What have you done to your Branson today?

[LouNY]

Got it on yesterday. It was kind of a pain.
I didn't pull the radiator and there was not a lot of working room.
Had to run into town and pick up a couple of bolts to make into alignment studs to mount the fan and hub to the water pump.
Could not get them aligned and a bolt started, then the shroud didn't want to lineup with the bolt holes, plus I had cut the fan belt off to get the tractor back up the driveway and out of the way. I had ordered a new belt but when I got to that point it was too long had to run into town and get a different belt. Finally got her started about 4 yesterday evening it was getting dark and cold so called it a day I'll check for leaks today. Had to work on her outside as the cabs won't fit in my little shop, didn't expect it to be such a pain to do.But it would have been quite a job to get her over to the farm and inside to work on. Keep thinking about a bigger shop here but hard to justify when the farms shop is only 3 miles away.

I looked all over and could not find a trace of gold plating any where on it and for the price it should have.
No external indication of failure except for the shaft being loose in the housing,
the only thing I can figure out is a bearing must have locked up and spun to get that loose so fast.

 

[K5lwq]

Thanks for the update. I was thinking at the price they want for a new one I believe I would try to rebuild the old one for future use. Not even sure if one could locate seal and bearing that would work but sure seems like a candidate for the effort. :confused3:

It is good to hear you got it back together and hopefully it will last a very long time now. :thumbsup:

 

[ptsg]

Thanks for the update. I was thinking at the price they want for a new one I believe I would try to rebuild the old one for future use. Not even sure if one could locate seal and bearing that would work but sure seems like a candidate for the effort. :confused3:

It is good to hear you got it back together and hopefully it will last a very long time now. :thumbsup:

I agree with K5. If that was mine, I would have tried my best to rebuild the old one. Even if that would include some machining work to allow the use of more common seals and bearings.

That's crazy expensive but it has to be fixed regardless.

Mine does have plenty of room to work on that area. Almost looks that I'm missing an extra cylinder and they just slap a longer fan hub to make for it. :laughing:

 

[LouNY]

I'll be taking it apart sometime to at least look at the internals,
it has crossed my mind to rebuild it and have it on the shelve.
I expect that it is a cartridge type bearing setup inside and with all the play it has,
most likely will need and impeller, a shaft and the bearing cartridge.
When you shake the old one you can hear the impeller hit the rear cover of the pump.

 

[LouNY]

I agree with K5. If that was mine, I would have tried my best to rebuild the old one. Even if that would include some machining work to allow the use of more common seals and bearings.

That's crazy expensive but it has to be fixed regardless.

Mine does have plenty of room to work on that area. Almost looks that I'm missing an extra cylinder and they just slap a longer fan hub to make for it. :laughing:

View attachment 680885

Yes it looks very similar, lining up the bolts that hold that fan hub to the water pump was a pain as well as tightening those bolts.
The cutouts for the bolts was not machined very well to remove it I had to remove the fan then remove the water pump to get at the hub bolts with a thin wall socket.
I should have cleaned up the hub with my die grinder before starting to reassemble it,
once I used two studs to line up the pulley and hub then got 2 bolts started and run most of the way in to hold the pulley and hub in place, unscrewed the studs with needle nose pliers and installed the other two bolts using a box end wrench the entire way which had to be ground down to be thinner to fit the recess in the hub it was a slow process at a 1/6 of turn maximum at a time on each bolt.
I tried to install the pump with the hub on and then just bolt the fan to the hub but there wasn't enough room to get my hand in and start the fan bolts, ended up having to remove the pump and pull the hub off and start again.

 

[K5lwq]

Ptsg has a advantage over us Lou. I have a terrible time folding my big hands in tight spots like that. One of the main reason I stopped working on cars, except my own. I got very tired of standing on my head to reach anything. :laughing:

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Lou,

After completing the job, looking back, would it have been easier to take the radiator and shroud off first, or the way you ended up doing it?

Just wondering, in case I ever have to do mine (different but similar)?

Also wondering if you could have sourced the part from somewhere else. Maybe a different dealer (like one on here) could have got it for a better price. Or, is it a Cummins pattern part that could be replaced with a standard Cummins water pump?

 

[Branson Bob]

Ptsg has a advantage over us Lou. I have a terrible time folding my big hands in tight spots like that. One of the main reason I stopped working on cars, except my own. I got very tired of standing on my head to reach anything. :laughing:

So... Pedro has small hands?

:laughing:

 

[K5lwq]

So... Pedro has small hands?

:laughing:

He does if he thinks that is plenty of room. :laughing:

 

[LouNY]

Yes I would do it the same way if I had to do it again, with the cabed tractor having the oil cooler and ac condenser in front of the radiator as well as the air filter and feed it would be a lot to get to the radiator to remove it, I would run a die grinder on the spacer hub so as to be able to get a wrench on the bolts better.

The finished job, pic #3 is the bolts that were the slowest, and were I had to use two studs to get the lineup done,


And the old pump;
the small raised rib is were the pulley goes and the longer one is for the spacer hub

my dealer neglected to order the thermostat housing gasket had to make one