looked last night to see if it were available but it looks to be it is not. It looks as though the only replacement is the long tube and short pitman now a days. I think this would have been costly for Oliver to make this way. The short pitman would have been the way to go as there was minor material to throw away.

I wonder if this long arm assembly could be rebuilt. It could be used on an early Oliver 55 if someone was so inclined. I suspect these parts don't come up often. Maybe it's not worth it to be so original and just change over. Either way I'm not keeping it this way as they are bad and need to be replaced. The other was changes at some point to the newer style so I am inclined to do the same.
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I looked in mu book. Any thing made after April of 1955 had the long tube reason being the short ones failed in fact some of the short ones had a pipe welded to them to make them stronger
 

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