Once the pilot hole was drilled, I attempted to remove the bolt with an E-Z Out, hoping against hope that it might turn.  No such luck.  I have, in the past, broken off an E-Z Out attempting to remove a broken bolt and did not want to repeat that experience.  I repeated the drilling and E-Z Out application with a larger bit.  Again, no luck.  It was time to drill out the entire bolt and attempt to re-thread the bolt hole.  I would quickly find out how close to center my initial pilot hole had been.  With a 3/8” bit chucked in, I held my breath and began drilling.  Pushing in all the way to the bit stop, I withdrew the bit and inspected the hole with a flashlight.  I could see the ridges of threads on one side; I was just slightly off-center, but I had drilled all the way through the bolt without punching through the differential case. 

Now, how to remove the remaining pieces of bolt?  I could not get the 3/8” tap to dig into and clean out the threads.  Looking at the instructions that came with the tap and die set, I discovered that a 3/8” tap calls for a hole drilled with a 25/64’s bit.  I did not have one of these, and neither did Home Depot, but I did have the next largest size, a 13/32’s bit.  Chucking it into my ½” drill, I again held my breath and drilled.  Upon removing the bit and inspecting the hole I could still see threads – a good sign.  The tap was lubricated and used to gradually remove the remaining pieces of the old bolt.  After cleaning and blowing out the debris with compressed air, I was ready to try a new bolt.  It worked!  The fit was a little sloppy, but it would do.

However, the breaks on all the other bolts were ragged.  I was not confident I could cleanly center punch any of them, a starting point critical to a good finish.  I called Tracy to discuss my dilemma with him.  He suggested bringing the rear section to his shop where he would use an old welder’s trick to remove those stuck, broken bolts.  That next Saturday I borrowed a trailer and loaded the rear section for the short trip to Tracy’s shop.  Tracy rummaged through a bucket of discarded nuts and bolts and picked out several old wheel nuts.  Taking them one at a time, and using a wire welder, he proceeded to weld a nut to the end of each broken bolt piece.  When finished with each, he gradually worked the nut back and forth until the bolt was loose and turned out easily.  He explained that the weld does not as easily adhere to the cast material of the block and that the heat from the welding serves to loosen the hold on each bolt.  He made it look so easy, but he also told me that he used to weld for a living when he was younger.  Even so, that process convinced me – I’ve got to learn how to weld.

Tracy also used his ox/acetylene torch to apply sufficient heat to loosen the bond between the bushing and pin holding in the right brake shoes so these could be removed.  It’s amazing what the correct application of heat will do to loosen metal pieces that have rusted tight.  The torch was also used to loosen and remove the brake pawl, a piece that is rusted tight on almost every 100 series Ford tractor I’ve seen.  I’ll note here that, on re-assembly of the brakes and other parts where there were close fitting metal pieces, I used an anti-seize compound to prevent future occurrences of the bonding that occurred between the brake pivot pin and its bushing.  With this all done, it was reasonably uncomplicated to replace the brake shoes.  I had taken pictures at each step so I could quickly see where each of the springs in the brake mechanism needed to go.  My digital camera became an invaluable tool all along the way of this restoration.

With the PTO shaft removed I thought it would also be a good plan to replace the oil seal.  I had attempted this once before on my 951-D, but was unsuccessful.  The directions in the Shop Manual and discussions with Ron Kingland indicated that this should be a pretty easy process.  I struggled with it again without making any progress when it suddenly dawned on me that I was trying to remove the wrong snap ring.  With that revelation and moving my attention to the right snap ring, the process was easy.

Back to the steering mechanism.