Ford 3000 Flywheel ring gear

[blehmann]

I will be splitting my 1966 Ford 3000 gasser to repair the ring gear. Fifty years of use has the teeth banged up pretty bad. I bought a new starter for it, but saw how bad the gear is while installing the starter. I am assuming that the gear can be flipped over and should be good for another fifty years or so using the other half. If this is not the case, please let me know so that I can purchase the extremely expensive 162 tooth gear prior to splitting. I do not want to leave the tractor split and on jacks for more than a day or so, preferably I will open it up and close it up on the same day. My memory is shorter than my little finger and I just don't like to let repairs linger. There are no indications that any other work will be needed while I have it opened up. The clutch is fine and there is no oil seepage anywhere except at the gasket where the hydraulic pump bolts to the block.

I could get a gear for the diesel model for $38 but the gas model gear runs $110-$190. Those extra 34 teeth are expensive!

 

[DJ54]

Is the ring gear beveled on both sides..?? If it is, it should work. I've had my 2000 split a couple of times, but can't remember if it is or not.

My Dad did flip one, on one of the Super C Farmall's here, that wasn't. He flipped it, then ground the bevel on all of the teeth. It's been working fine since '75, and I use it a lot.

 

[City Farmer]

I flipped the ring gear on my gas "67" 4400, It worked perfect. The starter drive gear had the lead.

 

[Soundguy]

If its not chamfered it will wear worse, perhaps on the drive gear. Will it last a while before failure again? Probably.

New one best, but if not in the cards......

 

[RickB]

If its not chamfered it will wear worse, perhaps on the drive gear. Will it last a while before failure again? Probably.

New one best, but if not in the cards......

IIRC those ring gear teeth are straight cut on both sides. Also I'm thinking somebody is now offering an aftermarket ring gear after decades of OEM only at a very high price. Thinking either Sparex or A&I has the offering.

 

[Soundguy]

If he can get it off without killing it with heat or splitting it, and it has straight teeth, might work.

IMHO.. If I could find a good priced repop, I'd put that on. Ya know. splitting the tractor to put (back ) on a half worn out part and all.

 

[RickB]

If he can get it off without killing it with heat or splitting it, and it has straight teeth, might work.

IMHO.. If I could find a good priced repop, I'd put that on. Ya know. splitting the tractor to put (back ) on a half worn out part and all.

I would as well. But then what I did was replace my gas ring gear with a diesel ring gear. Trouble is, the diesel ring gear has to have a complete diesel engine attached to it.

But that strategy solved several problems. :drink:

 

[blehmann]

I'm bringing this thread back up for some update and maybe a little more discussion.

I split the tractor and found that someone had been into it as there was a fairly new clutch installed. Pulling the ring gear and flipping it over was pretty easy. Reassembly took a bit longer than disassembly as I was working by myself and needed to be in two places at one time in order to line every thing back up and get the two halves to slip together. I suppose that I spent most of two days doing the job. I tried the starter and found that it would not engage and not wanting tear up the good side of the flywheel I decided to take the starter to our local auto electrical shop and have it rebuilt. They called a day later and said that the starter head was cracked. We ordered a new Chinese made knockoff that I installed a couple of days later. It also did not engage properly. I pulled it off and manually operated it. I found that the lever that pushes the Bendix forward was hanging up on the housing of the stator. So I took it back to the shop and showed them what was going on. He worked on a bit and said that he thought it should work but to be sure that I have a really hot battery as the mousetrap starters take a lot of power to work correctly. I went ahead and purchased a new battery and fully charged it prior to attempting to start the tractor again. Now I have a starter that will engage maybe one out of ten attempts. Two and a half years later and the problem is about the same so I am either going to figure out what is going on or just sell the tractor and let someone else figure it out. It is not that I haven't tried on several occasions as I have pulled the starter a couple of dozen times now. I've used parts of the old starter and parts of the new starter trying to get the bendix to fully extend to no avail. Now I am pondering if I have a diesel flywheel and a gasser bendix. My memory says that the gasser has 128 and the diesel has 160+ teeth on the ring gear. The next thing to check will be to pull the starter once again and pull the bendix, then see how well it meshes with the ring gear. Any hints or suggestions are welcome.

 

[blehmann]

I just ran across the information. The gasser has the 162 tooth ring gear. I also found that the diesel starter has a 10 tooth Bendix. Mathematically, the gasser should have 12.65 teeth. LOL. I'm making progress!

 

[City Farmer]

Can you mark a tooth and slowly wrench the engine over to count the teeth on the flywheel? eBay and some tractor sites call out the same starter for both diesel and gas engines. The New Holland parts site will give you the part number you need for a gas tractor.