Increasing ground speed in a 1940 RC

Hi everbody,  I'm new to the forum and have a quick question in regards to a 1940 Rc that I purchased last fall . when I bought it the valves were seized solid after freeing it up and getting the carb tore apart and cleaning the 5 inches of tar looking stuff out of the gas tank I got it running good and took it on a local tractor run for antique tractors according to my gps I was only going 9 MPH and it wasn't long before I was way back at the pack of about 90 tractors lol My question is other then fiddling with the govenor (which some say using a cheat string , but I have premonitions of the rods scattering everywheres so I won't do that ) is there any other way of playing with the gears to get it to at least 13 or 15 mph . I thought of buying a set of rims and modifying them to work doing some reasearch on the ring and pinion turned up not a whole lot of info on the size or bolt patterns that would be compatable. I'm not too worried about pulling as this will mostly be a road travel tractor . Right now i have the metal all stripped as the previous owner painted it with yellow paint and it looked like a minion . 

There are pullers with WCs that would trade ring and pinion with you. The WC R&P are faster.    MACK

swap the whole wc rear-end,tires and all.you will gain a whole gear faster.

Thank you gentlemen :) lots of good ideas. There was what i believe to be a wc scrapped quite a long time ago in my area and they hauled it to the woods afterwards I may take a walk in and see if the gears are intact . The RC is really rare in my area and its nice having people ask what the heck it is on the tractor runs lol as for rims i have a set of 14.9 x 28s off a massey 165 i had . I may modify them to fit that way im not hacking my original goodies up on the old girl .

RC is the slower 6.6 R&P. A WC pumpkin is faster. Also use D-15 governor spring.

Welcome Mustang; I have two WC ring and pinion sets one is out of the tractor. You can have one FREE if you want to drive here and pick it up, (northern MN) For more good detail info on RC's I suggest you go to Tom Foss site he has many detailed pictures of the inside of one of these tractors.      Mark

Unless the WC is a high crop, it should have the 4.7 gears in it.

I was thinking that too eldon. I heard the old fella that owns this scrapped tractor mention the sherman transmissions for them too but not sure if they are compatable hes also not sure of the rear gears are still in it or not but told me to check also has some other vintage goodies junked too that I can't wait to see

Pinion gears tend to be in the range of 8 to 14. The only pinion that gives an proper number of ring gear teeth is a 10 tooth pinion and a 47 tooth ring gear.

Gerald J.

In order for the Sherman to fit you need a pinion with the short shaft as in WC's with the traction disconnect. I put a Sherman into a WF and had to change the ring and pinion set to get the short shaft pinion. Also the Sherman with overdrive is 25% over so if his RC goes 9mph now it would go 11.25 with Sherman OD. Also remember if looking for a Sherman unit that some were also UNDERDRIVE. Simplest would be to change ring and pinion set if you want to keep the looks original.

Thanks guys . I ordered a better govenor spring last night and just came back from looking at the scrapped wc . The gears are still in it and still attached to the tractor from what the owner recalled he parked it due to the motor constantly locking up and knocking I would imagine the bearings in the old thing look like swiss cheese if they are even intact still he told me to haul the rear out any time so when my snow leaves I will be making a trip back lol. He had an old LA deere sitting there and a few older tractors that were in pieces don't think he was too mechanicly inclined as he said the LA was parked from a clunk in the transmission . Its neat going into the woods never know what you will find , now to get the rear home without the wife seeing it and thinking I bought another tractor

I wrote a couple articles on the RC for our newsletter a few years back if you are wanting to read them.  I mention the gear ratio differences between the RC and WC and tried to mention the many other differences I found.

Well I aquired a set of 38" rims off a john deere B from a friend . i tryed bolting them on and they will work i just have to shave a little bit out of the center hole for the bearing cup on the axle this should make it a little quicker along with the d15 govenor spring that just showed up . I took it for a little drive with the new spring on today it was minus 25 celsius which was roughly minus 13 fahrenheit so i didn't get to drive it long but it was long enough to notice a difference.. Can't wait to see what the 38s will do to it according to my gps today the new govenor spring took it to 10.8 mph so it made quite a difference. I'll be glad when spring gets here so I can actually putter with it some more these atlantic canada winters can really put a dampner on working on things in the outdoors lol

The 38s are 11.2x38 tires they have air in them butare split prettybad wouldn't trust them to get me too far a couple of paycheques and a mild distracton for the wife and i should have new rubber for them .