Ransomes MG5 Crawler

[Dieselman 63]

This is where all the wedges and bits of aluminium I’ve made up at work came in really handy. I had to set the pinion up on the differential so it ran sweetly, but the shaft slipped when I pushed the bearing and shaft into the gearbox. It’s a bit of a… see you next Tuesday… to get right.

The bronze wedge is from Marsden Point oil refinery, my old boss’ brother worked there as a boiler man. Funny the random information you carry around with you. The diff was built in April 1953, so I guess the machine wouldn’t have been much younger. 9/36 is the ratio of teeth on pinion to crown wheel, before @Seadog jumps in to correct me.

I’m reusing the old bearings, they’re fine.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Then, the bit I was dreading. The seal isn’t a standard type, though it is an inch so that wasn’t a problem. I got a standard type lip seal (the ship I worked on used to call them gamma rings!) and machined a top hat out of a bit of cast alloy I found in a bin. That was drilled for the three screws, then glued in with more threebond.

That’s not too bad for a days work I think. I get more done at home without constant interruption, management needlessly swapping me from one job to another and, of course, music that I actually want to listen to!

 

[Dieselman 63]

Today I took the clutch apart. I decided to skim the plate in the lathe, boy was it out. Some quite bad wear on that.

Everything is covered in oil and grease. The clutch lining I wet sanded in the lathe. It’s actually more of a light grey. Yes, I know, it’s probably made of wonder never-catch-on-fire material. It needed to be done and all the material that came off was brown mush like poo! Most of the oil is off, I might bake it in the oven when everyone is out.

The splines aren’t slipping on easily though. It’s not floating like it should. Some more investigation is required. I filed a little bit and it made it slip on easier. The clutch in the other one is absolutely flogged out, and this one looks brand new. I do wonder if someone’s jammed a metric spline onto an imperial, not sure. It seems too good condition for 1953.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Not much to report really, bought a roll of gasket paper for doing the gearbox seal and they sent it in this enormous box! I quite like it, it’s a great box.

Got some lock wire for locking the clutch back together, dismantled a heap of light fittings we were throwing out and found all the washers are these internal lock type, these are often on old British equipment, I was happy to have them.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Salutations. Another video for the ones who hate videos.

Explaining this in pictures just wouldn’t cut it; the clutch has the right amount of ‘float’ now. It’s landscape orientation, as that is perceived to be an issue.

 

[Dieselman 63]

So, on a school night, I decided to rebuild the clutch, spurred on with giddiness that the spline now works. A wild old time.

Someone taught me this trick for springs, a drill with a wire brush and a screwdriver in the vice, does a nice job. A fitter I worked with called Budgie (amazing tradesman) showed me how to bed springs in with a bit of emery in your hand, to take the dags off. It’s one of those things I’ve picked up on that makes things go back together a bit nicer. He also used to run a flat file over mating surfaces to find any high spots or sharp edges that might hamper the gasket. I love all those sorts of little tricks.

I put the lever on to show operation, but the nut needs replacing so you can see it really work. Still, you get an idea of the ‘float’ the clutch now has that it didn’t before.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Tested the clutch properly with nut and split pin, it works well now. Very hard. The fibre resin disc spins constantly as it is coupled to the impeller, the metal plates clamp/loosen as you pull the lever.

Someone at work was asking about this as I was talking about it, they thought it was a car and seemed to turn off when I told them it was a tractor. I find that a lot. It’s a great shame there’s so little interest in these things as I find the engineering inside them is so ingenious.

 

[dobbslc]

It’s a great shame there’s so little interest

832 posts says otherwise!

 

[Dieselman 63]

832 posts says otherwise!

And 30 of them are from my loyal fans!

 

[Dieselman 63]

Time to button down the clutch. I cut a slot in the end of shafts with holes through them, makes life much easier.

The lock wire went in next, then onto g box 2, stripping and assessing which parts are going into super g box. The hub is on a taper spline, it just pulls off, quite a lot of energy is needed to do this. This axle is in better shape than the other one so I’ll hopefully use it. Taper wedges to the rescue again, prying off this square cast housing for the oil seal.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Another piece of iron for the garden, this time it’s a post & telegraph cable marker. I didn’t know they went down so far!

 

[Seadog]

Have you seen how deeply postboxes are embedded?

 

[Dieselman 63]

Have you seen how deeply postboxes are embedded?

It’s honestly never come into my scope of interest up until seeing this! I should imagine they go down a bit.

 

[Seadog]

They do, around one and a half to two feet I believe.

 

[Dieselman 63]

On the theme of tips given to me by fitters, this one is valuable - cut the holes before you cut the gasket out. It’s quite easy to fracture the fibre paper and crack the gasket if you cut them out first.

Holes courtesy of this beautiful Boehm kit I picked up for $100 at a swap meet, they retail for around $450 and they’re a joy to use. You can use two dies at once and make a fibre washer, for instance.

This gasket goes on the gearbox and stops the lay shaft bearing leaking out the side. A little irregular hexagonal plate with three bolts holds it on. Not the biggest job in the world, but a man I used to work with told me if you do one job a day on a project, no matter how small, you’ve still made progress.

 

[Dieselman 63]

To be painted later…

 

[OJCar]

Have you seen how deeply postboxes are embedded?

It is to be denied that they have made useful anchor points when winching a chassis roughly straight.
© Kerbside Motors unLTD

 

[Farside]

a man I used to work with told me if you do one job a day on a project, no matter how small, you’ve still made progress.

Very true. A little adds up to a lot, over a while.
My lower back limits workshop time, but each day I do a bit. Things progress.

 

[Robotstar5]

Very true. A little adds up to a lot, over a while.
My lower back limits workshop time, but each day I do a bit. Things progress.

Tell me about it, I'm currently emptying my shed and went to pull a cardboard box off a shelf at head height, the box had suffered water damage and stuck itself to the shelf so when I pulled it didn't move and I twisted my back
Now I'm sitting in front of my PC dosed up on Ibuprofen, plastered in Voltorol and wearing a back brace instead of doing a bit of work while the weather's nice, to misquote a saying "pain stopped play"

 

[Dieselman 63]

The next few posts will be before/after comparisons of bits removed from either gearbox. This nice casting tidied up well.