super a rear axle help

I have a 49 Super A that is leaking rear end grease from around the brake housing on the right side.It is dripping out from the slot where the brake rod enters the housing.I will note that I am a novice at tractor repair and am not sure if there is a seal or gasket needing to be replaced.Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

There is a seal there.

Replacement involves removal of the final drive, shaft housing and seat platform as a unit, freeing up the brake drum from the shaft, and driving the shaft to the outside.

Lets try the least expensive and easiest fix first. On the bottom of that final drive casting, inside front, is the fill and fill to level plug. remove it and drain off the excess. Requires a 1/2" drive handle.

Next on the side of transmission directly below front tip of left fender, probably partially hidden behind the brake activation rod is the transmission fill to level plug. remove that one and drain off any excess. This recessed plug is not 1/2 or 3/8, you reqire a piece of key stock, forgotten size but will measure in the morning.

What I think has been happening, the transmission has been overfull and leaking down into the final drive. Try this, and I think your problem will stop. You may have to change seals between final drive and transmission, however bear in mind if transmission has been overfull, the excess will leak to final drive even if the seal is good.

Try it for awhile with each compartment at proper level, that failing seal is next step. Let me know how much excess you drain from each compartment. Any questions, please come back.

SAS, I did this with mine, and took some pictures, which might be helpful.
There are seals, no gaskets. Even so, on the casting of the 'final drive', there is a hole that serves no purpose that I can see except to serve as a "weephole", and secondarily as a nice hole for mice to get in.

Here is the inside of the R final drive casting with the brake drum and the drive shaft removed. No. 1 is where the brake rod goes out the front, and you can see all the chaff stuck there. No. 2 is the hole in the bottom of the casting, and there is no reason I can see that oil that gets through the seals can't drip down to the ground, as the hole exits underneath by No. 3. Perhaps your bottom hole is plugged with dirt/chaff, and thus the oil is rising and coming out by the brake rod. No. 4 is the seal in the casting, and as you can see, a former owner put it in backward, as the lip of the seal is supposed to face the oil, which is in with the bull gear behind the seal.



Ideally, there should be no oil in this chamber, as the brake band will slip if it gets coated with oil. My brake band was SATURATED with oil.

Continued...part 2...

Here is a picture of that same casting, with the drive shaft still in it, and how I supported it for removal...



...and where that final drive bolts to the cast tube that is bolted to the differential. You can see the seal in the side of the differential, but it's way in there, and I couldn't get it out without taking that differential housing tube off...



...which required blocking the front of the tractor with wedges of wood so that the front couldn't tip, and careful jacking under the tractor so that housing tube could come off.

continued, part 3...

Here's the final drive casting off the left. Here, the inner seal is right in front of you.



And from the L side, an end-on look at the brake drum. In the upper of the 3 slots, you can see the bolt and it's jam nut that binds the drum to the shaft. Loosen the jam nut, then the bolt, and with some work, you can wiggle/pry the drum off the shaft. BTW, it is 'keyed' so it won't spin on the shaft.



The R side is exactly similar, only the shaft is way longer.
Here you can see the other side of the drum, and it's bolt, and another view of that 'weephole".

continued, part 4...

To remove the differential shaft from either casting, you have to remove the brake drum, and then this cover held by 4 bolts. (Now that I think of it, I think there may be gaskets under these covers),



You then see this, the end of the shaft with it's bearing.



You can see inner and outer "C"-clips. The inner holds the bearing onto the shaft, and the outer stops the bearing-with-shaft from walking into or through the casting. It is the cover itself which keeps them from "walking" outward. The shaft and bearing will come out as a single piece. Scotty's may have been tighter, but on mine, all I had to do was pop the inner end of the shaft with a piece of 2x4, and the bearing/shaft slid right out, both sides.

continued, part 5...

Here's the removed-housing, not as heavy as I thought it would be.



Here you can see the inner seal, and the floor jack under the differential case. Again, it is VITAL that the front end be blocked adequately, as it is the R front wheel that keeps it all from tipping over to the right.



Scotty took his "floor"-with-pedal-assemblys off as a unit with the differential tube. I was able to take enough bolts out to be able to tip the floor pan up sufficiently that I was able to leave the floor/pedals in place, as you can see in the pic. Here's a bigger view, after the tube was back in place after I replaced the inner seal.



Any other questions about all this, start another post.
I did this to my '49 because my brakes were slipping, due to the leaking oil. Hopefully, Hugh's cure will be sufficient, but at least you can see what you'd be up against.
Good luck!

(quoted from post at 20:05:09 01/19/09)Next on the side of transmission directly below front tip of left fender, probably partially hidden behind the brake activation rod is the transmission fill to level plug. remove that one and drain off any excess. This recessed plug is not 1/2 or 3/8, you reqire a piece of key stock, forgotten size but will measure in the morning.

Click to expand...

Hugh: Hey, ol' buddy, let me save you the trouble. It is 5/16" square stock. Two inches in length is plenty. mike

THANKS FOR ALL THE INFORMATION.I CHECKED THE FINAL DRIVES AND THE LEVELS ARE GOOD. THE TRANSMISSION HOWEVER WAS OVERFILLED.I DRAINED IT TO THE PROPER LEVEL AND WILL KEEP A GOOD CHECK ON IT OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS.THANKS TO ALL WHO RESPONDED AND HELPED A NEWBIE TO TRACTOR REPAIR.

SuperAsquirrel: This economical fix can work, but not always. I have 3 tractors here, all leak if transmission is overfull. Something I do once each year is jack each rear wheel. As wheel lifts off floor watch for looseness of axle in relation to final drive housing. Once I have wheel off floor, I turn it listening for anything unusual.

Save Pete's photos and direction, you may need them. He has very good direction there. It's a lot of work to remove those final drives. If the leaking stops and final drive runs quiet, no loosness of axle, I wouldn't touch it. Looseness on the axle in the final drive is your biggest danger. I have seen them get loose enough the bull gear and pinion ride up on each other enough to slip over a tooth, and in doing so break the final drive casting. I've only seen that once, neighbor called me to come and look, surprisingly this tractor had not leaked.

What was the condition of the oil you removed? Did it look milky? Often times these old Farmalls get transmission overfull as a result of water. Water can occur two ways; condensation and rain. These gear shift levers are not very water proof. Due to position rain deflection from higher points on tractor can run down the shift lever and into the transmission. If I leave my SA and 140 out in the rain, I always place a bucket over the gear shift lever. I have a 6"x6" section of inner tube with hole in middle down over shift lever, to the spring of my 130. I have it sealed with epoxy. Looks ugly, but it always works.

Lots of long hour days will evaporate water from transmissions. We never had these problems when these tractors were clocking 400-1,000 hours per year. The tractor is much like the owners, needs exercise.

Mike Thanks, however I think he was done before he received the answer. We had more of that damn snow last night. By the time I got the driveway plowed, went to town, did some other chores, he had his answer. I tell you, we old guys got to be fast, if we're going to be much help.

Nice pics, Pete! With good explanations.

I wish I'd taken as many pics with as much detail when I'd done either of mine, The SuperC or the BN.

As far as the seat platform, I was paraphrasing the I&T as far as leaving it on. Of course that would have meant removing the pedal guard and the return springs. It was probably easier going at it the way you did. On my BN, I stripped the whole machine down to bolts and parts, so the platform was leaning against the wall by the time I got to the diff housings.

I was surprised too at how little weight there is to those housings as compared to what I expected.(Same, too with the torque tube, but that's another story). Anyway, I mounted the housing back to final, then installed the shaft, Wired the inner end of the shaft up just as a preventive measure, then put the whole thing back as a unit, removing the wire once I had the shaft aligned. Without the seat platform in the way, she slid right home.

Hugh and Scotty, thanks for the kind words. Coming from you gentlemen, it is high praise indeed!
I try to read and absorb everything you two write, and consider it good as 'gospel'.

Pete: You deserve what we had to say. Like Scotty said, I wish I had taken more photos over the years. Makes the explanations a whole lot easier. You did a good job on this.

These offset tractors are rather unique when it comes to taking them apart, especially keeping it all balanced as you remove items. I can't stress enough the care one should take to avoid injury. I've stripped sown couple of offsets, just about as difficult as a Farmall 300 or 560. I didn't think splitting my 560 at clutch, back of TA, removing IPTO, axles carriers and transmission top was near as dangerous as doing much the same with my 130. For others watching, don't think because it's a little tractor, disassembly will be a cup of tea. Take care and keep a copy of Pete's photos.

Pete, you're too kind. You may not know of it, but Mac Davis had a recording back in the 70s of a song, "Lord, it's hard to be humble, when you're perfect in every way." Maybe try Googling for the lyrics -- it was done very much tongue-in-cheek.

I say that by way of saying I'm known to screw it up every now and then, too, and when it gets pointed out to me (however gently or roughly that may be done), I take the attitude I've learned something adn try to make sure whoever asked the question sees the correction.

This board is meant for everybody to be able to contribute and a lot of folks of every level of experience and ability do. And apart from basic procedures on things, there's always little tricks to be picked up her and there that someone figured out or learned along the line. For the most part it's all good advice; if it's dead wrong, someone else will chime in to set things straight.

But, again, kudos to you on your contributions to this thread. They'd be a big help to anybody getting into that job.

By way of sharing, the link below is to a few of the pages left from a website I sued to keep running, and will get going again here one day. Has some pics from my BN project mostly.
A couple of my projects

The oil was milky so I drained the transmission completely,rinsed with kerosene and refilled with new oil.The fill plug I checked had a 1/2" square head on it instead of a 5/16" square hole.Is this the right plug?It was in the location you said to look so I assumed it had been changed at some point.
Once again thanks for all your advice.It has been very helpful.It is good to know there are still people willing to help others without trying to profit from it.I just hope one day I can return the favor to you or someone else who is struggling with a problem.

Thanks, Jamie

Thanks for all the info and pictures.I'm sure I'll need these sooner or later and will save them.I for one will give praise to you,Hugh,Scotty and the others for quick response and good information that has helped me understand more about how my tractor works.
Thanks, Jamie

Jamie: This board is about passing along what you learn. If you do that, then the old guys don't have to type so hard. Believe me, most of us are a long ways from professional typing.

Scotty: Are you suggesting I'm egitistical, and you get better looking each day. hahaha

Scotty: Just finished reading your article, very well done.

Is George Goodwin still living? He used to post here at YT quite regularly, but haven't seen a thing since 2006. He wasn't a very young man by any measure back then, and I don't think he enjoyed great health. Maybe I'm wrong, if so correct me.

I'll pu this down here in jopes you'll find it rather than start a new thread.

Thanks for the kind remarks. I do have to gt off my duff here ine if these days and get the whole site filled in and back up.

As for George, I really don't know. We kept up a correspondence for a while even after he dropped off the boards, but it waned about the time I took the job in Ohio. I know he did have some health issues, but no idea what or how serious they were. I do know he loved that M but decided to sell it as it was just too tall for him to comfortably get on and off it.

I've been thinking lately I ought to fire up one of the old computers to see if I can find his old email address. That or he was a very active ebayer, and see if I can track him down that way.

Scotty: I remember the discussion leading up to your going to help George with his tractor. He really wasn't on YT a lot after that. I encountered him a lot on discussion, as I recall he traded in a lot of old iron in his lifetime. Just curious about his well being.

The old RedRev.

Yep, that was maybe the first weird situation I ever got into on the boards. A lot of folks got their noses out of joint when he sold it after I helped fix his clutch. The bothersome part is that he and I were square on that issue -- he told me up front that he was going to have to sell it, even put a price out if I wanted it. (Reasonable, too, but I couldn't swing it at the time and wouldn't have had a place to put it if I could have.) Made no difference to me. If he'd needed help fixin' it to use it or to get it ready to sell, I'd have helped either way, just for the experience and enjoyment.

He'd paid top dollar for it "restored" and paid to have it hauled up from Texas, I believe. When I got to it, the clutch fingers were so slack that the throwout bearing couldn't reach them. I don't know how they got it off the trailer.

Whatever his infirmities, George was a good sport and a good right hand, sittin' on a stool, workin' the handle on the floor jack to let the hydraulic tank down and handin' me tools while I went at the rest of it. Wrassle as I did, I could NOT get that clutch down out of there. That and, despite his pastoral vocation, he was remarkably tolerant of my efforts at verbal lubrication and motivation of spiritually inert tractor parts, some of which was quite colorful. In the end, I marked a shim and we turned the motor as I set the fingers to meet the face of the bearing, and then locked down the jam nuts. Biggest recollection is that there was a lot of VERY fine grit stuck to eerything up in there, most likely from sandblasting, to make her look good on the outside. Probably just as well that I couldn't get the clutch out and adjusted her in place, just for the sake of keepin' the abrasive crud out of things.

I thought it was a good day's enjoyable, rewarding work and got a little resentful myself of the heat he took for selling it not long after. My view is (and was) if I was alright with the arrangement, I was the only one with any time or effort in helping him out, and could not grasp hy anybody else had any standing to be upset about it if I wasn't. Oh, well.

If I'm able to scare him up, I'll mention you to him. Apart from that I'll let you know what, if anything, I learn. If you'd like, ping me and I'll share your email with him or his with you, as you prefer, if I should make contact.