Ford model-T tractor converson

[jdcrawler]

Both rear wheels were locked up on the tractor. Today I cut the drive chains off and removed the model-T rear axle.




Here is the rear axle on the lift cart. It turns freely when I turn the driveshaft and the pinion gears inside work properly when I hold one axle or the other while turning the drive shaft.




I was very pleased to find out that both rear hubs spin freely. It was the rusted drive chains that had everything locked up.




The front axle is removed from the frame.



The steering arms and the axle spindles are removed. I can tell right now that this axle will not support the weight of the model-A engine.




The back of the axle has a bar welded to it to keep the axle from moving forward or backward.
This part would probably work fine but I would feel much more comfortable with longer radius arms on each side that are mounted farther back on the frame. So I'm going to change that.




The size of the webbing of the axle is strong enough but there a weak area right in the center where the hole goes thru for the mounting bolt.
This area definitely needs to be beefed up.

 

[jdcrawler]

A pair of soup cans make Interesting hub caps on the rear hubs. I will probably have to use the same thing, just ones that are in a little better shape.




Removed the rear drums today and the bearings look to be in good condition.




I was surprised to find that both sides still have the complete brake assemblies and they are also in good condition.




This is the backing plate and axle with the brakes removed.




And one of the brake assemblies.




When I first got this tractor, I thought that they may have used a pair of front hubs off a car and bolted them onto the back. And that is what they did. These are front hubs off a car from the early 1930's with mechanical brakes.




These were positioned on the tractor with the brake lever behind the frame so the operator could work them by hand.




If I switch these hubs to the opposite side, then the brake lever would be in front of the frame and I could hook up linkage to a brake pedal.






At this point, the frame is stripped all the way down as far as it can go.

 

[MNGB]

Looking good JD your making good progress I like your idea of switvhing the drums around and being able to use a brake pedal(s) that would be handier than reaching back for the levers

 

[jdcrawler]

I used my air grinder to clean as much of the rust off the frame as I could. Then I sprayed the frame with Eastwood Fast Etch and used a wire brush to work the liquid into all the corners and pitted areas.
Here is the frame after the Fast Etch has dried.




I'm reinforcing the frame with a piece of 1-1/2 inch angle iron welded to each side.




The angle iron is 1/4 inch thick wall and it extends all the way to the back of the frame.




The frame is now primed with Rustoleum red primer.




All the brackets and steel bars on this tractor have been cut with a torch so I'm cutting them on the saw to get the ends smooth.




The corners have been rounded on these parts and they are ready for primer.

 

[jdcrawler]

Getting ready to start putting pieces back together and get it up on wheels and tires. To do that, I need a set of wheel adapters for both the front and rear wheels. The front isn't a problem. I'll be going from 65 Ford mustang, 4-bolt hubs to 5-bolt wheels and I've already bought a set of adapters for them.

The back is a different story. The hubs are early GM 6-bolt on 5-1/2 inch centers and the wheels are tractor 6-bolt on 6 inch centers. I quickly discovered that they make 6-bolt on 5-1/2 centers to 6-bolt on 6-1/2 centers but no one makes an adapter for 6-bolt on 6 inch centers. There are companies that will custom make adapters but that is really expensive.

So .. I'm going to make my own adapters. My son got me a pair of 7-1/2 inch by 2 inch thick pieces of aluminum.
Here I'm cutting the center out with a hole saw.




I put the pieces on the lathe and finished bored the holes to the same size. Then I turned down two pieces of wood to fit into the holes.




A larger piece of wood is attached to one of them and it is turned down to fit the opening in the wheel.




This centers the aluminum ring to the wheel.




The wheel is turned over and the first hole is marked on the adapter ring with a center punch.




A small hole is drilled thru the ring at this point. The lug holes on the wheel are 3 inches apart so I turn the ring over and make a mark 1-1/2 inch over from the small drilled hole. This is to locate the holes for GM bolt pattern half way between the holes for the tractor wheel pattern.




The other wood block is turned down to fit the center in the GM wheel and the first hole is marked with the center punch.




This hole is drilled out to 7-16 inch ( the size of the GM wheel studs ) .




A 7/16 inch bolt and a lug nut is used to locate the ring to the GM wheel and the other 5 holes are marked with the center punch.




They are all drilled out to finish size and the ring is test fit onto the GM hub. The adapter is ready to have the counterbores drilled into it on this side to get to the lug nuts that will hold the adapter onto the GM hub.

 

[jdcrawler]

I have ordered lug studs for the wheel adapters so I can't go any further on them until they arrive.
The rear hubs and backing plates were sand blasted and primed today.






Some of the bolts holding the backing plates and axles onto the frame were rusted really bad so I'm using all new mounting bolts.




For some reason, the lower part of the steel channel that the rear axles bolt to are angled out at the bottom.




So the upper two spacers are a little thicker than the lower spacers so the axle will be level.




The backing plates and axles are set in place and the four spacers for the brake hardware are slid onto the bolts.




Then the brake assembly is put on and everything is tightened down.

 

[jdcrawler]

Cleaned and greased the bearings and mounted the hubs today.




Then I turned the frame over to work on putting the bracing back on.




Initially, the pieces of angle iron that the front of the braces were bolted to were fastened to the outside of the frame with a spacer block between them and the bracing bar.




I cut a notch in the piece of angle iron so they fit around the frame and bolt directly to the bracing bar. The angle iron is then welded to the frame.




More views of the rear bracing bars.






Time to work on the front axle. .......
First thing is to cut that rear brace off.




Then spend some quality time in the sand blasting cabinet.




And finally put some primer on it right away before it starts to rust again.
Now I need to figure out how I'm going to add bracing to it and what I'm going to use to do that.

 

[jdcrawler]

I have a piece of 1-3/8 inch solid square steel bar that is bent at 90 degrees. I set it up against the underside of the axle and there was a 1-1/2 inch gap between the ends of the square bar and the axle.

I set the square bar in the press and heated up the center so I could push it down and spread the ends out to fit the lesser angle of the axle.




After sandblasting and trimming the ends off, the square bar is welded to the underside of the axle for extra support.




The support bar is finished off with gusset plates welded in place and then primed.
This is the front.




And the back.
The tabs at the ends of the the support bar are where the radius arms will attach to it.




The cross piece to mount the axle to is bolted back into the front of the frame. this is only held in place with four 5/16 bolts so I also welded it to the inside of the frame.




Setting the front axle in place.




Originally, this only had the axle pivot bolt going thru the single mounting plate with a second pivot bolt to hold the rear brace in place.
I have added a second mounting plate so the axle is supported between them.
Here I have chained the frame down to the wood block and I'm using a jack to lift up on the pivot bolt.




This tilts the axle forward to put some camber in it.




The rear mounting plate is welded in place and a nut is welded to it that the pivot bolt threads thru. Then a lock nut will be tightened down on the bolt so it doesn't move and the axle will pivot on it.




Everything is cleaned up and primed.

 

[jdcrawler]

......... BOY DID I SCREW UP. .........
As soon as I realized it, I knew that I should have known better right from the start.

I'll explain the screw up but first .. the front axle is mounted in place. With the amount of side to side travel that this axle has, this tractor should be able to go over some extremely rough ground.




I used a grade-5 bolt for the pivot mount and it is drilled and taped for a grease fitting.




Now the screw up. .......
The technology that I was going to use for making the radius arms is something that I, and thousands of other people, have used on thousands of hotrods over the years with the straight front axles. They remove the 3-point - wishbone radius rad and make individual radius arms that fit on the sides of the frame.

I had intended to use these old home made radius arms, that I had picked up at a swap meet a life time ago, to keep the axle from moving forward or backward.




I cleaned them up and added another steel strip to the front on each one to form a U-shape mount. These are drilled and tapped for 3/8 shoulder bolts.




This is how I intended to mount them on the frame.
The problem is that the mounting point on the axle is too far away from the axle pivot point. When the axle is rocked over to the side, this causes the mount on the frame to want to slide forward or backward about 1-1/2 inches.
Even if I raise the mount up on the frame, it still doesn't work because the radius arms are just too far from the axle pivot point.




The reason this style of radius arms ( one on each side ) works on the cars is because the arms are mounted close to the same plane as the pivot point of the axle and wheels.
With the center pivot point of the axle being so much higher then the wheels, I have to use a 3-point - wishbone style of radius arm ... just like whoever built this tractor in the first place used !

Oh well ... the day wasn't a total loss because I now have a nice clean pair of radius arms that are ready to be used on some other project.

 

[CRF6179]

Thanks for your honesty and the explanation.
Glad to see I am not the only one to make a good plan and then go OH S#%T.
You already have the solution, so keep on giving us the build pictures and we will forgive you!

 

[MNGB]

Thanks for all the great updates JD yep I can see the problem clearly now but like you said you have the rods for another project and have a good alternative

 

[UncleWillie]

Plan your work. Work your plan. Expect the plan to fail. Regroup, plan again.

 

[jdcrawler]

This is the piece of channel iron that fits across the two frame rails that the bracket for the radius arm will fasten too.
One side of the channel has been cut off with a torch so I put it on the mill to smooth that edge down.




It is then bolted onto the underside of the frame rails.




This is the bracket that will bolt to the center of the channel and the pivot bolt for the radius arm will thread into it.
You can see the white lines where I will cut the ends off at an angle to make it look cleaner.




This is the wish bone radius arm that I cut off the axle.




The arm is sand blasted and the rough welds have been smoothed down.




The center of the radius arm is bolted onto the mounting bracket.




The outside ends of the radius arm has brackets welded to it so they can be bolted to the mounting tabs on the axle.
This radius arm also maintains the high clearance in the center.




Now the axle is supported so it can't move forward or backward but can still swing from side to side for going over rough ground.






The pivot bolt for the radius arm has a lock nut on the back side to hold it in place and keep it from rotating, just like the pivot bolt on the axle.

 

[jdcrawler]

The wheels studs arrived so I'm now drilling the counterbore in the holes for them to fit into.




The counterbores are 1-inch deep. This leaves 1-inch of metal for the studs to be pressed into and 1-inch of thread sticking out for the lug nuts to be threaded on to hold the wheel on.




The studs are pressed into the holes.






The wheel studs in the hubs are only about an inch long so I'm using these special lug nuts for the old style mag wheels to fasten the adapters onto the hubs. This will leave 7/8-inch thick material for the lug nuts to grip to.




The adapter is bolted onto the hub.




And now the 16 inch tractor wheel can be bolted onto it.
I'm pretty sure that these hubs are off an early 1930's Chevrolet. The threads for the hub caps to screw onto are 2-3/8 outside diameter with 16 threads per inch. I'm trying to find a pair of old Chevy screw on caps that someone doesn't think they are made of gold and want three arms and a leg for them.

 

[SimplyRad]

If nothing else make them out of aluminum.

 

[MNGB]

JD you may have to go back with the soup cans

 

[jdcrawler]

JD you may have to go back with the soup cans

I already tried that. The older soup cans must have been smaller. I tried a Campbell's soup can and it is about 1/8 inch too big.

 

[jdcrawler]

Can anyone tell me what these axle spindles are off of ?
I think the hubs are the centers cut out of larger cast wheels. They have a dust cover that screws into them.
They had little 8-inch wheels bolted onto them but it's obvious that those were not the correct wheels.
The front bearing race threads onto the axle and there is a thick washer with a 3/8 bolt that screws into the end of the axle to tighten down on the bearing race.




It has numbers cast into them and both orange and green paint on them.




This hub is off a 1965 Mustang. I have separated the hub from the backing plate and the brake drum.
One way or another, these Mustang hubs are going on these axle spindles so I can put larger front wheels on them.

 

[JDJake]

Orange and green? The only Ag related companies that I can think of that used those colors are Allis Chalmers and New Idea. Allis used green early on, then went to Persian orange.

 

[MFDAC]

Don't have any Rambler bolt on spindle/hub setups, Ray?

DAC