Farmall Cub

I think I used a little too much English:



That's what happens to an 18" pipe wrench with a 48" cheater pipe when you're trying to free up a stuck front knee on a Cub.

I was trying to narrow up the '53 Cub. The right knee slid right out, so I cleaned it up, slathered it with never-seez, and stuck it back in.

Not such good luck on the left side. She wouldn't budge, but since the other one came out so easy, how stuck could it possibly be, right? Well, I banged on it with the deadblow for a while, and imagined that I moved it a fraction. Figured I could latch on with the big pipe wrench and just twist it loose... Uh-huh...

Ended up using some heat on the tube, and THEN she twisted free and came right out.

50 years of sitting in the spot will do amazing things.
Heat seems to always work but it is usually the last resort.
That Cub looks really narrow. What are you going to use it for?
Thackery

I grew up on a farm so I tend to go for the heat a little sooner than "last resort." You really didn't have time to dorf around fixing things, so you used what you knew would work. Luckily it wasn't stuck too bad, and my piddly little oxy-acetylene setup was enough.

Wish I could torch the whole tractor because the heated metal has a really nice finish. A quick wire brushing and it's ready for paint.

It's set up for the 44" tread width for maximum Cubbage in minimum space.

Once it's painted, I think it's going to be my full-time sickle bar machine.

Matt:

I guess that was a bit of the ooops factor going on there. Sometimes that happens. I have bent a few tools over the years but never managed to bend an 18" pipe wrench before ..... that must have been some stuck

I wish I had taken some pictures of the pipe wrenches in the power plant I worked in for 40 years. To say they had been mistreated would be the understatement. These were Rigid always and were 18", 2', 3' and 4', and I've seen them all broken and bent both in cast and aluminum (of course). Toward the end of my work I am looking at a 36" one in the scrap yard, as we were allowed to weigh and pay for scrap, it too had a busted housing and the handle was bent somewhat. But what caught my eye was a decal put on there by Rigid that warenteed the housing against breakage forever. Since it had the nut, hook jaw and base jaw still on the wrench I picked it up and took it home. Come to find out a mechanic told me that it was not uncommon to attach a steel cable to the wrench end and pull with a crane, beating it with a 16 or 20 pound sledge hammer, and a couple of Rose-bud torches a screaming on one of those 4-5 or 6 inch nuts trying to break it loose from a steam turbine or boiler feed pump. Several years later I contacted Rigid and after they knew how it came to be broken they sent me a brand new 36" housing. The newely refurbished wrench now resides in my shop and has been used by the local fire department from time to time and me on rare occasion. Nice to have in a pinch. And yes, I have abused it with a 4 foot long cheater. A man has got to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

when i worked in the steel mill i was useing a 4' aluminum pipe wrench and we got on it so hard it sheared the little roll pin where the lower jaw attaches, but the handle didn't bend. i never knew that lower jaw was on a slide before that one. it was a ridged brand and we had a 2 ton comealong on the handle doing the pulling. a lot of people get sort of uppity about the "right tool for the job" sort of attitude but when you are up to your ass in alligators you sometimes have to make do.......

And here I thought they made pipe to make wrench handles longer. My dad and I put a cheater on a 3' Rigid when replacing his steam boiler.

I think if Ridge Tool was concerned about people slipping pipes over the ends of their wrenches, somewhere between 1923 and now they would have fashioned a big round ball at the end of the handle "to prevent your hands from slipping off".

The Ridge Tool pipe wrench factory was on my route when I was a city driver years ago and one of the benefits of picking up there was a small table with scratch and dent products for sale for pennies on the dollar. The worst defect I recall seeing was a pipe wrench with a poor paint job. I still use it today.

Glad you got it off. One of the worst jobs on one of these old cubs!! I haven't gotten up the courage to do the left side of mine yet, and since the sides are even now, I might just let it where it is and forget it.

When you look at the physics of these axles, there is a lot of rusted surface area to adhere together, so each square inch doesn't have to exert too much force in order to make for a REALLY stuck axle.

Hengy wrote:there is a lot of rusted surface area to adhere together, so each square inch doesn't have to exert too much force

I never put it in that perspective but that is one wide bond or weld to break!

Pipe wrenches aren't the only thing that gets power enhancement from a pipe. I used to work in the hardware department at Sears and there were quite a few wrenches with broken jaws returned that the handles were circles. Vern

Try using a cheater bar on the china made junk that is being sold today and see what happens.

Jim

That's an "Olympia" brand wrench made in India.

I'll tell ya, when the knee finally moved I thought I finished off the wrench. Then I was like, wait, I think it moved. Went the other way and holy moly, it's loose!

Other than the leaky seals hemorrhaging oil , this is a really nice, straight, tight tractor. Plus now it doesn't look like a hermit crab with the front end 12" wider than the rear!

A college educated wrench turner could have calculated the stress applied to the pipe wrench using the following formula:

(18 + 48 x > = )

ricky racer wrote:

A college educated wrench turner could have calculated the stress applied to the pipe wrench using the following formula:

(18 + 48 x > = )

Oh man... that was DEFINITELY the force needed to move Merlin's front axle. Took several tries, several cocktails, several hits with a heavy hammer...

Not going there again!