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East of Broken Bow | I have a story from not long after we purchased our 1896 in the late 80s or early 90s. Had a hydraulic fitting blow apart on one of the valve blocks on the tractor. Looking at it, it looked to me like it was 2 fittings bronzed together, and with there being no modifications made to the tractor, we assumed it must be factory. Since it happened on a Saturday afternoon, I just filed off any residue of the bronzing/brazing, and just welded it together. I was young and didn't know you weren't supposed to do that. Anyway, the next week when we went to town, we wanted to get a new fitting like the one that broke. Couldn't find it in the parts manual, the parts manager himself came over and asked repeatedly where the fitting was, as his parts breakdown didn't show that fitting to exist at all. They happened to have an 1896 in the shop, and we walked over to it, and I pointed it out on that tractor. About an hour later, and even after a couple phone calls to Case, we still had nothing, as far as Case was concerned, that part didn't exist, but they would put an inquiry as to getting one in. In the meantime, the parts guy asked if there was anything he could do to keep it running, I said it's going, I just welded the two halves together where the bronze/brazing had given way. He said he would look into it farther, and call me when he found something out.
A couple months later, the parts manager called, asking if I remembered the fitting on our 1896 that blew apart, that I had welded together. I said yes, I remember. He asked if it is still holding. I said yes. Then he paused, and asked kind of sheepishly if I welded it back together with an arc, gas, or MIG welder. Seems they had another one of those non-existant fittings blow apart. About the only way to fix it was to weld it back together, because if they tried to put one together with adaptors, it wouldn't fit in the space available. | |
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Things I've learned since becoming a parts counter man.
