Tearing further into the 107
 

So Recently I finally decided to bite the bullet and start fixing everything I know needs fixing on the 107. I started with the speed control lever, but while having it off decided to pull the steering wheel, dash cowl, and whole tower. Will also do some stuff up front, fortunately nothing with the engine itself. The current list stands as:

• Fix hydro control lever to remove play that it had
  
• Loosen friction on the hydro linkage so it moves easier
  
• Drill and tap out a broken screw (one of the 4 that holds the dash cowl and tin)
  
• Drill and tap out a broken bolt (one of 2 that hold the throttle control)
  
• Clean up rust beneath tower and make sure it is all clean
  
• Neaten wiring and make sure it is all clean and tight
  
• Clean up the space between engine and cast iron grille housing
  
• Install graphite PTO button that I stole from my parts 105 (not perfect but still in pretty good shape)
  
• Adjust throttle linkage where the cable connects so I can get WOT (knocked out of proper adjustment when I tore everything apart for valve adjustment)
  
• Increase governor spring tension -> less RPM loss under load

It seems like a long list, but most things are small easy jobs. Nothing in the list has been serious enough to prevent me from using the machine, and I haven't used it much anyway over the past few months. But since I'm using it even less now, and because it may see slightly increased use this summer (and possibly a few shows :biggrin2:) decided it wouldn't hurt to just fix these all now.

Fortunately the hydro is pretty much good (leaks slowly but that doesn't bother me too much), engine is pretty much good other than the linkage adjustments described above and needing a new S/G belt. Steering is solid with very little play. Crazy part is that I'm looking forward to all this work, I think it's gonna be fun to finally tear into this tractor in a bit different way than previously :beerchug:

Will update and get some nice pretty pictures for you guys, here she is in her current state before any repairs:
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Before you all go I do have one question, how does one remove the ammeter from the dash? I cannot seem to figure it out for the life of me. I could just leave it in and disconnect the wires but I would rather be able to clean it, the tin, and the cowl separately. There must be some way as my 106's has been replaced. Anybody know?

Unless you have something oddball, there should be a "U" shaped metal bracket on the rear of the meter. It is insulated and slides on the wire terminal posts. After you remove the nuts that hold the wires on the posts there is another set of nuts that when tightened pull the meter tight into the hole.

It's decently rusted but yeah that's exactly how it is. Guess it isn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be :beerchug:

I should hopefully start work either tomorrow or Thursday night, depends on how busy I end up being.

Work has officially begun! Unfortunately it's dark out but I've got a pretty good worklight to use. Came in for a break to eat dinner, but here's my progress so far:

Got the steering wheel off; my wood puller jig straight up crumbled, but fortunately there's always the BFH option :biggrin2: . Straightened up the puller as best possible, then sat on the seat and applied as much upward pressure as I could onto the wheel with my legs, and whacked the top of the puller bolt about 10 times. She loosened right up no problem.

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Also pulled the fiberglass cowl and dash tin; removed the ammeter as per ironman's advice. Then the choke, then the throttle, and lastly the 3 screws (4th one is broke and I plan to drill/tap for replacement). Came right off no problem, removed grommet for around steering column and separated the tin and cowl. Turns out there's a lot of crud under there so good thing I can clean it!

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Next step is to remove the solenoid, my light switch, the key switch, 4 bolts holding the hydro shaft mounts, and the 4 main tower bolts. Tower should then come off no problem. Going back out to do a bit more work so should make a little more progress still.

Update #2, today was a very productive day for working on this little project. Got a bunch more done, there's still more to go though.

Cleaned the dash cowl and tin, they're much cleaner now :beerchug:

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Got the whole dash tower off, wasn't too difficult. Had to unbolt the steering gearbox (easy enough, just 2 bolts) and mess with the hydro control shaft a bit but it popped off with little trouble. Also ran my screw taps/thread restorers through all the nuts and bolts to make sure they go together again easy. Unfortunately the friction adjuster nut is way too rusty to loosen up, but at least I can actually get some lubricant down in stuff now so it may be ok as it is.

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Dash tower is in decent shape, some light rust at the back edge of the battery tray and a bit near the bottom, but nothing too bad. Still gotta clean it and the surface of the tunnel cover on the tractor. My light system came right out with the tower and you can really see the simplicity of it.

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Overall a pretty good day. Still plenty of work left to do. Next thing is to clean the dash tower up and then drill out and tap those 2 broken bolts. Once I get the tower back on the tractor I will start work on the front end.

Amazing how all the little nooks and crannies fill up with crud. Or the
broken bolts and studs a guy finds. I guess 50 years of work will do that
to a tractor, or a person for that matter. Nice work

Ken

Hmmm, I maaay or may not have been the one who snapped off those bolts though :biggrin2::biggrin2:

Wasn't all my fault though, 30 years outside in the elements will rust them to the point where they break if you try to remove them :bigthink:

That's also why I'm keeping my screw tap and thread repair set handy, running all the bolts through with that sure goes a long way to prevent future breaking!

Made some more progress tonight, unfortunately no pictures because there's nothing to take pictures of.

Started on all the nitty-gritty small tasks that needed getting done. Fixed the steering shaft threads so I could get the bolt on properly, fixed the splines on the hydro control shaft with a bunch of intricate work with a file. Then began work on the dash tower, cleaned it all up good. Then drilled and tapped the two broken bolts out. Ran the taps through all the bolt holes and nuts and such just to keep everything clean.

For the sheer heck of it, and because I still have all the wiring complete, I hooked up the battery and actually fired it up (note: solenoid has to be grounded in order for it to work :biggrin2:). Still runs good minus a ridiculous rattling noise that turned out to be the plate that the driveshaft runs through that blocks off the front of the tunnel. Had to unbolt it to remove the tower and it was just rattling on the driveshaft.

Tomorrow morning I might dump a bit more gas in her, mount the steering wheel, and a temporary hydro lever, and take her for a little drive :biggrin2: .

Took it for a drive this morning. Without the dash tower on, it almost reminds me of like a Ford Model T interior with the exposed steering column. Strange to look down and see the engine but cool nonetheless.

Got pics and a video of it. Governor is out of whack, you can really hear the RPMs drop when I start moving, and my hydro lever still was slipping on the shaft. Ended up clamping vice grips lower down on the hydro shaft to use.

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Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XWFTig7rr8

She rattles quite a bit, don't worry none of those sounds are internal. It's a combination of a worn drive hub, loose hood, loose tunnel cover front shield, and possibly worn basket pulley keyway.

Fun to see it living!!


Good work!

Well, ya had to go and bring this thread back from the dead before I could!!!

With a sudden change toward warm weather (hit 70 today :biggrin2:) I'm finally getting back to reassembling her.

Tonight, however, the task was putting a tube into the left rear tire. I've got no fancy tools for tires, but this went really smooth and quick. The inside of the rim was really clean, no rust, and the bead popped off with little issue. Tube in, and she's finally got 4 completely solid tires!

That's a good accomplishment. You're lucky with no internal rust! 72 here today too! Beautiful

Oh yes, really really lucky. I just cannot stress it enough, this machine sat outside in the weeds completely exposed to the elements for 30 years (minus the engine, fenders and seat, thankfully). Those back tires remained in amazingly good shape despite being so exposed.

I will never forget the day I pulled it from the weeds. Somewhere I've got pictures, I'll have to dig around and see if I can find them. The tractor frame itself sat tipped up on its grill casting, which was coated completely in mud. The bad hydro trans sat a few feet away, tires sunk about 6" into the dirt. Took it home and tucked it inside a little shed. Late that night I went out with some paper towels and a cup of water and cleaned off the grill casting, in the headlight panel area I slowly cleared off all the dried on mud. Beneath all that was the original textured decal, with the IH symbol still intact. It spent the next 2 years in that little shed while I worked on it.

The final push came with the purchase of a replacement hydro early 2020. With so much extra time to spend at home I got a lot of work done. I got everything back together, and encountered issues with the starter generator. Replaced the armature and was good to go. Finally, after 30 years of sitting and 3 years of repair, she fired up for the first time on August 9th 2020, in the middle of the driveway, with no fenders on it yet. What a sound, what a sight, what a feeling! My tractor was finally fixed! I had successfully saved it from scrap, and managed to turn it into a fully functional machine. I will never forget that day either.

Then, that Saturday after, I took it for a little drive, to show it to the man I bought it from, one of my neighbors. You will not believe the look on his face and the way he jumped right up out of his chair and walked over when I pulled up. He had bought it for parts because of the bad hydro, never thought he'd see it running and driving. To this day he's the only person I have let touch the machine since its completion.

Sorry for this endless wall of text, it just feels nice to reflect on everything I have done for this machine and how cool it is to see it functional again :beerchug:

Little bit of progress tonight, finally fixed my starter/generator problem. When I built it, I used parts from 2 different starters. The one it came with and another from a non-cub Briggs engine. I ended up using the armature from the Briggs one, as well as the end caps. But for whatever reason, the pulley side end cap has a different position for the adjustment bolt hole, that I did not realize originally. It prevented me from tightening the belt properly. So, I finally swapped it out for the original cap, and no more tension adjustment issues :beerchug:

However, I've also discovered something unfortunate. Upon pulling the dipstick there's clear evidence of a small amount of water in the oil. It's most likely condensation build up, as I haven't ran the machine in 2 months now. Have to change the oil over to some regular 30wt for the warm weather anyway so not too big a deal.

But this is the only machine I've had to deal with condensation inside the crankcase on. Anyone have any ideas why this might be and how I can stop it?

steering box rebuild time!
 

Well, back to work again last night. Did exactly what I said I would, pulled the steering box for a quick rebuild while it's easy to do and before it breaks. With no tower on the tractor it really came right off without issue:

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Interesting little bit, the name Ross cast right into the aluminum. I thought that was cool
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Mostly disassembled and cleaned
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Completely clean
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All back together, packed with new grease
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Overall, this went really quite smooth. Everything inside this was still in really good shape, very little wear on anything. But if you reference the story of the tractor, this makes perfect sense. Most gearbox rebuilds you see are being done to boxes that have been in continuous use for 45-60 years. My gearbox here, however, only saw maybe 15-20 years of use before the hydro blew up. Which made this rebuild really simple :beerchug:

Thanks for the updates and explanations of things. I love reading and
learning as much as I can about this stuff.

Ken

It's coming right along. Keep us posted...

Thanks guys, tonight I made a good bit of progress.

I worked on the last thing that needed to be done before reassembling, which was fixing my hydro control shaft. With some penetrating oil and a LOT of persuasion, I managed to loosen the friction adjustment bolt and get the friction set much more loose. I then reattached the hydro control shaft, and complete steering box, back to the tractor.

Then comes the biggest step forward, as of now she officially has a dash tower again. Nothing is tightened down yet but it's there. No dash cowl or tin yet, just the tower itself. But either way, progress is progress! :beerchug:

Next step is to get the wiring secured and bolt the tower down good. Then I can finish the dash itself. After that? I move to the front of the machine.

Simple pleasures.
Something special about bringing something abandon and broken, back to life.
If I have to explain it, one would not understand. :beerchug:

You're 100% right about the pleasure of taking something discarded and broken/unloved, and getting it back to working again.

It's a pleasure the generations of "I'll just replace it rather than fixing it" folks will never know.

You guys are 100% right, there isn't any feeling like the feeling of taking something abandoned and getting it to work again. I'm quite honestly ashamed to say that most of my generation is right in with the "throw away" society. That's why I do this, so I can be different than everyone else. And, because I enjoy it! :beerchug:

Anyway, more major progress today. The dash tower is now all completely assembled and ready to go. I'm almost ready to move to the front of the tractor and fix the last couple of things, and then I'm done!

Right, forgot the unwritten rule... Pics or it didn't happen!! :beerchug: :biggrin2:

All you need is a cap for the steering wheel...

I'm gonna be looking for a pair of more worn out, faded steering wheel caps For the 107 and 147. I don't want to buy a new one because it won't match the patina of the rest of the machine.

My 106's however, is rather cloudy and faded, which is exactly the effect that I want...

Good decision!



I think we must have been separated at birth....

:biggrin2::biggrin2:

I've made a bit of progress over the past week or so, nothing crazy. Weather's been kinda hit and miss with rain and whatnot. I managed to get the front wheels back to original, or at least the rims. One of the original tires was splitting along one of the treads so I couldn't use it. Unfortunately, no pics, as there isn't much noticeable anyways.

I've determined that the last few items on my list of things to do are:

-Check over wiring and make sure it and the lights work
-make governor more sensitive so RPM's don't drop so much when under load
-check basket pulley key, as it seems the keyway might be worn
-change engine oil
-check hydro fluid level
-add a 2nd flex disc to the flex disc joint coupling

Then it should be good to go for this summer, hopefully I'll be able to take it to shows!

-Check over wiring and make sure it and the lights work

Nice work, I love how little wiring there is on these things.

Ken

I love how simple they are, too. Makes it really easy to get everything wired properly. I'm more worried about the lights than anything else because I swapped out the toggle switch for an OEM one I stole off my parts tractor.

Front end work has begun!
 

Ok folks, good progress on her today. Pulled the hood and grill housing off first:

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Came off pretty well, although one of the nuts was really rusted out bad. Found a set screw, washer, and nut hidden in some packed dirt that I'd never previously been able to access. Who'd have thought those would be there?

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Next I went at the basket pulley. Had some side to side play to it, my thought was worn keyway as that seems to be a relatively common issue. Nope, keyway was clean and straight. No wear at all. Instead, she suffered from a worn key :bigthink:. Very easy fix, rotated the key 90 degrees, put it back in, tightened up the set screws, and it was nice and tight, no more play! :beerchug:

With that done I put it all back together for the most part, didn't have the time to get it completely done but everything is covered up again. Next task is to set the governor to be more sensitive.

Excellent solid repair without getting vectored off into the weeds like my 123 . :-) . Those lower grille bolts get set in there pretty good after 40 yrs of dirt, humidity, rain and neglect!

Good work!

I'm doing my best to stay on track and not get carried away. Nice thing is, having had to completely build the tractor from a pile of parts, I know what needs to be done and what doesn't. There's a few things that need fixing but I don't need to worry about in a hurry. Mainly, eventually I'll replace the head gasket and make sure the head is flat and level. The 30 year old gasket is holding up pretty well, no leaking or anything so I'll leave it alone. I'll also eventually replace the drive hub with onna those fancy new ones from Jeff in PA, but for now I can live with the knocking of the old one.

As for the grille bolts, it was actually the 2 upper ones that were more difficult. I'll explain why in just a moment...

Ok, so some minor progress made on the 107 tonight. I got the lights all sorted out and properly grounded, instead of just hanging on the bottom of the fiberglass cowl screws. A little difficult since I refuse to drill any holes, but I decided on the bottom bolt for the throttle on the right side, and the bottom bolt for the hood latch on the left side. Lights are still nice and bright, with a proper OEM push-pull switch that works like a charm!

I also took the time to adjust the governor sensitivity with the spring, I found that it was one hole off how it should've been set from factory. So I set it back to the factory settings and we'll see how that helps the governor!

Progress was hindered a bit today because of work finding front tires for a certain off-topic machine... tomorrow assuming all goes well, I might even be able to fire the 107 up for the first time in almost 3 months. We'll see though...

Keep up the good work!

We'll look forward to a fire-up report

Well I got some good news for ya,,,,,,,

It's Alive!!!!!

(again, for the first time in 3 months)


Changed the oil, tightened everything back up good, hooked up a battery, 5-6 cranks with partial choke and she fired up no problem. Blew some smoke for the first minute, which is normal for when it sits :biggrin2:. Took her for a drive, man the hydro control is nice now that it's all loosened up. Throttle sensitivity is much better but still needs to be increased a little bit.

Of course, pics or it didn't happen, she was idling in all these,

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And here she is back in her home,
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Also note the lights, they are working well and are nice and bright! I took a video of the startup and drive, I'll see about getting that on Youtube so you guys can see it.

So what's next? Well, still needs governor work. And I'm gonna add a 2nd flex disc to the driveshaft as the single one in there now seems to be taking up a lot of space that would fit 2 nicely. Hopefully it'll also reduce some vibrations, which will never completely go away til I order onna dem fancy new drive hubs from Jeff in PA.

But I'm happy! It feels great to fire up my pride n' joy and take her for a spin again!

Nicely done. There is something pretty dog gone special about hearing
it fire up after being torn down for a while. Also a bit scary, at least around
here. Not sure I will ever get over the jitters on the initial start up.
Congratulations, it's a big thing, I know.

Ken

You're completely right, it always feels really good to hear it fire up again!

Honestly I was more scared about it NOT firing up, especially since I was recording it! I guess worst thing that could've happened would've been bad gas or corroded points, but still, she usually always fires right up. Didn't let me down tonight though.

And, its cool to remember that this is the tractor that started it all for me. Without this 107 I wouldn't be "Cubcadet_107" now would I!

Interesting side note, the overhang where she currently resides, I actually constructed 2 years ago for the sole purpose of storing the 107. At that time, I definitely didn't think I'd have 4 Cubs that need a place to stay! :biggrin2:

This has NEVER happened to any of us :-) :-)

Congrats and I look forward to the video! Good work.

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Did some driving today :biggrin2::biggrin2:

She's resting in the front yard

Nice! Nothing like hearing them start up for the first time and going for a test drive. Should almost feel like a new tractor.

Ok here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPgdfFJVMOo

Sorry for shaky camera, our yard is anything but smooth at this point :biggrin2:

Also don't mind the smoke or the rattling, that's normal