Rotavator rebuild

[CKCowboy]

John
You are doing a great job of your rebuild.
Fun to watch your progress and see the photos.
Thanks for sharing.

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

I have the upper bearings, but am still waiting on the lower ones and the drive chain, so I thought I would make the gaskets and get the ring gear housing mounted while I was waiting. As most know, none of those parts are still available from Howard/Solex, so it is necessary to make your own. As a result, out came the tools I have accumulated over the years for making gaskets. I do not normally use the big snips in the picture, but the end of the ring gear shaft was rubbing on the chain case, so I bought extra thick gasket material for the case to give more clearance and the little scissors I normally use were not heavy enough.



It was not necessary to make such a large gasket as the one on the ring gear case in the background, since it only seals at the outer inch or so, but having it tight against the center flange makes it easier to position.

As a second note, the bolt holes in the ring gear case or not evenly spaced, so it is a good idea to mark the case and each of the 2 gaskets as you make them so you can align the marks to save time when assembling.

With the gaskets made I had planned to go ahead and assemble the pto and ring gear housing and mount them, but due to stupidity viewtopic.php?f=4&t=60012 that will have to wait a couple days.

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

Put the ring gear and pinion shafts in the top gear case and mounted it on the tiller. Note the hole below the sprocket wheel. That hole lines up eith one directly opposite the pto shaft on the gear box, and allows you to put a bolt in place that holds the gaskets and bearing retainer to the gear housing while you install the assembly on the tiller, and then the bolt head provides an alignment guide to get the other bolts started. That bolt was missing when I took it apart, and it took me a while to figure out the reason for the empty bolt hole and the larger hole in the body.

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

After realizing the machinist and I were both reading the manual wrong, I have numbers for the bearing assemblies used on the tine shaft.

Chain sprocket end (1 1/4 shaft) is Seal Master SFC-20
Other end (1 inch shaft) is Seal Master SF-16

[BigMatt]

Man, do I want one of those. I need to hit the lottery first though!

[Redcub]

John, I am ripping apart my Howard right now. Thanks for the leg work on the bearing parts numbers for me. Where can a guy get new tines and decals?
( thanks also to Gator809 for linking me to your project )

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

Only place to get decals is to have them made. The pillow block bearings on the tine shaft have set screws keeping the shaft form spinning inside the bearing. The ones on the chain side require a long shank 5/32 Allen wrench. You have to reach through the grease fitting hole to reach the Allen screws and loose them There are 2, 90 degrees form each other. I did not know those set screws were there, and removed the shaft without loosening them, but it was not easy.

This is with the new bearing installed and you can see the Allen head set screw just to the left and above the grease fitting. You will probably find the hole full of dirt and requiring some digging to get to the screws on the old one.

[Redcub]

What about capping those extra threads with "acorn" nuts and some lock tight rather than cutting them?

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

What about capping those extra threads with "acorn" nuts and some lock tight rather than cutting them?

Assuming you are referring to the tine bolts, in order to get them long enough to have the shoulder through the tine and mounting plate, the left over bolt is so long that the acorn nut will not cover all the threads and you still have problems with dirt and rust in the threads when/if you need to remove them.

[Redcub]

Chain lube question about the Howard L-28 Rotovator. Oil or grease?

John: I took off the small round plate off of the chain cover near the tension adjuster. It is about 3 inches in dia with a seal on the inside. It really looked bad in there and I can tell that water was been living inside for a while. No problem it can all be fixed up just fine.

In your previous post you mention that all your oil had been draining out of your Howard and on to the garden. Do I understand correct that the chain cover needs to be filled to some level with oil rather than just greasing the chain? I hope I have it wrong and that you were talking about the 90 degree gear box mounted on top being the one that was leaking.

Thanks John!

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

It uses 140 gear oil. 1/2 pint goes in ring gear box, 1 1/2 pint in chain housing. Hear is a link to owners manual. It also tells how to adjust chain.

http://home.centurytel.net/ejpuckett/Ma ... r%20owner/

[Redcub]

Square gearbox, not round.

John, Todd, and Hank (and everybody else here that has a Howard L-28...I'm loosing track ). My 90 degree gear box on top of my Howard Rotovator is square in shape. John, your appears to be round like a canteen shape.

I am starting to think that I don't have a L-28 model. I have been to other web sites of garden equipment collectors, but no luck so far. Other than the gear box, every thing looks exactly like yours

Any clues for me?
Thanks.

[ToddW]

Mine is round. Did you look at the parts manual link John just posted on here? Comparing your parts to the illustration will confirm is your is L28..

We like pics on this forum! posting pic of your rotovator will help us see the issue better

[Redcub]

Yes, I did look at the manual. It shows round shaped gear box. I am S/N 1424. Photohost let me on to the pic site last night, just need to read the rules on max size of pics, etc. I have watched the youtube vid on how to do it, just need to be smarter, or maybe put a hand crank and touch control on computers

I also intend to go to the Decal shop here in town next week. If you have any pics of any placards/decals/stickers on your L-28 Rotovator or the CD-6 despeeder, could you take a real good head on pic of it? I am interested in service instruction decals, warnings, serial number tags, anything and all.

When I get these made up I will let you know, and mail you a set if you like.

email me at 55farmallcub@gmail.com

Anybody else out there have pics to send for the decal shop??? Send em!

[ToddW]

I emailed you the pdf of the chain gaurd HOWARD sticker I re-created
had the original sticker dimensions from traces lekt on mine, and GATOR had a pretty good sticker yet on his the I took photos of


Still need dimensions of the sticker on the dirt shield if anyone had those dimensions let me know