Just got done painting my Farmall 400 and don’t have the sheet metal done yet and found I have a inter axle bearing going bad. I wondering if I pull the PTO unit I can sneak in through the PTO hole and take off the bull gear retaining bolt and pull the axle housing leaving the bull gear inside the transmission case. This would save a lot of work of having to pull the transmission top.

John In Iowa

John, If the 400 is anything my my '48 M it will be a difficult job to drop the bull gear inside of the rear end housing and then get it back on the inner end of the axle. (Not to mention the replacing of the inner axle bearing from the inside). I managed to do the job by myself in order to replace the axle carrier gasket that goes next to the rearend housing as well as the bull pinion bearing on the left side. It was not fun and would have been a lot safer and easy to take off the deck and work at it from the top. Just be extremely careful...those parts are heeeeavy. The axle carrier with the axle in it on the M weighs about 200-250 lbs without the hub, rim or tire attached. Blocking is critical so error on the side of safety when attacking this repair. Good luck.//FB

Yes you can do it that way ,i have done it many of times just watch your fingerswhen reinstalling it. And since one is bad the other one can't be far behind.

Thanks; I plan on using a motor jack to hold the axle housing and I have a good set of stands to set the tractor on. Matter of fact I have the tractor sitting on them now for the painting, but I’m going to put 3 of the tires on before I take on this job. When I was cleaning the tractor, I had to replace the gasket on the other side and it looks like it’s been replace before because it had silicone gasket sealer on the gasket. I was able to get ¾ of an inch gap and was able to clean all of the old gasket out. I cut the new gasket on the top quarter and was able to install.

John In Iowa

Take a good sharp flat file and check the mating serfaces around the bolt holes , i have found over the years that if the tractor had a mounted picker on it that it has pulled the bolt holes and the axel will not fit flush and it will start to leak in short order , you can file the humps and bumps out with out to much trouble.