Last Rear Axle (hopefully)

Christmas, New Year and 6inches of Snow, its all been and gone since my last update. In fairness its been a period of relative inactivity on the tractor front. To cut a long story short, I managed to well and truely bugger my half shaft. Having stripped the thread on my bearing removal tool, I lost the plot and tried to press the bearing off using a hydraulic press.

2000 PSI later I ended up with the bearing still in the same place and a distorted bearing carrier ! As a result the half shaft has been sent to the great big scrap metal yard in the sky.

Despite this disappointment, the refurb of the rear brake and hub have been successful (see below, note homemade gasket RHS of photo's). Back to the half shaft, second hand item sourced from Swindon for £30 complete with a brake drum, result ! Last Saturday, working in the remains of the snow, I therefore bit the bullet and refitted the replacement half shaft and refurbed brake to the tractor. This was a pretty straightforward task and enabled me to refit the back wheel (below - photo of half fitting).

With the wheel refitted I can now think about moving the tractor inside for my next task, the engine overall.