Draft Control Adjustment

[BearCreek Majors]

Before I put the lid back on the rear of the county I replaced the piston seal and check/set the adjustments for the three point linkage as I had been having problems getting the plow to go down this spring as well as settling fairly fast after the tractor was shut off. One thing I found was the “knock off pin” had been swung around on its eccentric away from the piston instead of up towards the center of the piston. I could see where the pin had crawled over the bottom edge of the piston, I’m thinking it may have been jamming the linkage up and this may have been my problem with not being able to drop the plow down.
The other issue I found I’m hoping someone can help clarify. In the IT shop manual (pg 83 & 84) to adjust the draft control linkage they say in the text to set the gap at the snap ring to 0.200, but in Fig. 203 they show a 0.020 gap. The Ford shop manual says to use Newday tool No. 12neverhaditneverwill34.
Does anyone know the correct dimension, 0.200 or 0.020?

I set mine at 0.200 only because it was closer to .200 than .020

Pat

[Brian]

Pat, its 0.200.

[BearCreek Majors]

Thanks Brian, I kinda figured you'd be tha man with the answer!

Pat

[BearCreek Majors]

Brian, I’m starting to wonder if that shouldn’t be .020. When I got the Super Six the lift arms didn’t work (control valves were tight) and the Draft control lever was broken off, my fix at the time was to rob the lid off the Super Major. Now I have made a new shaft and handle for the draft control, got the valve working , set everything up to the specs in the manual, and reinstalled the original lid. My problem now is the lift arms won’t go all the way down and by the time I have the quandrant lever halfway up the lift arms are already all the way up…..unless I have the draft control lever up in the draft position, then the lift arms appear to work correctly.
I’m thinking I may set everything up on the Super Major lid with the .020 setting rather than the .200 and see if this one works correctly.

Pat

[Brian]

It is definitely .200" but this will only affect Draft control which you say is correct.

Position control seems to be a little out, did you set the Position Control adjuster where it pushes on the back of the valve control lever?

Another thought. Is your Super a New Performance with Orange wheels or is it the earlier tractor. If it is the earlier version, the lift instructions in the IT manual are not correct. The .200" measurement only applies to New Performance tractors with the Double acting sensing lift.

All the setting instructions are on the Wiki here, "fordsontractorpages" and "dotty" are the codes to get in.

[BearCreek Majors]

OK Brian, what you are saying makes more sense. When setting the draft control for the New FSM (mine are all the newer SM), the IT manual says to insert a .010 feeler gauge between the main spring plunger and the housing, then tighten the yoke to hold it in place. I scratched my head a lot trying to figure this out as my plunger is probably a good ¼” from the housing when the yoke is set at “zero lash” and tighting up the yoke untill the threads bottomed out still left a gap. I loosened up the spring retaining nut on the back to get the plunger back far enough to make the feeler gauge work and then proceeded to make my adjustments. I believe this may be the error, as when I tightened the spring nut back in place it moved the draft control linkage forward the ¼” I had lost when slacking off the yoke spring. This is probably the same amount I extended the turnbuckle adjustment from its original setting as well.
I’m thinking I need to set this as you described, basically the same way as the early SM, being sure the yoke adjustment is set properly first.
Now I’m curious if the IT manual missed the boat that badly or if County used a different inner spring seat that kept the plunger farther forward, thus requiring adjustments to be made as in the early Super Majors.

Pat

[Brian]

If you mean the top link yoke adjustment IT are up the creek again.

On the NP, the top link yoke should be screwed in to the point of minimum end float, no further. As you screw it in further beyond this point, end float increases. So you need to yo-yo a bit to find it. End float can be about 1/16th" maximum.

Because you have a Double Acting top link system on these tractors there will always be a gap between the plunger and the lift housing otherwise it would be locked solid and would not work. The top link plunger has to be free to move both in compression and tension unlike the earlier tractors.

Greater movement than this requires shims to be removed from the spring retaining nut but this would be a rare occasion.

County used the standard Ford linkage.