B Farmall transmission

Howdy from Texas!

I currently have my 1940 B in pieces for a ground up refurbish project. I opened the top of the transmission yesterday evening and was met with quite a bit of rust (I'll try to post pictures below) and am wondering if anyone has any advice on how to clean it up? I feel like while I'm at this stage, I'm better off disassembling everything, cleaning, and replacing any worn bearings but have never been into this before: I grew up working on equipment aeound the farm, but have never had to go inro this alone. Now in my mid-40's, I have no brothers or cousins to call on and my dad never worked on transmissions.

Does anyone know of a step by step procedure to help me get it apart, what to look for once its in pieces on my workbench, and then replace any worn bearings and then put it back together? I have a service manual on order but don't know if it will be in "plain English" enough to walk me through this part of the project.

Any advice, encouragement, prayers, diagrams, etc are not only welcome, but actively solicited.

Many grateful thanks in advance, and I look forward to hearing from any ans all of you out there.

You will definitely need to replace any bearings that have rough pits, gouges, or broken balls. As for the gears, clean them up the best you can. See if that sludge comes off and how rough any pits are. You may be able to smooth any pits on the teeth using a fine sand paper. If they are too rough for your liking, or have any teeth missing, you shouldn't have a problem locating a used gear set for a B. Even this website may have some of the gears. I know they have some for a M. Good luck with your project!

Thanks. I don't see any way to clean the tranny up- and do a reapectable job- without pulling the wheels and final drive off and breaking it down to a manageable level. Any ideas and/or input is most welcome.

It probably won't be as hard to get apart as you think.

I would go ahead and get some rust penetrant working on it, if nothing else to stop it from rusting any further.

You will probably need a good set of snap ring pliers, internal and external, and some duck bill ring spreader pliers. Some kind of soft hammer, like a brass or aluminum hammer, probably some brass drifts of various sizes.

The rust will come off the gears and shafts fairly easy, various wire brushes, both hand and power, should shine them up.

And before, and during disassembly, take lots of pictures!

Every transmission I've worked on had somewhere in the shift mechanism an intricate set of balls, plungers, springs that detent the shift forks and help prevent the transmission from getting into 2 gears at once. Pay close attention to where the balls and plungers go! The springs will likely be rusted away or at least need replacing.

Good luck!

They are pretty simple. I had one stripped down with the case in the parts washer to clean the gunk out. Put it back with new seals & whatever it needed. If I remember right, the springs and balls are all in the top cover.

dear T IHC enthusiast
The B and BN series IHC Formal are essentially the same tractor except the rear wheel dimensions between
The A b and BN are essentially the same tractor except for for the wheel settings SO O O the parts should be fully available from any disassembler when needed.
Make certain that you utilize any and all bearing suppliers in your area NOT JUST IHC CASE.
I replaced all but 2 bearings on my IHC FARMALL BN From the Canadian bearing supply near me.
The only ones I had to go to IHC for were the bull gear bearings since no one was able to replicate them.
I even found all the seals from the bearing supply.
Costs were substancilay less.
Go ON WEB for a knock down of the trans etc or go to IHC and buy a mechanics Manuel
the best money spent ever.
wright me if you like
Internationally speaking ""The best of the Bread in farm equipment"" I soundly be here to tell the story if it wasn't for a BN I now own It was My dad's
WM

I have yet to find a good source for instructions to disassemble my B transmission, and I'm to the point where that needs to happen. My motor is in the shop for a complete rebuild, so during the downtime of that being worked on, I'd like to pull the tranny and replace all the bearings and seals. My service manual talks to me like I'm a 1940's IH service manager and leaves big gaps in my line of questions. Any ideas? Anyone think of an online site that could walk me through This? Any help is most welcome and very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.