H only moves in road gear

[Arthur Dent]

This 1945 H belonged to my wife's father. It has spent the last 20 years or so at the farm where I grew up, we brought her home last night to the farm where wife grew up. We don't do any farming here anymore, but a guy needs a few tractors around the place, right? And anyway, this one belongs here. It has transmission problems, will only move in road gear. No reverse, no PTO, according to my brother. It hasn't been started in 2 or 3 years, so I can't confirm. The first project will be getting it running, than we'll see about the gears. From what I have read and been told, I suspect the constant mesh gear. I had a short thread about it here on this forum back when it happened, it's back in the archives somewhere.

[Jim Becker]

How about 5 years?
viewtopic.php?f=176&t=81153

[Arthur Dent]

Thanks for adding the link to the old thread Jim. Hopefully it won't take nearly as long to get her fixed up as it did to get her home.

[Arthur Dent]

Update:
We got the hood and gas tank off tonight, then pulled the belt pulley gear box. I'll let photos say the rest. This is looking down into the transmission from above, through the opening where the belt pulley mounts:

It's a little hard to see in the photos, especially with the flash reflecting on the remaining oil in the sump, but you can see where some of the teeth are gone off the gear on the bottom.

[Arthur Dent]

I believe that this is indeed the constant mesh gear as others suggested earlier, it looks like there are at least half a dozen teeth gone. What would cause it to shed teeth like that? I wasn't there when it happened, but am told that he was running the Bush Hog out in the pasture near the woods. This is pretty uneven ground in places.

[Jim Becker]

It is pretty hard to do something directly to damage the constant mesh gears. My guess (and it is only a guess) is that there was some solid object floating around or on the bottom of the transmission that got picked up and jammed into the gears. It could have been a piece shed from a bearing, a tooth from another gear, or left over from a previous repair. When you dig into it, be sure to inspect all the bearings, other gears, and shift rail retainers for damage.

[Arthur Dent]

Well, that's something anyway. My brother felt pretty bad that it happened while he was using it, at least I can tell him that it wasn't likely anything he did. I certainly will give everything a good look when we get it apart, see if I can find chips or chunks missing from anywhere, as well as go through the sump to see if there is any evidence down there. Thanks Jim, good advice.
I'll be going through the carburetor in the next couple of days, hope to hear it run soon.

[Arthur Dent]

I'm working on the carb, hope to have it back together shortly so Wife at least can hear her dad's tractor run this weekend. But, is there any danger in starting and letting it run in neutral without knowing all of the gear issues in the transmission? I assume that it should be ok as long as I leave it in neutral, but is that a valid assumption?

[staninlowerAL]

Can you secure the clutch in the disengaged position?

[Arthur Dent]

I could wire the clutch pedal down, sure.

[Arthur Dent]

We finally got the '42 home this week. It sat in a fence row since the mid to late 60's at least. Nobody still living remembers why it was parked and never repaired. I hope to rob gears from it to fix the '45, what are the chances that the transmission is full of water? So far I haven't had much trouble loosening nuts and bolts, PB Blaster and a 3 foot cheater bar have been a big help. We'll likely get the belt pulley gearbox off tonight and get a narrow look down into the transmission from there before going any farther. I do have the tin and rear wheel weights, just didn't think to take a picture before taking them off. It rolled right out of the rear rims when we started pulling it.

[Slim140]

Nobody still living remembers why it was parked and never repaired.

This made me think of a friend of mine. His dad had more tractors than one needs, a lot of them were good tractors just parked. He wouldn't sell anything. His son bought a propane tractor at an auction we were at once and a mutual friend looked at it while the guy was driving it around and said to me "whichever tree it runs out of propane closest to is where it will sit from now on"

[Arthur Dent]

That probably happens more than we realize.
Well, I got the belt pulley assembly off the '42 after work today. Not really what I wanted to see, but pretty much what I expected:

But if you look below these gears at the bottom gear, what we can see of it doesn't look too horrible:

But what we can't see might be pretty horrible. I'm beginning to think I might be better off buying new (used) gears. Also, the cover bolt heads on the '42 are in pretty bad shape. The ones I can get a socket to grab on came out without much fuss, but the majority of the bolt heads are rusted down to the point where a socket won't grab them. And remember they are recessed, so I can't use a pipe wrench or similar on them. I'm a bit discouraged about the '42.

[Scrivet]

...... I'm a bit discouraged about the '42.

I think I would look at it like it's good practice for how things go together and how they come apart, to make working on the good tractor more efficient.

For the transmission deck, check into some Irwin Bolt-Grip sockets or similar. Keep the PB Blaster but loose the cheater bar and get an air impact. Start off easy and work up the torque. I had a three spindle mower deck I was taking the spindles off of. Four bolts each spindle, the first couple I tried with a 24" breaker bar. Twisted them right off. Came back a couple days later with an air impact and backed the rest out like they were finger tight.

Don't be discouraged, the 42 may be to far gone to economically be made to run again but there are a lot of good parts still on it. Including some cultivator mounting brackets that someone may be looking for. Or is the cultivator farther down the fence row and you could get it to?

[Arthur Dent]

... look at it like it's good practice for how things go together and how they come apart

Yes, good thought there, thanks. Also, I appreciate the encouragement.
I have looked at those Irwin sockets before, thanks for reminding me about them. Yeah, I know I'm taking chances with the cheater, "poor folks have poor ways". Time to put together a tool shopping list I guess.
We did look for other implements and parts when we picked up the '42, but all the other stuff, if there ever was any, was long gone. I have wondered what those brackets were for, thanks for the identification, I'll certainly hang onto them for future reference.
The cool thing here is that the '45 with the stripped gears was my wife's dad's tractor, and the '42 belonged to her uncle (her mother's brother) who lived on a nearby farm. It is possible that during their working lives these tractors occasionally worked side by side. It would be very fitting if we could use some parts, any parts, from the '42 to help fix the '45.