Ford 2N, Clutch Pedal Adjustment and Play

[lastcowboy32]

Good morning, people.

So, I rebuilt the brakes on my 2N. All new hardware, springs and such. The adjusters are turning freely and lubricated.

I wanted to adjust the brakes and the clutch, so that the tractor shifts and brakes the way its intended.

Part of that process was getting the left brake to actuate at approximately the same pedal depth as the clutch, since they are on the same side and share the brake actuator shaft...which is only a pivot for the clutch pedal.

Here is the issue, I noticed that my clutch pedal could be pressed maybe an inch or so, before any resistance was felt.

I had the tractor on jack stands, and my son-in-law was helping me to test by either pressing the pedals or rolling the tires.

If the tractor was in gear, the clutch pedal could be pushed through this "play" distance without disengaging the tranny at all. The tires were still locked in place, if the tractor was in gear and no brake was applied.

The thing is, this made it so that the clutch had to be pressed all of the way to the floorboard to shift the tranny or the PTO. The tractor has always been like this for the five years that I've had it. We have just "worked around" it by only using the right brake when clutching/shifting. That way, we could push the clutch right to the floorboard.

I wanted to tighten the clutch pedal to bring it up to it's stop. But the linkage adjustment was out of threads. I took it off and added about a half inch of threads with a threading die.

At this point, I could bring the pedal up so that it was just barely rubbing the stop...or just barely missing it.

Then I had my son-in-law get on the tractor and I adjusted the left brake until...

With the tractor in gear and on blocks...

The tires would roll freely if he only pressed the clutch.

The tires would not roll freely if he pressed the clutch and brake together, but he was still able to shift.

I had him take the tractor out for a short drive. He's new to the tractor, so I figured he would be a good guinea pig. He hasn't learned all of the adaptations that I have over the years for shifting it.

I instructed him to shift numerous times, while pressing the clutch and brake simultaneously. I had him do it on a hill, on the flat, numerous times. I also had him engage/disengage the PTO while pushing the clutch and brake.

We seemed to have good adjustment. The tractor would stop from the clutch/brake action. It would shift. It would not roll until the clutch and brake were let up.

Seems good.

BUT...to do this, I had to take what I'm calling "free play" out of the clutch pedal. It makes me anxious. Where would this play come from, and why would I have to add threads to the linkage adjustment to shorten the linkage shorter than the factory intended.

Furthermore...why, after doing this, would the clutch seem to work perfectly. It engages/disengages at matched pedal depth with the brake. It feels like it's engaging fully when let up, especially as evidenced by the multiple spin-outs done by my son-in-law letting it up a little fast. There's no slippage, that I can see.

So...do these pedals sometimes develop a little "play" over 76 years?

 

[lastcowboy32]

For reference, I added a half inch of threads to the clutch linkage. But, I measured/marked where the adjustment was before I did this.

I only had to turn the linkage maybe two or three of the new threads (and they are fine pitch to boot), in order to take up about an inch of "play" in the clutch pedal. The way the linkage works, there is quite a distance multiplier between actual linkage movement at the tranny and clutch pedal travel at the end of the pedal.

So, it just seems that the actual clutch mechanism on the transmission is where the "play" would be, and it's equivalent to two or three fine threads on a 3/8" rod.

 

[SkipperII]

You need that 1-1/2" of free travel in your clutch, or you are going to be replacing your clutch on a frequent basis. or your clutch release
bearing.

 

[Jim L WA]

Good Morning to you Cowboy. So you are saying you don't have any free play in the clutch linkage at all? You have to have some, or, like SkipperII said you will have constant pressure on the throw out bearing and it will fail eventually. The fact that you ran out of threads on the linkage could be that, like you said, some 75 years of use has worn pivot points, bushings and who knows how long that clutch has been in there. I could be that you won't be able to the the clutch and left break to work together until you resolve the other worn areas. That's the challenge of keeping this old iron working.

Jim.

 

[lastcowboy32]

(quoted from post at 10:10:17 05/13/19) Good Morning to you Cowboy. So you are saying you don't have any free play in the clutch linkage at all? You have to have some, or, like SkipperII said you will have constant pressure on the throw out bearing and it will fail eventually. The fact that you ran out of threads on the linkage could be that, like you said, some 75 years of use has worn pivot points, bushings and who knows how long that clutch has been in there. I could be that you won't be able to the the clutch and left break to work together until you resolve the other worn areas. That's the challenge of keeping this old iron working.

Jim.

Thanks.

Let me explain a little better.

The way the clutch was, it hung down a little below its stop. I could move the pedal an inch or so toward the running board with almost no resistance whatsoever. If I moved the clutch pedal through this travel, the tractor was still firmly in gear. Cannot be rolled.

In order to get the tractor to roll, I would then have to push the pedal from this point all of the way to the floor board . Even then, the tractor didn't shift perfectly.

When I took up the "play", the clutch pedal rests at or just below its stop. The transmission feels solidly engaged.

From that point, I have to push the pedal about half way to the floorboard to shift. I have the brakes adjusted to stop the tractor at about that point.

 

[lastcowboy32]

I'm also going to read what the manual says about this again.

Maybe I need a couple of read throughs to understand their procedure.

 

[Ultradog MN]

I didn't read your whole post so will
apologize if you covered this.
My first tractor was a 2N.
The pivot on the clutch pedal was badly
worn - both on the brake actuating rod
and the pedal hole itself.
I discovered that the right and left
brake actuating rods are identical.
So I swapped the rods from right to
left.
It took a huge amount of slop out of the
pivot - at no cost cept my labor.
It also let me adjust that little dog
that when you push the clutch pedal all
the way down it activates the left brake
too.

 

[Jim L WA]

Hi again. While looking through a '39-'47 service manual for owners and mechanics this morning, I ran across an instruction for adjusting the clutch. The free travel is only 3/16 of an inch. Then there should be an additional 1 9/16 inches of travel before the clutch pedal contacts the brake shaft arm.