Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

Thanks guys . The one morning I was up at 4am and in the shop at 5 . My back has a 30lbs weight limit , so with out him I am dead in the water . Plus I built him and rebuilt him a few times , so not seized bolts and I don't have to think much about the job just do which saves time . Plus I have a shop full of power tools , zip zip zip and apart it comes . I have the parts on hand to do the repair , so no time was lost there .
And yes I have been collecting parts to build another loader , but other things have got in the way . It will be a my version of a scratch built 7020 . I hope to get back to it this winter . Now that I have working with me this summer I have been able to take on work I normally wouldn't , but that makes me even busier .

Great work as usual David. You the man. I can’t wait to see your next loader project. Harry

The 4020PS with the under-seat PTO, which is my last, last tractor I am keeping, was in good shape for the bolts. However, the other tractor that was supposed to be my last one had evidence that someone had been in there. They installed the nuts and used the safety wire washers for the nuts. There were, I think, two loose nuts. Putting safety wire washers on the nuts cannot work when you do not use anything on the head of the bolt. Luckily, nothing bad happened. I caught it before it did.

I did weld some on the cage. It was hard to get a decent weld on it, though. No matter how much I tried to get all the oil out of where the two halves meet, the heat from the weld would pull oil into the weld I was trying to get on it. It may have just been me not doing something right. My welding history was shop class in 1978, and then getting a MIG welder years later, and then getting good enough welds on things with that welder.

I have to look at the shims on the carrier again because I have long wondered if the flanged axle bushing could be the cause of the issue if the shims turn against the flange on the bushings. The other reason that I think could be the reason is that sometimes a tractor would come through my hands that made quite a bit of slope noise when you wiggled the rear of the tractor side to side, and that means some have more slope than others. I am aware that the gap must be within a certain range, and adverse consequences can occur when it falls outside this range. So, if the gap is too big and the uneven torque is applied to one side of the tractor, I could imagine that the carrier twisting and getting bound up until something fails.

@ssmewing Steve, thanks for mentioning the oil contamination issue. It will be interesting to hear what advice @Harry might have.

Spike188 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 15, 2025 7:51 pm @ssmewing Steve, thanks for mentioning the oil contamination issue. It will be interesting to hear what advice @Harry might have.

The only way I know of to remove the oil from the halves is to dissemble it all and boil in soapy water ,dry , weld and re-oil parts . Metal has pores will hold oil or moisture. That is why important welds like pressure pipe are preheated to remove moisture before welding . Harry can elaborate more on this , but that much I know from working with pipe welders .

David is correct preheat to remove mostly moisture before welding. The heat if the flame probably would remove some oil contaminants from the base metal too. Were not talking about natural gas pipelines here so it doesn’t need to be pristine. Maybe a separate thread for this post Steve would be better than adding on Davids Frankie post. Just my opinion. Harry