[Farmall] Looking for some help with a 1928 Regular.

[John Gustafson]

About a year ago, my son bought a warehouse in Houston as an investment / storage area for his overabundance of toys. One of the things that went with the deal was a rusty old 1928 Farmall that had belonged to what had been the farm back when. Best we could research it had been parked sometime in the 50's. How it got inside the warehouse we don't know, but there it was on steel.

We decided to see if we could rebuild it and get it running. That might have been a soft headed decision on our part but over the past year the teardown has proceeded on the engine and it has been fun. Mag was trashed, governor possibly (another task) but amazingly the block and head seem solid (so far) and most of the pieces seem to be ther in some sort of condition. We did pick up a 1930 Regular as a parts tractor just in case.

Evidence is clear that someone has been into it before, no surprise, and none to gently.

Anyway, to the point of all this. The engine is out and stripped except for the cam bearings and the cylinder sleeves.  The goal is to get the blocked dipped, Caustic to get rid of 80 years of sludge, acid to clear out 80 years of rust from the cooling passages.

I figure the sleeve seals will be destroyed but they seem readily available. The cam bearings however are the cause of this e-mail. 

Can the camshaft bearings be pulled and reinserted.  Anyone know if the bearings could be masked during the process?

Next question is does anyone have any info on bearing clearance or fit to the camshaft?  

My instincts tell me that the bearings should be line bored and fitted to the cam at installation so that reusing would not be an option.  Still this is 80 year old technology and a slow turning engine so I may be overly gun shy. 

Does anyone know of a source for these bearings outright. I can get them reproduced if I have to but it would be a lot easier if I could just purchase a set.

I have posted this question on a couple of the other tractor forums and so far the silence has been deafening. Hopefully, someone here can give some guidance.

John G