Brought 57 cub home today

[DJ54]

Next time you change the filter remove the copper washer and take it along with you to a parts store where you get your filter and get a new copper crush washer. Normally I suggest checking Case/IH to compare prices vs. aftermarket/auto parts stores prices. Saved you the time and checked Case/IH, they want $22+ for it. NAPA and others should have one that size for about 1/10th that price. I believe Steiner was $4.50.

They normally seal well unless someone has over tightened at some point, and maybe put a gouge in the washer. The important thing is to know when to say when tightening and stripping the bolt, or threads in the base, that could get a lot more expensive.

Part # is 25352D if you want to check online.

 

[wolc123]

Next time you change the filter remove the copper washer and take it along with you to a parts store where you get your filter and get a new copper crush washer. Normally I suggest checking Case/IH to compare prices vs. aftermarket/auto parts stores prices. Saved you the time and checked Case/IH, they want $22+ for it. NAPA and others should have one that size for about 1/10th that price. I believe Steiner was $4.50.

They normally seal well unless someone has over tightened at some point, and maybe put a gouge in the washer. The important thing is to know when to say when tightening and stripping the bolt, or threads in the base, that could get a lot more expensive.

Part # is 25352D if you want to check online.

Will do, thanks for the advice. I’ll probably be changing the oil and filter next spring, if I use it a fair amount this winter. It’s got one fresh quart of 15W-50 Shell Rotella in it now, that I added to whatever my mechanic put in it, 50 or so operating hours ago.

Before I took it apart and sanded the cover, I tried just tightening up the bolt a little. That didn’t work, and it continued to drip. When I took it apart, the copper washer surface looked pretty good, but the cover top not so hot with some shallow ring grooves.

I sanded those flat, put it all back together, and it is holding good now. I’m probably going to hold off running it for a week or two now, because it looks like we are heading into a dry spell. I’m not going to plant my winter wheat / white clover mix until I see a little rain in the extended forecast.

Yesterday, they were calling for rain next Wednesday, here in upstate north western NY. Now they have taken that away and there is no rain at all in the extended forecast. Maybe I’ll use the Cub, instead of my field car (Dodge Durango), for my daily dinner sweetcorn harvest today, just to give that filter oil cover seal a little test.

My Kandy corn is just about perfect right now but I’m racing the deer to eat it.

 

[wolc123]

The Cub got a couple hours on it tonight, cultipacking a few acres of wheat and clover that I had just sown. The oil leak repair held up good. The lights worked well also. Good thing because I needed them to finish up 1/2 hour past sunset.

 

[wolc123]

I have not used the Cub much since spring (really just on my Cultipacker for planting turnips wheat and clover) a few times. I had taken a new 6 volt battery out of my “down and out” Ford 8n, before that usage. Since then, I’d noticed the amp gauge reading on the discharge side regularly when running.

Turns out that I messed up and installed the battery backwards (negative ground) while it should have been positive. As it’s gotten colder lately, it had been cranking slower. I really noticed that when I used the Cub to move my boat yesterday.

Today, I switched the terminals and its back to positive ground as it should have been all along. I probably operated it around 4 hours wired backwards. There doesn’t seem to be any harm done to the tractor or the new battery.

After this incident, I gained some new found respect for the now defunct International Harvestor corporation, when it comes to the durability of their products.

I’m thankful that I didn’t have three reverse and one forward gear, when I had the battery wired backwards. Apparently, none of the electronic parts cared too much about what direction the power was flowing.

 

[DJ54]

So it's now showing charge..?? I thought maybe you'd have to re-polarize the voltage regulator.

 

[wolc123]

So it's now showing charge..?? I thought maybe you'd have to re-polarize the voltage regulator.

Yes, it’s showing charge just like it should be. I was measuring positive 7 volts while running with my meter and 6 when it was not running after I swapped the terminals back the right way.

Like I said above, it does not seem like any harm was done.

 

[wolc123]

Now that the leaking oil filter and backwards wired battery are repaired, the Cub is ready for leaf and light snow duty. I put the snowplow back on it this afternoon. I use that to push the leaves into a pile after I dump a bunch of sweeper loads in the rough area behind our lawn.

I leave the big leaf pile back there thru the winter, then haul it out into the fields out back with my loader tractor, in the spring. We’ve got quite a few big maples in the yard that dump a ton of leaves and I’m all ready for them now:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

I used to use a back facing 3-point terracing blade on the loader tractor for pushing the leaf pile but the Cub front snowplow with pvc pipe on the cutting edge works way better.

 

[wolc123]

This is my cheap backup lawnmower that I use in the late fall after I remove the deck from my good one (It works much better on the sweeper with the mower deck removed). You can see one of the big maples in the back, still holding most of its leaves but almost ready to drop them. I can’t wait. With the right equipment, clearing leaves is almost as fun as plowing snow.

 

[wolc123]

I had to remove the pvc pipe from the plow blade cutting edge to make it work better on the leaves. It kept rolling over them with it on but worked great with it off.

The leaves are all down and in two big piles now, so I got to hammer that pvc pipe back on to get the Cub ready for the snow. The pvc pipe on the edge does a wonderful job of keeping the driveway stones out of the lawn before everything freezes up good.

With global warming ramping up now, it’s been about (3) years since the ground froze good up here near the Canadian border where we are, so the pvc will probably stay on the blade until next fall when I’ll drive it off for pushing the leaves again.

I had a big pile of 1” shedule 80 pvc, but I gave most of it to a buddy for running wire to his shop. Hopefully, I saved enough to get me thru a few more years of snow work with the Cub.

It all depends on how much snow we get. Each 4 ft piece of pvc lasts for 6-7 plowings of our two driveways and our neighbors on each side.

I’ll probably use the Cub on the first few plowing as no matter how deep the snow is, just to keep the stones off the yard. I’ve just got to get the rear ballast weight, that I broke off the drawbar, back on and the chains on the rear tires.

That little Cub will push mountains of snow with that added weight on the back and with chains on its loaded rear tires.

 

[2manyrocks]

What are some of your thoughts about how your 57 Cub operates compared to today's smaller compact tractors? It has that offset steering wheel for visibility for one thing. I've seen them all my life, but never operated one.