Ford 1500 Steering Slop

[hgd1956]

Hey........I just saw this thread and I had the same type problem with my 1700. The basket case tractor would not steer at all due to the horizontal shaft being broken at the end where the adjustment screw attached. I managed to find one on ebay that fit for less than 200 dollars instead of the 600 new holland price. Assembled it and still had loads of slop, Had to pull the vertical steering shaft and found that the lower bearing was toast, not there. replaced both upper and lower bearings and the thing will at least go through a gate without taking out one of the post. Still has some slop but it is due to excessive wear in the front end. I will fix that later. Wish I had seem this posting earlier since I had already gone through most of your problems..............

 

[old1500]

1956....I can promise you that mine had a mind of it's own. Every now and then I could get it to head-off in the general direction I wanted, but it wandered all over the place. I was lucky just to have the ears broken on my sector shaft and now I have one without ears from Walt's tractor at a cost of $165. Neither would I spring for the $600 dealer cost with the same problem waiting on down the road. The one I have now is solid on the adjustment end. I discovered the bushing in the output side of my box was still in very good shape and I even left the old oil-seal in and it does not leak. What broke my ears was the completely worn out end cover. The later cover has a bushing installed but the early shaft will not fit. The early cover has no bushing, but I know what to do now if I am around long enough to need another one....take the cover to a shop and have a bushing installed before it gets so far out-of-round to the point you can't. The new cover with the bushing won't fit the early case or the old shaft...and round-n-round we go.

I replaced my pivot bushings and took out some slop too, but it seems this little tractor has some slop built in and you simply cannot abuse it. It's pretty tender in several places, but apparently...not so tender that JC can't run over an immovable object and most of his stuff survives.

 

[Soundguy]

yep.. I think I know exactly what you are talking about. as you surmise.. with no wear.. it's hunky dory.. with wear.. you get issues.

oh well.. it's a money game vs slop.. try to find the right ballance as you already mentioned.

soundguy

Soundguy....yes it does, but they did it a little differently than the diagrams show and what the stock sector shaft does. The stock shaft has a channel (for lack of a better word) milled all way through the adjustment side of the shaft and the adjustment screw "slides" into this slot. Cutting that slot for the screw takes away fully 1/2 the bearing surface on the cover end of the shaft. None of this matters if the cover is in good shape and there is still some 1/2 inch of full shaft thickness to bear inside the cover. Where the trouble begins (and why these ears break) is when you run the adjustment screw deep into the cover. The farther in you adjust the screw...the less full shaft bearing area you have and when you get the "ears" pushed out to the edge of the cover cup...."snap".

This one has a hole drilled right down into the end and the head of the adjustment screw is a little smaller in diameter. There is a slot milled down inside this hole to accept a snap-ring (internal). First...you drop in the screw (head first), then a washer, then the snap-ring that holds the washer and screw in place. There is no slot cut across the end of the shaft and the bearing surface runs on out to the very edge. Imagine a broom-stick with a screw in the very end of it and you will have the mental picture of what I am trying to explain. I have some pictures on one of these threads.

I stumbled across it at Walt's Tractor Parts. Others wanted over $600 for the stock shaft, but Walt had it for $165.00 and it is better designed.

Hope all this makes sense?