TO-20 Pivot Pin and Bushing Questions.

[Kevin Little]

Hey all, new here, I just got my first Ferguson and the pin and bushing looks like they need to be replaced. I have the I&T shop manual and the repair itself looks pretty straight forward, but looking on the YT store site, I see two different bushings and both are different from the split bushing in the manual.

What bushing do I need? Right now, there seems to be no bushing, the axle is canted on the pin. The original engine tag is gone, but it looks like I have either a 20 with a Z129 engine swapped in or a 30 with a 20 dash and air cleaner. Any other clues to whether it's a 20 or a 30? I'm new as can be to old tractors, used to use a IH 454 on the farm growing up, so I'll be following the board here closely and probably asking a LOT of questions.

TIA.

Kevin
 

[John(UK)]

If it doesn't appear to have any bush then you want the thin bush, the early type. It doesn't matter what engine it is the axles are the same. Early bush was 1-15/16" x 1-25/32" x 1-1/2" long, the axle pin was 4-1/8" long.John(UK)
 

[Kevin Little]

Thanks John! So I can just remove the pin and measure it for length to see which setup I need?
 

[John(UK)]

The two bushing are a lot different, one is thin like I said and the other one is quite thick and has a collar on one end, so you can soon tell what you have. I have found an amended size for that Bush I gave you earlier, it is 1-49/64" x 1-29/32" x 1-1/2" I got this one from a TO30 parts list so it should be right.. The Pin you can remove and measure it easily. There are a few different type of bolts that hold the pins in the Axle carrier though which can be confusing..John(UK)
 

[Kevin Little]

Thanks for all your help John. It may be a couple of weeks before I can disassemble the pivot pin, so I'll wait until I do before ordering the replacement parts.
 

[Bruce(OR)]

What we"ve got here is failure to communicate.

Typically your pin wears through the bushing and adversely wears on the axle pivot. This action mandates repair of the axle center section. Typically a machine shop operation with about $100/150 out of your pocket. When I did mine, I believe I had both bushings in possesion and requested the thicker one installed with the reasaoning it would take longer to wear through in the future.
Now once your out the cost of repair you will notice your axle has this wonderful hole in the center axle section and you will be greatly tempted to drill through the new bushing and add a grease zerk.
DON"T.
Grease attracts dirt and this will wear out your new bushing faster than the 50 years it took to wear out the original bushing.
 

[Kevin Little]

Thanks Bruce. Once I get it apart, I'll see what we have to work with. I have a guy up the road with a complete machine shop in his basement, so if it needs the repair, I should be OK. Do they drill it out and then sleeve it or is it better to just bite the bullet and replace the axle as a whole?

Kevin
 

[2tractors]

Take it apart, take it and the cradle to the MS. Let him guessimate what a repair will cost, compare that to the cost of bushings and pins then make the decision.Normally the MS. is more expensive but better.Use grafite instead of grease.
 

[Bruce(OR)]

Hmm. . .
Replace axle with Chinese pourous weak iron or keep high grade iron from back in the day. . .
Hmm. Let me think on that.
Might cost a penny or two to keep the high grade iron but high grade iron probably won't have catastrophic break in the future, such as a potentially weaker Chinese pourous iron copy would.
Hmm. . .
Still thinking.
What do you think?
 

[Kevin Little]

Actually, I was thinking about replacing it with an original if I had to. Trying to use all original parts. I was just wondering about the process to restore the bore.
 

[overhead]

My center beam had the original style bushing which was worn through all the way in the axle. I order the new style thicker bushing and took the axle and bushing to a buddy at a machine shop. He drilled out the center beam to fit the new bushing which also removed all of the damaged metal from the wear of the pin after the bushing wore out. It was a friend that did the work for me, but he said he would have normally charged 50 or 60 bucks to drill the hole and install the bushing. I started a thread about it here:
http://ytforums.ytmag.com/viewtopic.php?t=913104

This is what the center beam looks like with the new bushing installed:



This is what it looked like before:

 

[Kevin Little]

Thanks! It really helps me to see it in a picture. Once I get a day to tear it down, I may have to go that same route.