restoration Another Matador

[67burwood]

I decided to split the springs on my Fordson wot6 as I couldn’t stand the harsh suspension anymore, each leaf was cleaned with a wire cup on the grinder before being greased individually and reassembled, due to the low mileage being done I think it’s highly unlikely any road dirt will cause a problem, plus it’s less likely to seize up through lack of use. Filthy dirty job but the ride has massively improved. 
 

[Jimh]

It's going to be a bit heavy on cleaning photos for a while so if images of things that are made very clean offends then you may wish to look away now. However, let's start with something causing aggro. The bearing on the rear output shaft of the transfer box is not in a happy place so is going to have to go. Lock up the box then remove this nut it says in the manual. Unfortunately this needs a 2 3/8" AF socket which we don't have. Now we need to wait for one to arrive. £15 for an impact socket - how do they do it for the money? I appreciate that it is unlikely to be the highest quality but it is going to be butchered and will only ever be used to remove/refit this nut so it is hardly a big deal. 

 

And speaking of things that have caused a lot of gyp here is a clutch brake disc which is no longer on its hub. Why? Well the clutch brake needed to come off to replace the seal behind it and it jolly well would not shift. Not for long ;leavers, hammers or 1" impact guns and yes, we know it is on a left handed thread. The problem is that damaging the shaft would be very, very troublesome so the only way out is to machine the hub off the shaft. Annoying but not as annoying as trying to find a new input shaft. The disc is fine and can be reused. 

 

That does leave you with the problem of replacing the hub so someone had the fun job of making a new one. Messing around with this took up a silly amount of time just to replace one seal(which was knackered, fortunately). Full disclosure: it took longer than it should because someone (not me) had brain fade when they were cutting the tread and did it right handed so had to start again. Practice makes perfect and all that. 

 

More things that were very tight. The back axle has refused to behave and has fought being taken to bits all the way. These nuts here were very tight indeed. They butt up to the hub bearing and have a very broad face which means when they are tightened they hang on grimly. It took the impact gun together with two people on a long pipe to break them free. 

 

It appears that 4 1/2" AF is still a standard size for rear hub nuts so there are plenty of people selling big sockets for the job. Not shown are the marks left by the biggest pair of Stilsons we have which we used to hand onto the boss of the socket while the impact was hammering away on it. Also not shown is the bent handle of the Stilsons because we had to lean on them very heavily indeed. Note Wera 1/2" ratchet. I cannot recommend these ratchets highly enough. They are absolutely lovely things and don't cost the earth.

 

The back plates for the read drums have suffered from the salt

 

And are a bit lace like so I'll have a bash at making some new ones. They could be patched up but it would probably burn more gas that starting again. 

 

One of the rear brake shaft bearings and levers. As with everything else on the back axle this took some effort to get them apart. The reason they are in a pile with a chalk mark round them is they were still stinking hot at the time and I didn't want to get anything muddled up. The bushes in the bearing blocks are knackered and need replaced. Everything else should be OK with the exception of...

 

The shafts themselves which as you can probably tell have been repaired at some point. The inboard bearing surfaces are pretty grim so these will have to get sent away for metal spraying. That's why the funny yellow marks are on them so we could get a quote from a photograph. 

 

Also visible in that photo is the clutch release bearing shaft which might have survived but if we are going over to Glasgow to drop the brake shafts off we may as well do this too. 

 

The front axle has been much easier to work with because is was further away from the salt and closer to the oil leaks. This is the axle pretty much stripped down if not yet clean. I gave it a rudimentary clean before taking the diff unit out so there wasn't too much muck around but it needs more work yet. Of more importance is the swivel bearings which are knackered and the replacement of the oil seals for the drive shafts. Fortunately they are all standard bearings so things aren't too bad. 

 

The swivels are mostly fine (apart from being full of grease) and don't need too much work. This is the offside one and although it may not look it (because it is filthy) the hub bearings are fine. The nearside ones are wrecked because someone who didn't know what they were doing tightened the hub nut up bar tight. 

 

The hubs are mostly a clean up job although we'll get new seals for them. Why there are two seals used I have no idea. 

 

The front brake shoes look like they were replaced late in its working life so they don't need anything done to them other than clean they up.

 

This is the casting which takes the track rod end and also incorporates the lock stop bolts. It sounds petty but these look a bit manky because the hex has rotted off them. We'll make new ones because things like this annoy me and keep annoying me every time I see them. The hour or so to turn new ones up (especially if it isn't me who has to do it) is a price worth paying. 

 

As an aside this is the lower swivel pin. It is not a casting but a forging so they obviously expected these to be working very hard. These axles must have cost a fortune. 

 

I wonder how much forging and machining time was involved in making these joints. They are an impressive bit of work. However, even if you aren't impressed by that aspect at least be a bit impressed how clean it is. Have I mentioned that I hate grease?

 

As long as there isn't much grease around there is something very restful about cleaning stuff. Pick something up, take it to bits, get it spotless and reassemble it all the time pondering how and why they made it the way they did. Then pick another bit up and keep going until the table is full of clean front axle bits. This is the drag link assembly complete with nice clean track rod ends. 

 

Although we have a small blast cabinet which is good for fiddly bits I prefer the wire brush and picking route because I just do even though it is filthy and you spend the next day looking like you have mascara on. You also get lots of wire stuck in your overalls and go through these things at quite a rate. 

 

More clean/new things next time.