Waking up the ol' Cub

[Willy]

The weather guessers are making noises about ice and snow starting Friday, so I got back on getting the blade hitched up and ready just in case. Got some painting done on the mounting parts that I made up for the blade. It warmed up to the upper 50s and I figured close enough to paint. The blade is together and hanging on the rear hitch. But that's just to keep it out of the way for now. If I use it there, I'll have to be careful not to lift it into the rear tire with the Touch Control.

I took it on a "road trip" yesterday to haul some Cub 22 sickle mowers that I was given. There's not enough there to make a complete one, but the big pieces are all there, so it's a start on one.

[Willy]

Got out yesterday in the snow and got a first run with the blade setup in the snow. I had a few issues, but those were mostly my lack of experience with a blade. The homemade square hitch setup on the UMF worked great. Just need to do a little tweaking which I started today. I made a new adapter bar between the 2" receiver and the blade. This one is a couple of inches longer so that I can use it on the rear hitch as well.

My hole drilling on the other one wasn't too straight (drilling an unlevel piece) so it would only go on one way and that was with the hitch under the crossbeam. If I was to try to have the cargo platform on the rear and blade mounted under the crossbeam, when I raised the lift, the platform would be at too much of an angle to use effectively when the blade was in the raised position. So the new adaptor I made sure the holes were to where I could move the hitch receiver on top of the crossbeam. This way, the blade will still raise enough to clear the ground without the cargo platform reaching for the sky. I'm thinking I can get a little more down adjustment on the rear while adjusting the UMF up a little to even things up a little more.

[Willy]

I got the blade hitch bolted on top of the cross beam now and we got another 3" or so of snow night before last, so I got out and after taking care of a few minor issues, got out and started shoving snow around. The blade is just making good contact with the pavement with the touch control lever all the way down and it's really working great like that. I think I've found the sweet spot. I did reset the upper stop so nothing hits the engine when the blade is up. I saw in a thread ( viewtopic.php?f=1&t=99322 ) where poly strips were being used on the edge of blades. I've been looking for something to put between the blade and the pavement and the poly is looking like it might be just what I've been looking for.

[Willy]

I was messing around down in the shop and it hit me that while I kept saying I was going to go, I never got around to actually checking the transmission oil. So, I put a bucket under it and pulled the level plug. Nothing. So I pulled the top plug and started pouring gear oil into it. And when it started coming out the level hole, it was water contaminated. So, I stopped filling it and pulled the drain plug. I just left it draining overnight and will fill it back up tomorrow with something to flush it with.

Another example of why a new paint job isn't a restoration. It's been under a roof since at least 2002 and was supposedly restored in 03.

[Waif]

You're gainin. Lots of good fabricating.
Them fluids are not to be trusted till you know...Tranny is a water magnet anyways.

[Slim140]

If it’s gets washed the water will go down the gear stick. Condensation too.

[Willy]

I'm glad you mentioned washed. When it was doing the parade and show thing, it was getting washed before every outing.

And there's been condensation on the outside of it a few times these past couple of weeks with the hard freezes and the somewhat warmer shop.

[Willy]

You're gainin. Lots of good fabricating.
Them fluids are not to be trusted till you know...Tranny is a water magnet anyways.

I put a metal cupholder on it yesterday. Gotta have something to hold my coffee or Dr Pepper.



The pipe was what they used in parades to hold the flag. I just bobbed about 10" off of it, and drilled and tapped it to hold the cupholder which came off of one of Mrs Willy's old electric wheelchairs. That's just the final fit. Going to take it back off and paint it Farmall red in the next few days once the transmission oil is taken care of.

[outdoors4evr]

That pipe is in a very precarious location when the cub comes to a sudden stop. (I didn't say "IF", I said "When")
I think I'd go with shifter height.

[Willy]

That pipe is in a very precarious location when the cub comes to a sudden stop. (I didn't say "IF", I said "When")
I think I'd go with shifter height.

It's a lot shorter than what it was when I got it. The original height as a flag pole holder would have caught me in the ribs and it had a very rough cut on the upper end. This was a trial fit, but looking at it some more, it could be a bit shorter. It was cut to that height as I measured it sitting in the seat and went a little below seat height. Also, I probably need to put the holder pointing to the rear as well. I still want to use it to hold a flag should I decide to run the Cub in a parade. But first, gotta take care of the transmission oil (and widen the wheel track out to 48").

[Waif]

You're gainin. Lots of good fabricating.
Them fluids are not to be trusted till you know...Tranny is a water magnet anyways.

I put a metal cupholder on it yesterday. Gotta have something to hold my coffee or Dr Pepper.



The pipe was what they used in parades to hold the flag. I just bobbed about 10" off of it, and drilled and tapped it to hold the cupholder which came off of one of Mrs Willy's old electric wheelchairs. That's just the final fit. Going to take it back off and paint it Farmall red in the next few days once the transmission oil is taken care of.

Heck yes.
More fancy than my pop bottle of water bouncing around in the tool box....

I cleaned up and put new batteries in an older Jazzy chair ( low backed seat on it) and have not come up with a way to transport it yet.
The carrier you two had smashed is one of the better looking options ( far as being practical) so far , but ties up the hitch from hauling the tractor's trailer..
Then ,there needs to be a way to haul it with the tractor with the belly mounted brush hog. There are options....
For now ,crutches are used and ride on the steel plate added as a seat back.

[Willy]

If you had a ramp that you could get the chair up on the trailer.

Got the transmission flushed out and refilled this afternoon. And then went around with the steering box which was packed full of water contaminated grease. The fill level plug was twisted off and apparently some one had drained the oil out and packed the steering box full of grease. I managed to the almost all of it out and refilled with 90w. And in the middle of that operation, I managed to jam up the steering shaft and it took me a while to finally smarten up and take the other end of the shaft loose so I could unjam it.

Good thing I had about 3 gallons of kerosine to flush with.

[Willy]

Another milestone day. I reset the rear wheel spacing this afternoon to 44". Just pulling wheel rims and swapping sides with them was easy enough with both sides off the ground. Even with the front axle wedges in, I treated it like a balancing act in that whenever there was just one wheel on it, I made sure that it was on the right side. With only a floor jack and a pair of 3 ton jack stands, I had to get a little creative to keep it supported on the jackstands as at 40", there wasn't much room under the drawbar close to the finals and I didn't want to get too far from them as my drawbar isn't that straight to begin with. It's about a half inch lower on the right side. But I used a piece of thick wall 2" c-channel to go across the jackstands and on under the finals on both sides. Probably wasn't supposed to do that way, but I got away with it and hopefully won't have to do it again. The rear wheels never got more than about a half inch off the floor when bolted to the Cub as I was trying to only raise it enough to get the wheels on and off.

When putting the wheels on the centers which stayed on the Cub along with the wheel weights, I took a 3ft length of 1/2" barstock and used that as a "guide/lifting bar on the top holes to get the two side bolts in and the nuts finger tight. I ran the bar through the rim lug and into the hole corresponding hole in the center. After that it was just put the other two bolts in and tighten it all up. Easy peasy.

44" gave me plenty of room for the plow depth adjust lever to clear the tire which it wouldn't do at 40". But now in the down position, the lever hits the fender. Hopefully a little gentle massaging with a block of wood and a 3lb shop hammer will work in giving me enough clearance for the lever on the fender.

I didn't realize it until I got to looking at the fronts after widening the rears, but my fronts were already set wide. They still have a half inch or so more track width than the rears.

Since replacing all that old grease in the steering box with 90w gear oil, I found another reason why it was done that way. There's a nice puddle of 90w under the gear box. It drove good with the grease for years and I'm thinking about going back to it for now.

[Glen]

Hi,
Below is a page from the 1950 Cub owner's manual showing the front axle width adjustments.

http://farmallcub.com/rudi_cub/www.clea ... e%2046.jpg

If there is one empty adjustment hole showing outboard of the axle clamps, then it is set to the 44" width, so you would use that with the 44" rear width.

Below is a pic from TM Tractor of the adjustable part of the front axle, there are 5 holes for width adjustment. The bigger hole is the spindle shaft hole.

[staninlowerAL]

Since replacing all that old grease in the steering box with 90w gear oil, I found another reason why it was done that way. There's a nice puddle of 90w under the gear box. It drove good with the grease for years and I'm thinking about going back to it for now.

There's been some discussions about substituting corn head grease in situations like you described. Seems to be a bit more flowable than regular grease.