Taking a look at Jack's Brakes

This last weekend gave me the opportunity to have a look at Jack’s brakes, because Jack had been used for boat launching the salt water had taken its toll here as well. I firstly took the offside wheel off for access to the inboard brake drum mounted to the front of the axle. The brake is fixed to the brake shaft by a single bolt in the centre if the drum, with a few blows to the bolt head with a hammer prior to fitting a socket on a long bar and the bolt was easily freed off and removed. After releasing the brakes by slacking off the adjustment with a screwdriver through on of the large holes in the brake drum, I was able to lightly tap the side of the drum with a hammer and remove it.

With the drum removed I could see the effects of the salt water on the mechanism. The pull off springs were well rusted, one of which had come away from the lower shoe and was just hanging there next to the adjuster. The springs that hold the brake shoes to the back plate were fitted were fitted wrong and part of the spring fittings were missing. The brake drum itself was rusted inside and there was evidence of standing salt water in the drum that had contributed to the corrosion. I had quite a bit of rusty metal to clean up before refitting and I also had to figure out how the replacement brake springs kit should fit because one of the replacement springs did not look like any of the springs that were already fitted.
I repeated the process with the nearside brake to find a different spring arrangement which did not represent the offside spring arrangement nor the replacement spring that I had received from my suppliers.

This is the way I’ve fitted the replacement spring kits, pictured is the nearside brake. My reasoning is the wheel turns anticlockwise when the tractor’s traveling forwards therefore the brake drum turns clockwise. Recalling my dad’s explanation of braking systems back in the late 70’s and my college work at the time, this is a leading/trailing arrangement with the top shoe leading and the bottom shoe trailing. However with the floating adjuster, a heavier pull off spring should be fitted to the leading shoe to enable it to activate first then letting the self-energising effect increasing the effect of the trailing shoe which would normally be reduced.

So back to the tractor repairs, the first thing I needed to sort was the offside front wheel bearings, there was so much play in it and it was obvious one of the bearings had collapsed. So out with the jack and off with the wheel just to find the inner wheel bearing on the offside had totally collapsed, even to the point of breaking the inner track of the inner bearing into pieces.

I decided to strip the nearside wheel bearings down to see what state they were in, fortunately these were in a poor condition but if push came to shove, and considering Jack was only to be used as a hobby tractor, I could have got away with cleaning and re-packing them with clean grease. I decided to replace the bearings and using these bearing I headed off to a local bearing supplier for the parts. The guy at the bearing stockist was very helpful, he took time to examine the bearings and make several phone calls to local the parts but when he came back with a price, I got the impression he’d got his figures from a telephone book rather than a price list. I returned home to study the internet and found the parts from a supplier that I’d used before and had a current order with them. I phoned them up and they put the bearing kit in with the same order, the replacement parts arrived 9:30-am the next morning. With the wheels assembled with new bearings I took a ride around the field and immediately noticed an improvement to the steering.

Having a good look around Jack

Well now Jack’s back home it’s time to have a good look around him to see what I’ve got here. When we were bringing him home on the trailer Richard said he could see movement of the offside front wheel in the mirror which could be the king pin/spindle assembly of a wheel bearing and sure enough he was right. There was really an excessive amount of play in the offside wheel bearing when I shook the wheel and that was with the full weight of the tractor on the wheel. So I took the hub cap off and yuk what a sight…


…I put the hubcap back on, this is one of the first repairs I’ll need to do on Jack.
As Jack (or Freddie in his previous life) had been used for boat launching at Heacham on the Wash, I was un-surprised at the damage caused by the salt water to the rusty tin work. The parts that had suffered most were the tin work and the parts made from light gauge materials such as the pull off springs on the brakes and the brake cables. The engine has an oil leak but whilst I thought it was from the front crank seal from where the drips of oil landed on the floor, I now think it’s the leak from the fuel pump drive that’s the problem.

I also need to get Jack registered for the road so I’ve started the registration process, This is the third vehicle I’ve applied for an “age related” registration number but it’s the first time I’ve had any trouble. I went through the process of identifying my Fordson Major Diesel with the help of the Fordson pages forum and with a formal letter of identification from Grace Popplewell of the Ferguson Club, who was very efficient and who deals with all makes of vintage tractors. I submitted all the appropriate paperwork to the local office of the DVLA who were also very helpful, that was last Thursday. Saturday morning a letter with the DVLA frank on it dropped through the letterbox and I eagerly opened it to see what my registration number for the Fordson was. The letter told me that Jack had been previously registered on a “Q” plate and I would need to complete a form “V62” and return it to them, they would then attempt to contact the last known registered keeper to verify they no longer own the tractor before issuing me with a registration document, and that this could take up to 6-weeks. I was knocking on their door this morning with the completed form for them to check prior to me submitting it.