The fill plug area sans paint; possible had an angled filler tube there at one time? Orchard tractors had obstructed upper area with fuel tank, hood etc., and an add on filler aimed at the right side allowed oil to be added to the transmission. Dip sticks on some were curved as well, which I notice yours looks capped off with a freeze plug?
I like your thoughts on the case seal. In my quest to do my first D4, I bought everything from CAT; the price for cork seals I thought was ridiculously high. Learning curve for sure. Steele products has several types of high density foam that might work?
Glad to see you making good progress. Enjoy. JM

"edb" wrote:

Hi,
from your underneath pic it would appear that some one screwed a bolt into a threaded hole with dirt/mud or of too long a length and hydraulic-ed to bottom out of a blind hole.

Be very care full that your O Ring is of a soft enough material and not sitting too proud of the groove before compression or else you could easily crack the top cover due to not enough compressablity of your seal material.
When you tension the cover down look for a gap between it and the main case that does not close down tight easily or quickly as the retaining bolt load is applied.

This is why the correct gasket having the correct section and volume of cork material is used. These may update to a soft sponge rubber gasket by now.

The gaskets on the Bevel Gear shaft bearing cages definitely went to a special red foam rubber gasket on later machines--I feel if you ordered the cork gasket it would update from the Dealer to the said red gasket--I stand to be corrected.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

Thanks Eddie that makes sense about the broken out blind hole. I will give the bolts a dab of silicone on the threads to keep the moisture at bay.

I will surely take note when I torque the cover down. I would have thought the cover to the case would contacted just before reaching torque on the cover bolts but do you figure there may be a slight clearance?

I noticed there are quite a few rotten bolt holes in the frame/ case where the cover bolts down. I will probably get some sort of spacer and figure out the longest bolts I can use and see if they can take 55ft lbs. Dont want the cover on and off to determine which holes arent going to take a load.

Are those seals on the bevel gear bearings two piece? Sorry for the noob question. Just thinking it would give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside if I replaced at least one of the sides (top) but if I have to pull the whole bevel gear/ clutch/ brake assembly then I probably will forgo it for now

Gracias

"juiceman" wrote:

The fill plug area sans paint; possible had an angled filler tube there at one time? Orchard tractors had obstructed upper area with fuel tank, hood etc., and an add on filler aimed at the right side allowed oil to be added to the transmission. Dip sticks on some were curved as well, which I notice yours looks capped off with a freeze plug?
I like your thoughts on the case seal. In my quest to do my first D4, I bought everything from CAT; the price for cork seals I thought was ridiculously high. Learning curve for sure. Steele products has several types of high density foam that might work?
Glad to see you making good progress. Enjoy. JM

Good to know JM. I dont think I've seen one orchard tractor up here in BC but hey I'm pretty new to the scene and these machines are 65 years and older.

I will keep you posted if it works. It is 1/2" but I think I may have gone a size too large. 4ft is plenty long.

There was a day when I would have done the same but now with mouths to feed and mortgage etc I have no choice but to be creative. So far so good. I actually want to get things moving along quicker usually but I need to reign myself in and remember it isn't a race and I need to balance life and if it takes years to do this then so be it.

Here is the progress of the weekend. Steamed.the cover, inspected. Today I tapped and cleaned out all bolt holes, made my o ring for the transmission compartment, cleaned mating surfaces and made progress on my son's Tonka grapple loader we are making. He is pretty jazzed. Shhhhh dont tell anyone but it is painted to look like an IH/ Dresser 560 😁