Cub 124 steering issue need help
 

Had the steering go on the 124 last summer late in the year. Took the unit apart and rebuit it. New bearings and worm gear stud. Everything new. I packed it well with grease and it worked real well. I put it back in in hopes to use it with the blower in the winter. Didn't need it then as the winter was mild and it wasn't used. So off with the blower and back on went the mower. Have been using the mower up till today and again having issue with slop in the steering. Then it went just like that. I know I have it now apart again and the stud for the worm gear is completely gone. The grease looks to have all the metal from the stud in it. What has gone wrong to have to rebuild this again so soon? I've not used it that much this spring to warrant it was over use that's for sure. It does ride in the truck when not in use at times. Could that lead to this issue? I know have to rebuild this all over again. This time though it came agart real easy. Guess I know what I was doing. Any of you have any ideas what is causing this and what to look for? Thanks.

possibly the worm "stud" you used was not hardened properly????
I'm thinking they are case hardened and if you ground it or turned it in a lathe you took the case hardening off??
About the only thing I can think of. :bigthink:

sounds like you got a weak cam follower or you had it adjusted to tight which might have caused the premature failure.

The cam follower as you call it was from a reliable online source. I had it working fine I thought. It turened real smooth andeasy. I just can't believe it would have eaten not only the taper point but some of the un-threaded area as well. I got the replacement parts form here. And I think I bought the other last summer here as well. Any though on this supplier?

http://ccspecialties.org/steering_se...TINUE+SHOPPING

The kind of wear you speak of, in that short amount of usage, seems to indicate as I mentioned in the previous post, that a finished part missed the heat treatment, it happens.
Nothing is foolproof, clean it up and file test it, the file should indicate it is soft.
if so, I suggest you clean things up and replace the soft worm/cam follower.
Post a close up picture of the follower on here, as that don't happen very often.:bigthink:

I'll see what I can do on the picture. The last one last fall was the same issue. It too was eaten up just like this one. Before I get to putting this new one in I will give it the file test to see if it's hard or not. Clearly do not want this to happen again. I have plans to mow with this 124 as it's a working tractor. I like it a lot. The only down fall it has is it's turning radius but that's something I can live with. I'll keep you posted on it guys. Thanks for the reply's.

Is the worm gear full of pits?

Not sure I'll have to get it on the bench and cleaned up before I can say. Something worth checking on. I sure would like to diagnose this time around. Fin the parts cheep enough but don't need to be replacing them this often.

x3 on a soft cam follower. I'm pretty certain those are case hardened. Some folks say you can clean one up in a lathe, it doesn't work too well, I've tried. Others attempt to dress it up on a bench grinder. not accurate at all. I have even heard of trying to make one out of a grade 8 bolt, still not a fan. All of these comments are based on 26 years of being a machinist. My option to repair one is to set the part up on a surface grinder and clean it up or just order a new one form Cadet. There may be aftermarket ones just as good, I have never looked into it. If you are making a trailer queen then I suppose anything would work, but for a worker I wouldn't try to reinvent the wheel,so to speak. Let us know if you find damage to the worm gear that is causing this or something else weird going on, never heard of a new cam follower going out so quickly. Also, I have no knowledge or your supplier so I am NOT trying to knock the quality of his products, just offering my observations.

Oh I'm not knocking them either. I ordered the parts yesterday evening. The parts are already in the mail to me. Ought to get them in a day or two. I'd say then have shipping down that's for sure.

If the first cam follower went similar to the second I wish I had it to test. I did run my finger on the worm gear and it was smooth to the touch. I didn't notice anything out of the norm on it. Last time I replaced the bearings races and cam follower. I have same coming just in case it needs it. I'm not cobing it with something else. The cam follower is new same as last time.

Not making a trailer queen, it's hasn't been redone but it sure was well taken care. It had a good life and looks good after all these years. I just hate to see them just sit in the barn and go untouched. I want to see it work.

I'll keep an eye on that worm gear too.

Funny thing the steering on the Oliver super 55 I have went last summer too. It is almost the same setup. Bearings top and bottom of a worm gear. However it has ball bearing that run in a sort of tube that it wraps around the worm gear. No cam follower on that one. Guess it was a lot like the 8N ford too. It must have been economic to make and is for sure easy to work on.

The Oliver has a recirculating ball setup typical of lot of manual steering gears.
The worm/stud is a lot less expensive and generally used where a light duty works without a problem.
I believe Ross invented the recirc ball system and it has been improved and powered.
Saginaw was considered the best for many years, but heavy
Today most is rack/pinion and hyd power or electric.

Can you post some pics of the damaged can follower and the work gear?

I don't know, and don't care to start a big "discussion" on cam followers, but on every tractor I brought home that needed steering attention, and that was most. I "dressed" the followers in the drill press with a grinder and rat tail file and haven't had a issue thereafter.
Back in my early years here on OCC, that was the norm you would read, was to "clean up" the cam follower to remedy the problem, and didn't hear of recurring issues...:bigthink:
Worked for me, and many others I would guess. This is a first that one would go out that soon.

Rebuilt the steering last night and am sharing some pictures of the issue.

The first picture is of the cam follower right out of the housing and as I took it apart. You can see the follower in the picture is clearly damaged.

I did find some nicks on the screw but nothing I though caused this. I did however for the sake of having it apart remove them. I did have one point on the lower end of the screw that looks factory but was an issue. I attached one pictures of that. I tried to remove it as best I could. Really I managed to get most of it out but there is still some left. I felt that that was fine and time would tell. My thought was this would only effect one point on the cam follower and it didn't rotate to cause cut it in any other fashion. By the way the picture was a before shot. I didn't take one of after.

I did test the old and new cam follower with the file to see if there was any issue with hardness. The new one is harder that the old. I easily cut with file the tip on the old one. The new one not so much but it did file some. It would have taken much more work to do the damage the old one took.

So time will tell if this rebuild is any better that the old. I also while I am here put on one of those steering upgrade kits that make it steer better. It's not in yet so hard to say if that works better than before. but for 14.00 dollars I'll give it a try.

Well something's wrong that ain't right. Never saw follower worn down to nothing like that. There isn't anything left to "dress up":bigthink:
The plate, is it flopping around in the box? Do you have a new ring and gasket? Reason I ask is it looks like more grease outside of where the ring is than there should be...

Well here's the scoop. I had taken it apart when it first was an issue. There was grease on the outside of the housing before it took it apart. I found the cam follower bad so I just put it back together to work on later. The ring and gasket aren't new but they were fine. Covered with grease off the cam follower fingers and other places. So the amount of grease hadn't been cleaned up when I snapped the picture. It's not as bad as it looks with the grease. My mess so to speak. The cam follower looked that way last fall. However it was at least 15 years old as that's how long I had the tractor and used it for blowing snow all those years up till last. There wasn't any slop on the steering to speak of prior to last fall and again after I put the steering back together last fall and again the other day. I didn't get a chance to reinstall the steering back in the tractor but will likely tomorrow. See how that steering upgrade kit works. Got some mowing to get done and soon. I'l keep you posted on the cam follower this year and I'm in hopes this lasts a tad longer.