1942 Oliver Standard - Transmission Shift Tower: The Definition of Wallered-Out

"Well there's your problem. The parts are just wallered-out." This is the normal progression of fit between two parts that rub against each other while out in the weather and working on a farm for decades. These first two photos are the offending shift tower and shift lever. The wear is also shown in other photos below. It's quite impressive.

Time has not been kind to these parts. The retaining ring in the upper right has lost its springiness. The two pins in the lower center of the photo are purt-near wore out on the ends that ride in the two slots milled into the ball on the shift lever.

The shift lever has been eaten away by corrosion.

That rounded-out part in the center of the slot isn't supposed to be there. Yes, things are plumb wore out. I'll break out the MIG welder and try my best to fill in all the offending craters and worn bits.

Below shows the results of the welding session. Next is to grind most of that weld material away.

It's far from perfect but certainly good enough for this old tractor. One nice surprise was that the knob on the end of the shift lever (lower right in the photo) shows practically no wear. I was fully expecting to need to weld it up.

The pins are exactly 1/4" in diameter. Let's see if I have anything that will work to replace the pins.

After searching for some 1/4" rod and not finding any, I decided I could just flip the pins around and put the good end in toward the shift lever ball. There is plenty of pin length still in the shift tower holes that the pins won't come out.

The pins are just a press fit into holes in the shift tower.

This was a two-hour job but the results are amazing. Prior to the fix, the shift lever could be moved all around, making it extremely difficult to figure out where I was in the shift pattern. It's doubly challenging with the funky Oliver shift pattern. Now however it feels very precise and works like a charm.

I've put this picture up before but it bears repeating. The classic Oliver "double-H" shift pattern, although these early 4-speed tractors didn't really have a true H-pattern. It was more like 1/2 or 3/4 of an H.