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Whats the craziest mech. issue you ever had?

F

Fullers Farmalls

Member
About 2 years ago I went to start my Super M and nothing. Traced it to a broken ballast resistor, next day the exact same thing happened on my 9N. I had run both the day before under normal conditions and the ignition switches were off. Both blew with in 24 hours. I thought that was crazy. Whats yours?
 
A piece of wax (crayon maybe?) floating in a school bus fuel tank. IH 466, mechanical injection. It would run great until the fuel quit flowing. Took a while to figure that one out.
 
!st cutting the coil spring on my Oliver 720 baler cracked, but didn't break. Took us an hour to figure what the trouble was.
3rd cut (of first cutting) the twine tensioner spring cracked...but didn't break in two. Another hour to find that problem.
 
Loaned my 16ft trailer out. He brought it back, said the brakes didn't work. Looked into it, both magnets were bad, open windings. No other evidence of overheating, bad wiring, nothing... I'm assuming lightning strike?
 
Hows bout a black snake in the water tank on a redly mix concrete truck! Truck had the water tank on the frame rails "saddle tank" 1st truck to load that am. Driver grab the three inch water hose laying on the ground THAT should of been hanging on the hook to KEEP it off the ground stuffed in in the tank and open the valve. Snake Had to of crawled into the hose. Only way he could of gotten in there. .
 
Several years ago I bought an MM U. Only a few miles away and drove it home. At the end of the day backed it inside the shed and closed the door. Took a step or two and heard " Brrururur" . I stopped and thought did I really hear that engine cranking ? About that time " Brrururur" again. Wasn't sure if I should open the door or just run the opposite direction ! Opened the door and it started cranking again. Well, just a shorted out starter button, but, still a little creepy.
 
Rigged out a new day cruiser boat. Lake tested, ran great, delivered to the customer. Monday morning it was back, wouldn't run. Took it out, ran great. Same story next day... Took t out, ran great... Next day, same story, wouldn't run, irate customer.

Got called in on Saturday, customer with boat load of people, madder than helo!!!

So I go out with them to see what's going on...
Sure enough, get up to speed and it fell dead, no fuel...

The gas tank was under the floor. The extra weight of more people was pushing the floor down, pushing the top of the tank down, pushing the pick up tube against the bottom of the tank... Cut off 1/2 inch at an angle, problem solved!
 
Back in the sixties, I broke a final drive shaft on a JD MT. The guy up at the shop managed to knock the fuel cap off the back of a work bench, and just got a new fuel cap and put on it. On the way home, the tractor quit- several times- so I ran it back to the dealer. They let it sit outside and run for two days, with not one miss. Headed home agian, and it started quitting again. Turned out the mechanic had replaced the cap with one from a 40. The 40 had a vented tank; the MT had a vented cap. It was drawing a suction on the tank as the gas was used, and starving for fuel.

Another one that intrigued us was a 4030 that suddenly became hard to shift without grinding. The pressures were all good, but it was a beyotch to get into gear. Happened to be working on the battery cables when I found a wood chip under a stop on the side of the transmission case, which was keeping the clutch from completely disengaging. Not a big piece- about the size of a pencil and maybe 1 to 2" long. Took me almost two years to find it. It was stuck behind the arm and over the shaft into the tranny.....
 

Was called out to a customers JD 466 Round baler. It had sat at the end of the field where it had thunderstormed a couple of days previous ending the haying. Customer had gone to start baling but the monitor had lost its mind. All the operator adjustable settings had reverted to factory default including the model of baler which comes up on the display ( thought itself to be a 566). I had to input all the values again, not a big deal, but the customer was most happy about the fact that the permanent bale count was back to 0!! Have not seen anything like that happen to a baler monitor before or since.
 
This was just last week. Loaded up the sprayer on the 4440 and headed to the field. No GPS signal. I got in the planting tractor and that one came up so it wasn't the satellite. I checked everything - every wire running to every monitor. Finally called Raven and talked to the tech. He walked me through setting it to a new satellite. It worked. Got half way to the field and it went dead again.

Swapped the one from the planting tractor. It didn't work in the spraying tractor either. That's when wheels started turning.

Come to find out the radio has some sort of short in it. The antennas were on the roof right above it where they have always been. When I called the help number I turned off the radio so it worked. Got half way to the field and the radio turned back on. When I looked at the field it had no signal.

I moved the antenna back a foot and all is well. Wasted about two days of frustration. Radio still sounds like it always has. Weird.
 
My '53 Super M. Had been cranking kinda slow for a few days - figured the battery was failing. But when I went to start to put it away following a July 4 parade, it would barely crank at all. Then after a brief hesitation smoky fire appeared under the live pump(!)

Long story short, corrosion under the battery box caused the box to lose ground. Now the battery was grounding from the box, through the rear remote hydraulic lines (steel lines bolted to the side of the box) to the Christmas tree valve, then thru the reinforcing wire in the high pressure hyd hose to the pump. It was wire in the hose that overheated at the crimp and set it afire when I cranked the engine.

After that somewhat unnerving experience, I ran a new battery ground cable direct to a starter mounting bolt.
 
Had a 64 chevy years ago. It got so one time it would start and the next time it would not. Was going to take it to the repair shop the next day. It was parked at my father-in-law place and my brother-in-law who was 9 at the time said dad and I were sitting out in front of the garage and your car tried to start it self. Knew then it was the switch.
 
Probably the most frustrating, when at the golf course we got our first new Cushman in years, the previous administration bought Toro Workmasters (slow) and EZ-GOs (better than Workmasters, but not great). After about a year we got another one, about 3 months later the first one starts acting up, almost like it's running out of fuel, I go through the fuel system time and time again...nothing, then the 2nd one starts acting up same thing, but it's still under warranty so we ship it back to the dealer. So now we're down 2 carts on a fleet of 5, 2 weeks later we get the 2nd Cushman back. Seems they mis-assembled it at the factory and put the left head on the right side and the right head on the left side. The problem is that exhaust valves became intake valves (not a problem) so the intake valves became exhaust valves (and they couldn't take the heat and burned)reducing the suction of the intake stroke.

The one that made me feel the most stupid, the EZ-Go got to be hard to start, it didn't want to turn over and the gauges went all funky anytime you tried to start it. Battery voltage was good, the alternator charged and if you jumped it it would spin over like it should. While trouble shooting it I had the dashboard open tried starting it , no go, went to move some wires and burnt my hand on the speedometer cable. Finally figured it out, the battery was grounded to the frame and there was another cable that jumpered from the frame to the engine/transmission, that cable was mostly broken, the speedometer cable got hot because it was trying to ground through it, the starter pulled more amps than the speedo cable was good for so it would get a little hot.

The one that kicked my backside was at one of the rendering plants. The presses started falling down. About the time they got the evaporators fully opened up the meal out of the presses would get wet and they'd have to slow down. It seemed to get worse every two to three weeks and they'd have to run slower and slower. Our instrument guys went through all the instruments insuring everything was calibrated, and still it got worse. Eventually my boss figured it out. Our operations director was trying to reduce the residual fat in our meal. He went to the guy we had building the press cages and gave him a box of thinner spacers and told him to start using them. Well with the thinner spacers it required an extra press bar to get the cages tight, this also means the inside diameter of the press cage was a little bigger, increasing the clearance between the cage and shaft. The increased clearance wasn't allowing the press to build enough pressure to send the fat out between the slats and dry meal out through the choke head. It got worse every two or three weeks because that's when another press timed out and we would change it out with a new shaft and "improved" cage. Oh the operations director was the company president's brother.
 
Saw a bunch of weird things working at a Chevy dealer. New Blazer with different moldings one each side, customer had it for about six months before noticing. Rattle noise that was an empty whiskey bottle inside the door, and a fully inflated tire on a Citation that had no valve stem.
My own story was a 1974 Toyota that had the seatbelt interlock bypassed with a doorbell type button under the dash. Push the button, turn the key it would start. The guy I bought it from (friends brother) gave me the keys to take it home over night. The next day he asked, How did you find the button? I said what button and he showed me. Drove that car for four years and it never would start again without me pressing the button. It must have wanted me to buy it.
 
Probably the 2 year battle with the Investigator II monitor on the 4450 MFWD. Intermittent failure, no good reason, comes back on when it wants to. Added a mechanical oil pressure gauge directly on a gallery plug, no gauges working on dash. Turn the key, if no dash lites, no gauges are working. JD knew it had a problem, finally traced it to a poor ground under the hood. Six ground wires on two bolts...I soldered jumpers across all, added a soldered wire that goes down to the frame, (battery ground) easy to clean if necessary.
 
I have an allis wheel loader. one day it would only idle and would not develop power, it has a DB2 injection pump.
After investigation I found the return T on top of the pump was plugged with of all things...with a honey bee.
I haven't a clue how that insect got to were it was.
 
I worked on a washer system that pre-sprayed a product. Sump was about 3ft deep 16in X 16in box. Pump was a shaft drive oil pump from a big block Chevy. Left side sprayer would lose pressure. I figured plugged screen by tip or plugged tip. I would shut down the system and clean then fire it back up 20 minutes later. Everything back to normal. Could never see any particles though. But it was always the left side.

This began happening daily. Finally one day I noticed the problem was always developing 3-4 hrs into a shift. So the next time it happened, I lifted the pump out of the hole. The intake screen on the pump was collapsed and plugged.

When I was shutting the machine down to clean the tips, that 20 minutes would allow a bunch of crud to fall off the suction screen. Enough crud fell off, that the pump would run another couple hours to finish the shift. Over night the rest of the crud fell off and the cycle started over the next day.

The reason it was always the left side was the tips were offset and those were 2 inches higher than the right side so they took just a touch more pressure to work. As it began to starve those were the first to fail.


The screen on the pump had 1/16th inch holes. Just small enough to keep chunks out of the oil pump gears. The particles were fine that should have easily passed through the pump and screen but for some reason they would build up.

I lifted the pump up higher in the sump to give more room on the bottom for the crud to settle.


I spent a couple weeks on that one.
 
!955 Ford 6-cylinder started stalling when I would accelerate. I couldn't find the problem, so took it to local mechanic. I worked with him for 2 days before we found the problem.

Ford had an inner metal piece glued to the inside of the cover of the oil bath air cleaner. The glue let loose and when the engine accelerated, the metal piece would suck down over the air intake of the carb and cause the engine to stall.

The fix was to install a 1/4" nut on the shaft so the metal piece couldn't suck down and shut off the air flow. I spent 6 days working on that problem! But I was young then and inexperienced.
 
Bought a Cub Cadet garden tractor with a known problem that prior owner could not figure out. It would run OK sitting still but would miss and back fire when moving. Fooled with it a while but had not figured anything out. Choke cable was froze up when I bought it but I reached up and choked it at the carburetor. Got tired of that so I put a new cable on it. Second time I went to start it the new cable was stuck, dang &*%China junk!. Bought another new cable and installed it and second time I went to start it that cable was stuck too. Gave up on choke cables but continued to fool with the tractor now and then. One evening I had it in the driveway running and it was missing sitting still, Wife comes out (who knows ding about mechanics) and yells why is it sparking down there?? Down where I asked? She points, right there! Where the choke cable passed through a hole it was sparking. I held it against the hole and tractor quit missing, then moved it away so it wasnt touching and tractor died. Choke cable sheath had become the ground due to bad ground between engine and frame. It was fixed with extra ground wire. Question still remains why did the starter work OK with limited grounding but not ignition system??
 
Used my DC case for a couple years on the corn dryer. Every so often it would just die from lack of gas. Tried everything, rebuilt the carb, changed lines, new sediment bowl. Could see the tank was clean and rust free. It would run fine for days, then be trouble for a while. Turned out it was a plastic jug cap in there, must have fallen in while pourin in gas. Every once in a while it would float over the line and stop the gas. Shut the tractor down and it would move so the tractor would run again. And it was sort of an orange color so you couldn't see it in the gas.
 
About a month ago our farmall bn forklift was parked outside. It was pointed towards my truck. It rained that night and the next morning that forklift was up against the side of my truck. The rain shorted out the key switch and it was in road gear at the time. Im not sure if it started or if the starter just cranked it over. If it had been in first gear i think it would have pushed my truck a lot harder. So right now i have a big smash in passenger door and a good story to tell.
 
Fellow I worked for years ago was from Texas. Parked the school bus he drove in high school in the yard one evening as usual. Next morning went to go on his route. Bus cranked but would not move. Called the maintenance folks and they found a broken back axle. Replaced it and still would not move. Checked the other side and it was broken also.
Don't know how they could both break sitting in the yard.
Richard in NW SC
 
Tail light issue on a Ford P/U. lights were all over the place, step on brakes turn signal flasher would come on, turn on tail lights brake lights would come on sometimes other weird stuff. Finally found a hole in the exhaust system that was blowing onto the wiring harness and had melted the insulation and the wires were somewhat soldered together. Cut out and spliced wires, patched hole and no more problem.
 
'64 chevy with a 283.Decent car but every once and awhile it would die as you were going down the road at any speed over about 35 MPH.Starving for gas.Gastank out twice to clean and flush,fuel lines cleaned out ,filters cleaned,carb checked over,fuel delivery from pump ok.Finaly decided it must be a fuel pump problem.Took the pump off and found the spring that holds the pump arm against the camshaft in pieces.Replaced pump and problem solved.
 
We had a 915 gas combine (I know that was the first problem) that was overhauled by the IH dealership. When the engine got warm it would start to cut out and miss badly under load.

The dealership came out several times trying to fix it in the field (new coil , points, plugs, plug wires and vall kinds of ignition parts) and eventually it went back to their shop to have the heads spulled and new head gaskets and intake manifold gaskets installed and the heads & intake inspected for cracks - it still missed and cut out after this "repair". Eventually the dealership dropped in another engine - they never did figure out what was wrong with the original.
 
If I had to guess: when starting you pulled the choke and the cable was pulled against the frame, creating a better ground and the starter worked the drawback was that it would weld the cable to the sheath due to the high current draw.
 
One very hot and humid night 20 years ago in the middle of the night our Deere 112 lawn mower started cranking over by itself.I went to the window and there it was just cranking away.Starter shop fellow said the humidity made it short out.Sure woke me up in a hurry.LOL Tom
 
Posted on this one a couple weeks ago...

Super C quit on me. No spark. Had 12V at the coil.

Replaced coil with a known good coil. No spark.
Replaced points and condensor with new parts. No spark.
Bypassed the ignition switch, connecting coil direct to battery with new wire. No spark.
Replaced points and condensor AGAIN with new parts. No spark.
Replaced coil with known good coil AGAIN. No spark.
Replaced coil secondary wire with known good part. No spark.

We went through everything from the battery to the distributor several times before finally giving up and pushing the tractor back into the barn.

Of all things, it turned out to be the ignition switch. Not sure what the problem was, but after installing a new ignition switch it started right up and has ever since.
 
I can relate to the whiskey bottle.

When I was with GM, we sold a new Chevy minivan to a lady. A week later, she came in with it in a rather livid frame of mind. There was a rattle in the floor on the right side.

After we tracked it down, we found a jar of pickles rolling around under the passenger seat. Her livid frame of mind became rather subdued.
 
I"ve got a customer with a Trimble EZ-Steer that will pull hard to the right when he keys the business band radio mic. We haven"t tried to diagnose it yet, but I"m betting the antenna is acting funny because the line will shift on the diplay.
 
New (to me) Jubilee would randomly stall out every few months, but then would work fine a few hours later. One time it did it on the road between fields and had to be flatbedded home as I didn't have a trailer that would take both the tractor and the mower.

Finally took apart the entire fuel system and when I blew compressed air through the fuel line a whole bunch of pine needles came out. Presumably at one point in its life it had been run with an elbow instead of a sediment bowl, and the owner at the time wasn't very careful when refueling.
 
I had a '59 Ford Galaxy 500 when in college- not long after I bought it, one morning it wouldn't start. Called a mechanic friend, he came over, identified the engine as a 332 (little sister of the 352/390 series- weak sister, if you ask me)- immediately asked me when I last changed the spark plugs. I hadn't, because I hadn't had the car but a couple of months. He told me to get 2 sets of plugs- put one set on, and put the other set in the trunk, along with a spark plug socket and a ratchet. He said for some reason, that particular engine just eats spark plugs. You'll be lucky to get 5000 miles out of a set. When it won't start, especially on a cold morning, change them out, and replace the set in the trunk as soon as you can. The old ones will look fine, but just throw them away and don't try to re-use them.

And that's what I did, for as long as I owned the car. I got real good at changing them- once in Pullman, WA at 6° below zero.

Also had a '57 Pontiac on which two adjacent plug wires would push themselves up from the distributor cap and make the engine miss. Got a great deal on the car because of the miss, and felt pretty smug when I pushed them back in and it ran like a watch. But a little less smug when they kept working their way out again, time after time. Suppose a new distributor cap or wires might have solved it, but $$$ weren't real easy to come by at the time.
 
And a local legend story from my neighbor. An old guy in the neighborhood had hit it pretty well in the timber business, and after many years with an old Cat, treated himself to a brand new D8 (it was in the '50's- he made them take off that new-fangled hydraulic blade system and put on a cable blade, like he was used to). Started working it, and it would gradually overheat, until after an hour or so, needle would go into the red and he'd have to shut it down. Got the dealer and mechanic out, then the factory rep, checked everything, couldn't figure it out. Then a guy was standing in front of the running machine, pondering the situation, and became aware of hot air being blown on him. Upon further investigation, it turned out that the fan had been installed backwards at the factory, so it was pulling warm air off the engine and blowing it through the radiator. Cooling system was actually working pretty well otherwise, given how long it took to overheat.

It was the classic "vicious cycle"- the hotter the engine got, the more the hot air heated up the coolant, causing the engine to heat up even more.
 
I bought a VAC Case which had been sitting in the same shed for over 20 years. Numerous nightmares getting it unstuck, but it ran okay for about 10 minutes, then quit and couldn't get any fuel to the carb. Removed sediment bowl unit and was rewarded with a two-foot slime stalactite from the tank. Removed tank and flushed it, and out came a 9 inch diameter paper wasp nest and about 200 dead wasps. The gas cap must have been left off and the wasps moved in. There is NOTHING slimier than a gas soaked wasp nest. It's worse than boiled okra.
 
had some lu-luus here over the yrs ,, worst one was 4020 deer,,gotdamsumthins always happpenin to that tractor as if it were jinxed ,, leaky front hydro pump was repaired under warranty shortly after I got it ,,sundavichstill leaked and snaz started showin what az he could be.. so I got a rebuilt one from abeliene machine,, it leaked too , turned out it was craked fittin ,,fixed that ,,ran it for 3 wweks , hit a sinkhole and blowed the steerin motor to hale ,, tore it back down again for 4th time ,,fixed that , started round balin , dumped the very 1st bale,, hydro oil everywhere from under the dash and in my lap ,, Another dam CRAKED line,,replaced all of them ,,filled it up with 303 fluid for the uptenth time,,,baled for few hours , front hydro or steerin leakin bad ,,, wtfkinHALE NOW ..TORE DOWN AGAIN ,,. BLOWED o ring on pump , probably caused from shock impact with sinkhole ,,. fixed that or so we thought,,still leaked ,,malady of jd pumps too loose IT LEAKS ,,, TOO TITE AND THE O RING WILL OOZE OUT UNDER PRESSURE ,, tried fixin again with no luk ,, called the dealer in Orleans to fixit ,,he said I t would be all day job tearin the sob down and putting it back ,, I said bs ,, my son and I have taken this thing apart so many times we could do i t in our sllep ,, he said go ahead get it ready he will bethere in hour ,,we had it ready ,,and cleaned ,, he fixed the touchy o ring ,, together the 3 of us put it back together and had it runnin in 45 minutes , radiator , fuel tank and all
 
Believe most "Cats" (and possibly other equipment) have provision for blowing air out, or sucking air in, through the radiator. Blowing out, as you describe, is used to keep radiator cleaner by not ingesting material the dozer blade is stirring up, and is the somewhat "preferred" way. Sucking in is useful where the engine heat can be scavenged for operator comfort if conditions dictate . Each scheme uses a direction dedicated fan, reverse mounting one will not change the air flow direction, the pitch must be opposite as direction of engine rotation remains the same. Most spec sheets will offer either fan direction options for a machine.
 
Was involved in the installation and commisioning of a $13M, 9 machine, automated machining cell. It was running perfectly when the "powers that be" came out to look at their expensive new toy. Just prior to them coming out to the cell, the thing went nuts-all kinds of errors, machine shutdowns, alarms, finally complete system shutdown. Ceremony was postponed while we tried to find problem. Turned out that the "in process/real time" information was coupled out of each machine by an optical system. Just prior to the "dog and pony" show, a well-intentioned janitor had made a pass through the area with a ride-on floor sweeper that had two safety strobes on it. It had apparently "glitched" the communication system to the point that nothing knew where it was, and the cell supervisory computer "failed safe" by shutting down. Cleared and reset entire system and it ran perfectly again. Were able to reproduce error a couple times to verify suspicions. Immediate, panic driven, low cost FEF (Field Expedient Fix) was to install a couple of coffee cups over the strobe lights of the sweeper when it was in that area.
 
I had a 49 Ford pickup that would die intermittently at the worst times. It was running out of gas but it had gas, if you know what I mean. Long story short, and this took almost a year to find it, it had a cotton seed floating around in the gas tank that would from time to time stop up the pickup tube. After a bit, the seed would dislodge and float around for another month, or another day sometimes. I found it by actually looking down the filler neck inside the cab of the truck. Didn't believe that's what it was but after I fished it out I never had the problem again.
 
Most of the old cats pushed air out to front of the raditor. Some had a fan that would allow the operator to turn the blades to keep him warm in the cold climates. Trouble with fan blowing back is the operator eats dirt all day. I'm a equipment operator retired after almost 40 years service.
 
The wis v4 on my Hesston moco quit last year so this Spring I put in another one I had. It had sat for a few years so I put in new plugs, points, and condenser. I mowed for 2 hours and it sputtered and quit like it was out of gas. Put in gas and it would run for about 5 seconds and quit. Wait a few minutes and it would do same thing. Cleaned the carb twice, fuel pump ok, gas line fine. Four days of good weather went by before I found the problem. That new condenser was no good. Started right up with a new one and run good since.
 
Not really crazy but kinda funny. My dad was always telling people when they got something used that they needed to "work the bugs out of it". He got a 63 F100 6 cyl pickup. Right at his busiest time of the year. Had to run with the choke half out. I came home on leave and he ask if I would look at it. I found one of the jets plugged with a bug. I sure gave him a hard time about working the bugs out of something.

Rick
 
Couple truck problems at work years ago.
64 GMC 1 ton- very fast idle. Boss said "check it out'. Take off air cleaner to get at throttle linkage, idled right down, drove it around a bit, everything normal. Next morning after first load of freight uptown driver complained about same thing again. After 4 or 5 sessions of this, noticed scratches on bottom of air cleaner. First start in morning driver pulled the choke. When he pushed it back in, long tail on choke cable snagged on air cleaner, bent around, held choke partly closed & fast idle cam stayed on. Repair was to clip off excess end of cable.
64 IH truck tractor, 345 gas. When downshifting pulling a hill, the radio would cut out, finally couldn't move. Ran fine until try to start out, then die again. After calling for help discovered bad motor mount on left side. Torque roll starting out, or shifting pulling a hill, rolled motor to right, battery cable at starter hit frame, shorting everything out. To get moving wrapped leather glove around batt cable, then went to shop for motor mount replacement.
MCI stagecoach, air operated aux step at door. Hit the switch it would extend part way & stop, but wouldn't retract from there either. Can't travel with step part way out. Mechanic found bad diaphram in control valve. Rebuilt valve, same thing. Replaced complete valve, still no change. Valve has 4 ports, supply, extend, retract, & exhaust (like return on hyd systems). I was scheduled to take that bus on a 15 day tour the next morning, so went to shop in evening to load my travel gear. Putting our heads together, found the problem. When the first valve failed, someone pinched off & tied the exhaust tube to stop the air leak & put a "do not use" tag on the switch. Open up the tube & everything normal.
Willie
 
4455 deere overheating, Did everything, new thermostats, coolant, locked out the clutch on the fan, had the rad boiled out and checked still wouldn't stay cool, finally changed the tach, temp gauge box in the dash, doesn't even hardly warm up now.
 
I'm the guy other folks bring their head scratchers to, and it usually doesn't take too long to find something logical that got overlooked. A "fresh set of eyes" can often do that. But a couple years ago this had me stumped for a few days:
http://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/viewtopic.php?t=912676

Yes, I got that one figured out, and it wasn't 'illogical' . Turns out one of the choke plate screws had fatigued and broke and the other fell out, or maybe it was vise-versa. Found the intact screw still in the carb, but not the head of the other (hmmm...). With the plate floating around just north of the venturi, it would sometimes choke it to death, and other times allow it to run just a little rich. Ended up ordering a replacement carb from YT, and that solved a couple "Mechanopause" related issues. :D

At the moment, I'm puzzling a neighbors '58 JD 420 with manual steering. Every moving part from the steering wheel (broken and welded spokes) to the steering gear box is beat to death. From what I'm told from the JD forum here, it shouldn't be hard to steer, but it is, and obviously has been for decades - keys and keyways are whooped; stub shaft AND bushing bores are long beyond simply replacing cone bushings; u-joint below the steering wheel was badly worn, missing the through and one stub pin, and is now broken... Spindles are not tight (I can move them by hand with the tie rods dropped), but I've driven loaded dump trucks with dead power steering that turned easier than this does going through the field. Not that I won't figure it out, it's just that he's hesitant to let me take it completely apart quite yet because it's already stretching his budget.
 
my dad had a ford Galaxy 500, not sure what year, every time we went somewhere he would tell us kids to say a prayer that it would start and get us there. maybe that was part of the reason i never was a ford fan. :)
 
i bought a 69 firebird years ago so i wouldn't have to drive my nice car in the snow and salt. i got it cheep but it had a 2 barrel carb, the guy i bought it from told me i had to get an adapter for it, i got one and always had problems with it, the car never really ran right. so one day my mom told me that this lady wanted to buy it from me for more than i paid for it, she said that the lady would buy the carb that belonged on it, and if i put it on she would give me said price. i put the 4 barrel carb on it and it would get scratch sideways all the way up the street and back, i didn't want to sell it then, but i already made the deal.
 
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