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

[farmallgray at aol.com]

John,
I may not be much help but I'll try.
In modern automotive engines the cam bearings can be replaced without being line bored. If the bearings are fairly heavy wall thickness (say 1/8" or more) I would think they could be removed and reinstalled (in the same hole they came out of) with a good set of bearing drivers.

I have the book "Overhauling the McCormick-Deering Farmall tractor" and it doesn't mention anything about cam bearing clearences. I don't have my I&T manual on the F-series handy to check it. I would think the clearences would be roughly the same as for the rod bearings. You are right about it being a slow speed engine and also with very low oil pressure.

You might check with Gordon Rice (Rice Equipment) and see if he has new bearings available.
He also has?service manuals available. Check with the shop doing the hot tanking to see if they know of any way to protect the bearings. But the chemicals they use are supposed to disolve most anything.




You may also rethink things a little. Maybe just pull the sleeves and clean everything out by hand with brushes etc. Maybe soak it with degreaser and use a good hot water/steam pressure washer. Just some thoughts.


Todd Markle
Spring Mills, Pa.


-----Original Message-----
From: John Gustafson <gustafsonjohnc at wildblue.net>
To: farmall at lists.antique-tractor.com
Sent: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 6:52 pm
Subject: [Farmall] Looking for some help with a 1928 Regular.



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
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