Help needed with old tractor restoration ... Case 970

[dnewton3]

Hey all ...
I know this is a "tractor fluids" section, but I wanted to reach out and ask if anyone has direct info for some help I need. Unfortunatley, there's a limit amount of info elsewhere on the web. I'm seeking specific info and hoping that any other BITOGer may have a lead to boost our efforts in tractor restoration.

1970 Case 970 Agri-King tractor.

A friend and I are trying to rebuild the brake master cylinder system; can't seem to find parts easily and having difficulty getting the small various parts to disassemble.

Does anyone know of a person or service who specializes in these old Case Agri-King tractors??? Either in parts availability and/or a rebuild service for the brake system?

 

[wwillson]

I searched around to see if any tractor salvage yards had brake master cylinder parts for a 970, none did that I found. Maybe your next option would be to search to see if people have replaced the stock brake master cylinder with one that's more available.

Maybe something like this:

CASE 770 870 970 1070 1175 4690 4890 Tractor A59534 Master Cylinder | Saeli | Saeli

Replacement Brake Master Cylinder for the tractors listed. See details:

www.saeliimplement.com

 

[Rand]

That aftermarket master cylinder requires conversion from oil to brake fluid(dot 3)
they also sell the OEM version.

We also stock the USA OEM cylinder at a great price. Website does not work for purchasing, so please contact us to purchase.

 

[dnewton3]

It looks nothing like the above units.

I should have mentioned (my mistake for neglecting to say) that this is a PowerShift transmission model. It takes a completely different brake m/c than the standard transmission versions. This is a large, massively heavy block of cast iron that has both hydraulic circuits in one block; left and right. I don't have a picture of it or I'd post it. IIRC, it has two high-pressure circuits coming out the top, another high-pressure circuit that goes down to the trans, and a low-pressure return circuit. It's a marvel of the ol-skool thinking "if it's worth making, it's worth making out of cast iron at twice the size because weight is your friend in a tractor."

 

[jeepman3071]

This forum is a wealth of information for antique tractors, and they also have parts:

Antique Tractors - Antique Tractor Resource Page

A fantastic resource for antique tractors and their owners. New parts for older tractors, plus photos, resource pages, classified ads and more for antique tractor enthusiasts.

antiquetractors.com

Parts for Case 970:

Case 970 Parts - Yesterday's Tractors

Case 970 Parts in stock. Same-day shipping and easy returns. Compare our prices... We specialize in older tractors and have the correct parts for your Case 970.

www.yesterdaystractors.com

 

[Bighorn2500]

Might want to call these guys, even when they didn’t have it they have pointed me in the right direction.

https://www.steinertractor.com/

 

[dnewton3]

My have found a jackpot source of goodness ...
There is a local Case/IH dealership which has a retired mechanic who did a lot of these rebuilds back in the day. He's still around, and possibly willing to take on the rebuild job for a reasonable hourly rate as a garage side job. I'll get some pics of the rebuild if successful.

 

[cmarshall78]

Go to newagtalk.com and put a post in the machinery talk section. There's a wealth of knowledge there.

 

[Jdeere562]

Whatever you do, make sure your fluid is compatible with the seals you end up using. Learned my lesson on that back in the 1980's.
Wrong fluid and the seals all swelled up and were leaking. I had no manuals and knew no better. Big mistake.

 

[D45678]

The commonality of brands of tractors used to be both regional as well of local. I grew up in an agricultural area, most families where fiercely loyal to Deere or International. Through the 60s-70s, there were many more tractor dealers than now. If there was a good dealer in a community, often the service from that dealer would be a selling point. In the town next to mine was a Case dealership that offered great service, this attracted more buyers than in most of the region. Same sent with Oliver, while Oliver was the wrong shade of green for most, again, there were a couple of local dealers that had excellent service which attracted customers. The 80s brought an end to many of these smaller dealers, cementing the dominance of IH and Deere, then IH went under, Case IH really messed up their agricultural dealer network by taking franchises away from old time dealers in favor of company owned outlets that had previously only dealt with construction equipment. This was the end of the line for many loyal case guys, a construction equipment store really wasn't able to just pick up and run with the agricultural stuff, this affected Case as well as International owners. Unfortunatly due to Case being much less popular than IH or Deere, the guys who really knew Case are just about gone.

Point of the story telling is that the 970 you are working on was never super popular, they are around but in pockets here and there. I've worked on tractors of that series, and never had an issue with parts. You just need to find an area where they were popular back in the day, there you will find more knowledgeable dealerships.

If you intend to keep this tractor, and if they are still available, obtaining the factory service manuals and parts manual is in your best interest. I'm for the most part a Deere guy, at various points in my life I've worked at Deere dealerships both before and after my actual career. In the case of Deere, the paper parts manuals in time were turned into microfiche, the microfiche was nothing more than tiny little pictures of the very same pages as the parts catalogs had. Then came the electronic parts catalogs, those were not made available for all of the older stuff, but much of it. In studying the parts diagrams, you can pretty much figure out how things work and what parts you need. Trying to tell a younger dealership guy what you need for an older machine can be frustrating, especially when neither of you are really all that familiar with the machine.

Deere parts cataloging system is available online for customers to access, I don't know about Case IH/Fiat but it is worth a look.

 

[dnewton3]

Update ...

We were able to find a guy who used to work at the local Case dealer as a mechanic; he retired a while back. He was willing to work at the Case dealer as a one-day contract job. He did the rebuild and we picked up the unit last week. Got it installed over the weekend. Everything works great! No leaks, brakes work, etc. Success !!!

 

[Merek]

Most tractors with wet brakes at least all the ones I've seen use hydraulic fluid so it's one fluid for the transmission, brakes, remotes, and even sometimes include the power steering. From what I gather the HyTran is supposed to be about the best you can get. I know the feeling, all the new techs now use scanners and finding ones that know anything about the older stuff can be very tricky, my grandad was one of them and could fix just about anything at least on the older equipment. A ton of knowledge has been lost over the years and it doesn't really get uploaded online either. If you had a more popular tractor you wouldn't have had the same trouble finding parts for it.

I'm quite surprised actually because that tractor is not really that old and were made from 1970-1978 but also before Case-IH became a thing. I've found parts availability is mostly an issue for the 1950's and older tractors but anything around 1960 and newer it's usually not too hard. In my area Case's weren't really that popular, it's mostly made up of John Deere, Ford, International and Massey Ferguson.

 

[Jim K]

If you still need help , ask this guy.