Update on Farmall C stuck clutch

I posted on here earlier and finally got around to asking a local tractor mechanic how to unstick the clutch. Following his instructions I freed it up.I tied the clutch down with a come along and tied a heavy 20 foot chain to a tree. I backed the tractor up to the tree and hooked the chain to the tractor. I started it in second gear and gave it full throttle. Quite a bounce and I may have a bruise from hitting the steering wheel, but it broke it loose.

That is not really a very good way of doing it since things can break doing it that way and think if the chain broke and hit you in the back of the head you might not be talking about it now. Best way to pop one loose is take it out and pull something like a brush hog or plow etc and drive it till it frees up. Done it many times over the years that way and much safer

That is one of the most dangerous things I have heard in a long time. You never want to jerk a chain. It will kill you if it snaps and hits you.

YIKES!!!!

BAD, BAD Idea!!! - I WAS going to answer your original post.. I actually started typing with "this SHOULD go without saying, but don't ever tie to a tree..." but I erased it not wanting to sound too preachy.

I don't blame you for trying it,if you don't think it through, it sounds like a great idea.

Especially if somebody with more experience told you to. Many people have done it that way.

The problem is, some of them died doing it.

There was a guy in town here that did, so I know this for fact.

The problem is, what if it DIDN'T free up.

If you're VERY lucky, the wheels will spin on the ground and you won't go too high.

But what's more likely is that the tractor will flip right over backwards. And that happens a lot faster than you'd think. You're not jumping off out of the way, you're going with it.

You think you can be quick enough to shut the tractor down before you go too high, but by the time you know you have to do it, you're already half way over and might not be in a position to do it.

Remember when you see the guys pulling, with the front ends lifting slowly, that clutch is slipping, or being feathered purposely. Your clutch was frozen directly to the flywheel, there's no slipping there. It's just up, up, and up.

You said it was a jolt, imagine trying to turn the tractor off a split second after that jolt!

Man oh man- now I'll be preachy: don't ever do that again!!!

The RIGHT way to do it is to pull a heavy weight, but one that you know you can pull safely even if the clutch doesn't free up.

No tractor is worth risking your life over.

You know, this actually has me thinking more about this.

I've always taken it as fact, since I was a kid, that the tractor can flip over backwards from being tied to an imovable object, as I said in my last post, this has been drilled into me from somebody in town doing it.

However - I also remember hearing he didn't chain to the drawbar.

Perhaps the drawbar is at a point where no matter how hard you pull, the tractor can only get to a certain angle and stop???

But then what would happen? Would it be enough resistance to kill the engine?

Where are the engineers out there? I'm really curious about this now!

Especially after going on and on about the dangers of flipping!

Thanks for the warning.
I had tried driving and jamming on the breaks until it almost killed the engine.It was hooked to the draw bar and the chain was one that a C Farmall could not break no matter how hard it hit it. I have never had this tractor rear up while pulling from the draw bar.

I do not know if it would have gone over hooked to the drawbar. An important note for anyone hooking to the axle is NEVER do that. It will go over quicker than you can kill it.

The other warnings are to be taken seriously. If the tip of the drawbar where the chain is attached is outside of the radius of the tire, the tractor cannot go over backwards if things go slowly. If the wheels go upward rapidly, the inertia can and will topple the tractor.
If I were to invent a best practices way of breaking a clutch loose, I would make a bracket that replaced the starter and held the Flywheel teeth from turning.I would put it in high gear, and pull the tractor rearward with a come along to a protected tree, or heavy vehicle. I would pull on it such that the tires were sliding a little, then with a brass drift through the starter hole next to my bracket, I would rap the flywheel a sound smack to viabrate it.
Jim

(quoted from post at 17:57:40 09/20/11)However - I also remember hearing he didn't chain to the drawbar.

Perhaps the drawbar is at a point where no matter how hard you pull, the tractor can only get to a certain angle and stop???

Click to expand...

For most tractors and most conditions that is mostly true. That is why you should ONLY hook to the original, unmodified drawbar. Particularly important to not raise a drawbar above the factory position or shorten it so the hitch point is any farther forward than designed. The old Fordson was a notorious exception that was built before engineers really understood the hitch hazards.

I've tried to explain why this is so several times (and places) in the past. All the explanation does is bring out the knuckleheads that want to argue rather than pay attention to the explanation. So I'm not going to try again.

Hi CT8N, to your defense, you are correct on a Farmall C pulling from the standard drawbar will not cause the front end to rear up enough to go over rear wards. Do not try this connected to a 2 or 3pt drawbar raised above the level of the standard drawbar. DO NOT try this with a Ferguson or Ford that uses the 3pt as the drawbar.

JimB

Yeah - I thought about this more, and I can see where the drawbar would actually help keep the tractor from flipping - if you think about it sort of like a see-saw, with one end shortend and chained to a tree. You couldn't raise the other end too high without finally getting to a point where the chain would keep it from going further.

The tractor would be like that, by pivoting on the axle.

However, if you were at that full height point and the chain snapped, then you could be in trouble.

As I said in my other post, there was a guy in town that died from this. It was such an awful, gruesome situation that it really set the fear of god into me about tying to anything that doesn't move.

But I also know he didn't chain to his drawbar, until now I never really gave that detail too much thought. But now that I do think about it, not hitching to the drawbar is probably what caused the accident more than anything else.

Either way, I think it's accurate to say that you really don't KNOW for sure what a tractor is going to do if you tie it like that, and the clutch doesn't break free.

To me, that little bit of uncertainty is enough for me to not do it. There's too much power and weight at play to take chances.

I look at it sort of like handling a gun. You just never take chances with it because if something goes wrong it can be catastrophic.

Personal decision, again, don't mean to preach. Just wanted to clarify what I had said in my original post.

The tractor doesn't have to flip over to kill you. When it got to the end of the chain it could've easily gotten to hopping so bad that it threw you off, under the wheels.

Splitting would be a risk to my life since I do not have hoists etc required to do it. Paying to get it done would cost 25% of what the tractor is worth.

A little trick i learned with my C is to use 4 pieces of all-thread to bolt the engine to the clutch housing and keep everything straight. At this time you need a support under the clutch housing or torque tube. then with the rear brakes set and tires blocked you can carefully slide the motor forward on the front wheels a foot or so. NOW you can get at everything and it slides back together and everything lines up. This may need more support and blocking than what I stated here to ensure safety, but it is probably the easiest , cheapest and in my mind safest way to do it. Also this lets you replace the clutch disc if you want to.

She went over FAST, I had no idea what was happnin till it was tooooo late.
As the back tire was climbing up my chest, the only thing I can remember saying to myself was GET OUT from under this thing. Help was miles away...

Only broke 4 ribs..

Gregk: Great idea.I would have tried this if I had known about it. The mechanic I talked to said he had slipped them apart and freed the clutch without splitting, but he didn't say how he did it.

You can split a tractor with a floor jack and two pieces of heavy angle steel.