Farmall C Throwout Bearing

Been working on restoring a Farmall C and ran across something that I need to ask about. The thowout bearing doesn't appear to be a bearing, but an insert of some sort of Bakelite type material. At first, I thought that the bearing was frozen, but after further inspection, I don't think so. Did IH use this type of "bearing," or is something really messed up. There was no remnants of a bearing on the transmission shaft. Do you have to get another throwout bearing sleeve to put an actual bearing in it? It appears to have a lot of wear on it and I don't want to use it as is if it is going to cause troubles further down the road.

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It is the bearing, It is made from graphite. It was factory that way. Yours is toast. Two solutions. put another new one in it, or replace it with a ball type TO bearing. (better) The Carrier will need to be replaced. The specific part numbers are in the online parts catalog.
caseih.com Parts and service, then Search for parts, then start search right here, then put Farmall into the box. Scroll down to C. Select chassis, then housing and actuator. Jim

Jim is spot on about the graphite-block bearing. I know I encountered one on my SuperC and, from what I read about the two kinds and the number of posts on here, it may have been the more common bearing.

IH listed the more conventional bearing and its carrier as optional with the Hydra-Creeper unit. For that unit to operate required blocking down the clutch pedal (other optional parts accomplished that) so that a hydraulic motor could backfeed into the transmission through the brake shafts. It may have been a fine bearing for day-to-day use moving a tractor around, but the graphite-block bearing would not have held up under that kind of use.

The carrier is still available from Case IH. It comes dear, but my view on dealer parts of that sort is that it can't be cheap to supply and stock unique parts such as that for 60-year-old tractors. The bearing can be got for less elsewhere, but for a project like that, I'd probably pay IH's price for the bearing as part of the same purchase. The separate profit on the bearing is the kind of thing that encourages/allows the company and the dealers to keep supplying them.

Yours is pretty much shot. If it's any comfort, I had to replace a perfectly serviceable one when I overhauled mine. From the time the graphite bearings are new, the clutch fingers find a home and wear into the face of the graphite. Works well as long as it's all worn in. Removing and putting back as I did, the line up was off from where it had been worn in over the years and the fingers ripped chunks out of the edge of the ggraphite, enough so that I had to resplit and replace it with the carrier and separate bearing.

I"m definitely not a big fan of that graphite throw out bearing. We had to replace the on in our C last summer. Ours had broken into many pieces. Luckily the pressure plate fingers were not damaged and there was plenty of wear left on the disk. Got the new steel bearing and new style carrier from our local Case/IH dealer. Pretty pricey. If memory serves we paid $135.00 for both. But it works great.