1942 Farmall H Memorial Restoration: Steering Bolster Rebuild 

Nice job sir I just want to thank you once again for sharing your knowledge with us I have been around this stuff my whole life and you have learned something that I didn’t know on almost every one of your videos

Nice work on the bolster. I concur with comment below; I haven’t seen one of those taken apart. Neat to see how it all comes together. And I second that shout out to Owen! That was really cool! 🚜👍🛠🧰

Thank you for sharing.. I have to get to my Farmall H this yr put new seals

I noticed my Steering bolster gearbox was leaking while preparing some cooling system work the other day. Took the cover off to put some JD corn head grease in there and the ancient grease already was full of metal chunks. The worm shaft bearing cage had disintegrated and the whole thing was completely worn. I'm actually fairly excited to be able to do this level of work on the steering. I got the tractor from my uncle after he wasn't able to use it anymore, and it's proven to be a lot of fun to work on. One thing I think I'll do differently from what you did is that I'll probably put some loctite 680 mounting compound on that lower bushing to keep it where it's supposed to be (if it's loose when I take it apart)

Great video. A great demonstration of the front bolster rebuild. Not much to them when it comes right down to it. They, meaning IH and JD, really wanted the tractors easily reparable for the farmers to make the repairs at the farm or in the field. Making great progress on the H.

The front bolster seals on my H is so worn out that when you poor the recommend 80w90 oil in it, one hour later the fluid will be sitting on the ground. I fixed it by mixing a lot of bearing grease and little 80w90 gear oil then mixed it using my drill with paddles. 1 month later it hasn't leaked a drop and I use that tractor every day. Reason why I did that is because I will be using the tractor in the winter. And just paking it with bearing grease would make it rlly hard to steer. It rlly helps having oil in the bolster, it used to steer hard, now its like butter. Just my experiences 👍 give it a try, its sure a lot better than pulling the whole front end off to fix a leak. And you wouldn't need Armstrong arms to steer!

Thanks for sharing, gonna do this and new brakes on my Farmall H this spring

Thanks Kenny, nice job1👍

Great video. I watched this today so I would have an idea of how to do this to my M. Nothing went as smooth for me as it appears to have for you, but that's my luck...lol. Thank you for posting this was helpful!

i have done 6 of these rebuilds one on my H and my M and 4 more for the dealership all in the field as a result of broken steering shafts except my M which was worn out.. . if i remember right you must torque the castle nut which prevents the big bushing from spinning in the housing.. by loading the thrust bearing.. the only difference in the way i did this rebuild was i had the factory tools. now this is a fyi the new gear was made so you could remove the stop bolt and rotate the steering shaft 180 degrees and put the stop bolt back in and have new gear area. without taking the top apart. also the early H and Ms used a steering shaft that was square cut where the large bushing end narrows down to the small upper shaft. because of this that is where they failed and broke. the cure was to have a raadious in tthat location. i never seen one of them break that had the radious.. .

Good job on the bolster Kenny.

Great job Kenny

Thanks Kenny

The hardest part of that job to me is cleaning all the old grease out and off the parts

Man this tractor is going to be like new.

Enjoyed your video...

Nice progress Kenny 👍

I have looked at these bolsters for years but never have seen one apart. Thanks for the video. You have mentioned others have had to chisel the lower busing out. The lower bushing area in the main casting on yours must have been worn a bit. I might of tried epoxy to get the lower bushing to keep it from turning in the cast housing before sliding the bolster into the main casting, but as long as the play is gone and the tractor has run this way for years anyway and I doubt your H will see the hard use like it did in the past so no big deal. If I recall there must be a grease zerk in the casting in the front right? I always thought that bolster design was a work of art. I was sad to see it go in the 460/560 years.

6:14 the roof must leak over that case exhaust 😉 6:45 does it matter which way the thrust bearing goes? I've seen them put on both ways, but not sure if there's a right and wrong way.

I am rebuilding my M bolster and noticed something in your video. In final assembly you did not from what I see install the tube that covers the lower part of the shaft. Is it not needed?

shouldn't that lower bushing been tighter in the housing.

Hey what size rubber did you get for the rears on that?

Man this was great...I have the death wobble on our 1950 farmall H too. Do you have a part list somewhere you could share? Thks!

What is that big bushing called I can't find one?

As you can see the bolster shaft is too short and the top of it always bends it should’ve went to the top of the housing with a bushing on the top housing plate to keep the shaft from bending from the worm gear bad engineering design they always bend where gear meets gear and you always have a half turn on the steering wheel Or more