I did get the drive apart on the 5T the other day and cleaned and inspected. Three or four of the bronze? 3B5471 plates had severe cracks or missing pieces. One of the fingers 2A3563 was popped out of the collar. I didnt investigate too far if it was even possible to run like that but that is how I found it when I got inside. It was very dirty inside as well so things should be a lot smoother after all this. All the gaskets, seals and lock tabs should arrive today. Pretty reasonable minus the one seal that pancakes to the back of the main cylinder head was 130 itself. Also fixing the oil migration from the rear main seal on the pony into drive. I have never done this so I discovered I need to pull thr cam gear, which means i need to lift the top cover so i need to reseal that. Probably best i buy that rather than make it. I dont want to get back into this unnecessarily.

Hi Team,
these are my findings for a 0.042" low lifter setting on a D311 engine in a No 212 Grader.

this is what I found after being asked how many degrees retarded the 0.042" low lifter setting was :-

Found that a 0.042” low lifter setting was around 20 Degrees Retarded—ie After Top Dead Center—the standard lifter setting of 1.736” +/- 0.002” set @ TDC sets the Injection Timing @12 Degrees Before TDC so this cylinder would have been firing @ around 32 Degrees Retarded—any wonder it was Smokey with whitish eye burning exhaust and difficult to start.

The extra detail for removing the pony pinion drive has come to mind and is that the pinion latches need to be positioned in the flywheel housing pony pinion hole/opening just so when the assembly is hanging down and seemingly stuck and refusing to come out as described in the SRB.
By turning the pinion shaft to a correct pinion latch alignment in the flywheel housing opening the unit will magically fall out possibly taking you by surprise--my just now recalled experiences--yours may vary.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

Thank you for that info Eddie. That is very significant. I'm very keen to check my pump settings soon. I've still got the pony off and my very tiny workshed looks like a yard sale. I have both pony drives from my 5T and 7U all cleaned and disassembled. I noticed that the clutch fingers are different. I noticed that the ones out of my 5T would "sprawl out" as there was sufficient clearance between the tip and the adjustment spider nut if you can call it that. One set of fingers is made from three hardened plates and the other is a solid one piece. Please note picture.

What I am wondering is, where two different styles of fingers available? I know the previous owner was very crafty. A genius in ways really. He had a milling machine and lathe in the basement of his house and built a backhoe and loader attachment for his Ford 9N among hundreds of other interesting contraptions. I thought that maybe he made the fingers but perhaps the geometry is just off or worn which could very well affect the operation of the drive clutch? I think I will install the finger assembly and collar from the 7U as it was working well.

Yes I am quite sure after looking more closely. The curves arent exactly the same. I bench tested the clutch on the bench and it feels quite noticeably different. I am confident it will work properly now.

The clutch drive assembly is now ready to install and I shifted over to install the new rear seal in the pony. I believe oil is migrating from the seal down into the drive clutch. When I initially changed the oils, the pony drive was very overfull and reeked of gasoline and used gas engine oil. I removed the read seal this evening and the rear seal arrangement seems a little odd to me. I can see oil splashes into the rear bearing cup and lubricates the rear bearing. There is a splash shield to keep the oil contained but it isnt really sealed to the crank in any way. Is being pinched behind the crank gear enough to keep things where they should? Sorry for all the newb questions. Lots to learn about these old gals. Thank you very much for all the insight everyone.

Hi Team,
as Neil said, you are missing a large lip type seal to seal between the pony crankcase and the drive gear case. It goes lip side facing inwards towards the pony crankcase. Part No 1H2439, in the Parts Book it is usually shown with the crankshaft etc. in a separate view.

The 212/D311 pony pinion group I did up recently from two units, one had the full section metal Dogs(levers) and the other had the 3 section fabricated type.
The difference in feel will be caused from a lack of radius due to wear on the heels of each dog where it contacts the pressure plate--with the flat spot on the dog heels it will go over centre hard then feel a bit looser and so may tend to slip a bit--an unworn set will feel even and lighter to move when locking over centre if that makes sense.
Simply by hand I stoned the radius back onto the heels and the toe ends of said levers all the while trying to keep the radii even, I put a pin thru the lever pivot holes, then aligned the levers when clamped in a suitable vice and stoned away until they were radiused as I desired.
The 212 pony pinion clutch engages smoothly with a light constant pressure over centre feel on the clutch engaging lever --another spider hole adjustment is too tight.
With Auto Trans. Fluid in the clutch and having re-dished the clutch plates, as Toby demonstrated, it engages without undue effort on the clutch brake and no grinding (even with the pony at High Idle!) when we tested it to be sure all was well.



Cheers,
Eddie B.