1956 400 Farmall TA fluid change, help

rocket175

New User
I recently dropped all the fluids as I was going to put new in. I have a collection of metal pieces I can only assume are bearing pieces, that came from the rear end out of the large plug in the back.
Nothing seems wrong with the tractor and it operates fine so I'm wondering what these pieces could be from?
 
Any chance you can post a picture of the metal items? There is a chance they are pieces of caging from a ball bearing. Open the example bearing in the link to see what I mean, the metal parts hiding the balls so to speak. When bearings get a lot of wear the caging starts to break apart. If enough of it breaks away the balls all drop to one side at which point they can work their way out of the bearing. I am not 100 percent sure but if a 400 is like an H or M if a ball comes out and gets under a bull gear that turns each rear axle it can break out a piece of casting in the bottom of the housing and the oil will drain out. This can happen with very little fore warning in the way of noise or questionable operation.
Example ball bearing
 
I don't have a picture, but I'm positive looking at the pieces that it's a cage from a bearing. I'm wondering if there may be a particular one in the rear that could be it?
I bought the tractor really cheap and used it for a few hours with no problems, so I'm wondering if I need to look into it farther
 
Well winter is coming up, so i would,about 6-7 years ago i put a new torque in my brothers SMTA, after i got ready to put it together i noticed the first bearing in the top shaft, there was a 1 Roller missing,the local IHC had it, so i put it in the new cage, is much stronger a nicer bigger bearing,but i drained the oil, stirred around with a magnet, and never found it, so it is still a mystery where it went, doubt if it came that way from the factory, but it was gone !!! But it never clattered or made any noise to suggest anything was wrong!
 
Ok so I have been working on this all day now and have not found my bad bearing. I have not removed the top cover yet, but at this point I'm thinking that won't help? I've taken every other cover off and removed the pto, I cannot see any bad bearings and have not found any of the balls, only parts of a cage, maybe enough to make up one side.
I'm at a loss as to where the bad one is. I can think of 2 possible things. 1 the problem was fixed before I bought it and they just didn't clean very good or 2 it's one of the inner axle bearings, seeing as how the cage parts seem to be about that size.
Best route to take next?

I just can't believe there are no balls rolling around inside the rear housing so I'm stumped as to if I put it back together or keep digging.
 
There is a possibility that the debris is left over from a previous repair. Which of course means that the bad bearing was replaced and what you have is just extra crap left behind.
 
You have two choices:

1. Tear the tractor apart in a possibly fruitless, but definitely expensive, quest to find where these pieces came from. As someone else mentioned they could be left from a previous repair.

2. Keep running the tractor until a problem manifests itself. This is the "farmer way" as the job had to get done and as long as the tractor kept moving, you kept working.
 

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