[Farmall] Gear puller

[birddog]

Karl,

No commercial here, but let me tell my tale:

Last winter I tried for two weekend sessions to remove the flywheel from 
a Polaris 400 cc engine.  Taper on the shaft and in the flywheel.  It 
would not budge.  Had to come off to replace the starter drive that the 
P O took out and left out when it went bad.  I could not apply much heat 
because of the coils behind the F W.  Also could not hammer more than 
taps due to crank shaft bearings and an aluminum engine.  I totally 
mushed over the end of the screw on two imported harmonic balancer 
pullers turning on them with a socket and an 18" breaker bar.  The 
flywheel would not budge.  I went to Sears and bought their harmonic 
balancer puller for $22.00, knowing that if that broke, it would be 
replaced free.  Walla!  Put about as much force on it with the 18" 
breaker bar as I could muster.  I put two light pry bars behind the 
flywheel to absorb shock, with a light outward pressure, gave the bolt 
head on the puller a light hit and off she popped.  Actually scared me 
when it popped.  I used as much force with the hammer hit as I dared 
(but not a hard hit), because repeated beating would not be a good idea 
and it wasn't easy needing three hands and only having two hands and a 
knee involved.

For what it is worth, there is the story.  I am not the biggest Sears 
tool fan that ever lived, but I also didn't want to pay over $100.00 for 
the regulation Polaris flywheel for a one shot deal.  Now and then Sears 
is just the right place to go.

Your mileage may vary.


Charlie V. in cool and rainy WNY.


Karl Olmstead wrote:
> I hadn't thought about ebay as a potential source.  I've been browsing 
> the major machine tool vendors... MSC, Rutland Tool, Enco, etc.  I am 
> definitely looking for something American-made.  The Asian stuff is 
> often adequate for undemanding jobs, but when you're pushing the 
> limit, American tools from the 40's thru 60's are hard to beat.  My 
> Monarch lathe was built in 1944, and I can hold tolerances of a 
> thousandth of an inch or less quite easily on it.
>
> I'm pretty sure that rust isn't a factor, since the steering gear sits 
> inside a lube reservoir.  I doubt that there are any setscrews, but 
> I'll have to check.  The gear is pressed onto a big shaft with two 
> straight keys and secured by a large, fine-thread nut.  The 
> castellated nut has a cotter pin to keep it from unscrewing from the 
> shaft.  Hadn't thought about beating the shaft out of the gear; I'm 
> sure it would work, but it'd be a race to see whether the gear came 
> off or the end of the shaft mushroomed (even with nut in place).  I 
> was pounding on the shaft of my puller with a 5-pound sledge, but no 
> movement occurred.
>
> The shaft is maybe an inch and an eighth in diameter, the gear over an 
> inch thick, so there's plenty of mating surface.  Heating might help, 
> but I suspect that the shaft will be warming up nearly as rapidly as 
> the gear since they are obviously in intimate contact.
>
> I don't absolutely HAVE to get the gear off, but at this point, it's a 
> matter of principle (or tool lust).  I want a beefy enough puller to 
> handle gears like this one, and since I broke the Harbor Fright unit, 
> I obviously need a new puller.  I recall a discussion regarding gear 
> pullers a few years back.  Somebody typed in part of a Snap-On 
> catalog.  They offered a 'pulling system' that added up to well over a 
> thousand bucks if you bought all the options.  If I can find a good, 
> beefy puller for a hundred bucks or so, I'll be thrilled.  I'm just 
> trying to get a feel for what kind of tonnage I might need.
>
> -Karl
>
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