830 Down

     First, the front end of the tractor went down.  Before I could even think, "what the dickens?” the left rear wheel went up.

     It was approaching six o’clock in the evening of a hot June day.  I was just getting a good start on the field.  There were some good-sized weeds that needed killing.

     I was deciding, should I quit now, or try for another round.  A “round” at that point took about 20 minutes to make.  Fate, inattention, something, took the decision out of my hands.

     The left front wheel had fallen off the tractor.  I saw the front axle assembly buried in the ground.  I crawled out of the cab and took a bigger than normal step to earth.  The backend of the tractor stood a little higher than normal, with the front end sunk lower than normal.

      Beneath the hitch, partially imbedded in the soil, lay the entire front wheel.  I was able to stop the tractor before I plowed the wheel.   It took a bit of digging, but I managed to pull the wheel from under the hitch.  I dug gingerly into the grease and now dirt of the wheel hub, the end that should have been on the inside end of the spindle.

     Bearing rollers and metal fragments appeared in the dirty grease.  The reason for the failure was obvious, wheel bearing failure.  Why hadn’t I noticed the wheel was loose?  It had to have been wobbling for a while before it fell off.

      I had plenty of time to consider the problem.  I was about as far east as I can go and still be on our property.  It was a mile walk back to shop, tools, and pickup.  With blocks, jack, and shovels, I bounced across the field in the old 4x4.   

     I had to do a major excavation just to get the jack under the front end of the tractor.  It took three or four resets of the jack before I got the front end of the tractor up and safely blocked to some semblance of normal.  A few pages of old newspaper removed the greased and dirt from the spindle.

     Fortunately, only the threads for the retaining nut were damaged a bit.  It appeared new bearings would fix the problem.  New bearings for a fifty-year-old tractor might be hard to find.  John Deere still had them, though.  It would be a week before I could get them.

     It was past eight o’clock before I had loaded the displaced wheel onto the 4x4 and returned to the farmyard.  The tractor would have to sit on blocks in the field for a day or two. 

     Duty called.  Duty, in the form of the “Big 3”, family, doctors, and quartet.  The wheel came off on a Saturday.  I was able to get back to it on Tuesday by removing a wheel from another tractor. 

     There were a few other pressing issues, like a big crowd coming for the weekend preceding the fourth of July, a kitchen floor replacement job that needed finishing before everyone arrived.  The weather took some of the pressure off.  A rain shower meant too wet to plow, so I shifted to floor work and that episode ended happily ever after.

    Using the borrowed wheel, I managed to finish my plowing on July 4, after the big party and all.  I picked up the new wheel bearings (I got two sets, figuring if the left was worn out, the right must be about worn out, too).  It was nearly $300 for the bearings, cups, felt washers and all.  Can’t worry about price.  Just be glad you can still get them.

     Four or five hours of driving out old bearing cups, driving in new ones, packing bearings with grease, placing wheel with new bearings on the spindles, returning borrowed wheel to its rightful owner, and things are back to normal. 

     Thank goodness for disposable gloves.  Wheel bearing business is among the greasiest, messiest job going.  Dad put grease fittings in every hubcap of every wheel on every implement on the farm.  He didn’t like wheel-bearing service, either.  He didn’t have rubber gloves.

     Now, I’m on my third trip over the summer fallow.  Things haven’t changed much.  It has been a little too wet to work the soil properly (can’t complain about the moisture).  There was this shrill screeching sound coming from the front of the tractor.  A generator bearing was failing.

     Guess what.  The bearing is nearly impossible to find.  It has numbers and everything still legible, but no such bearing and no cross references.  The local parts store couldn’t be much help.  They are facing their usual harvest rush and don’t have time to go on a bearing safari.

     The 820, still sitting in the shop waiting the final touches to crankshaft replacement, provided a generator (also the front wheel) for the nonce.  I found a bearing online by using dimensions, inside diameter or bore, outside diameter, and width.

      It was déjà vu all over again on Thursday evening, about six o’clock, when the rod weeder wheels started sliding.  After a prolonged investigation, I determined a bearing on a chain-tightening sprocket had failed.

     Guess what again.  That bearing is no longer in production, nor is the sprocket.  I found a very similar bearing online.  It will be the middle of next week before that bearing arrives at the farm via UPS.  (What am I complaining about?  Even in the old days, we had to go out to the mailbox to pick up the stuff we ordered from Sears Roebuck or Montgomery Wards.)

      No worries.  Mother Nature cooperated, with a third of an inch of moisture Thursday evening and over a half an inch on Friday.  I may have everything ready to go by the time things dry out enough.

     In the meantime, our quartet sang for a ninetieth birthday party on Saturday.  The old guy was a farmer.  The party was in the Methodist church where the table decorations were toy tractors.  The old feller quipped that his birthday wasn’t really until this upcoming Tuesday, but they wanted it today to be sure he’d still be here.

      We sing for another ninetieth birthday party this afternoon.  Never a dull moment.