These guys are giving you good advice on getting that cultipacker back into shape. You will definitely want to re-line the bearings with the proper material. The best material to use here is White Oak. If you use the, easier to get, Red Oak, it will absorb water and swell. The Red Oak will also rot away in less than 1 season. White Oak will not absorb any water, and will likely last your lifetime or more. I hear of folks using store-bought, sealed ball bearing on cultipackers. I believe that is a dumb wast of money, when simple, easily made White-Oak liners wil work so well, and are usually what was supplied new on them. It might be a little harder to find, and possibly cost a little more than Red Oak, but that is not significant, considering the tiny amount that you will need. I also like to run a tube to the inside, near the center of the bearing and a grease fitting on the cap at the other end of the tube, so that I can get some grease into the bearings after I get done using the cultipacker. That grease will extend the life of the bearings even further. As far as the frame goes, it is no problem to build a new one from angle iron (I usually use 3"x1/8"-1/4", or whatever I have laying around). If you lack a welder, it is easy enough to bolt the frame together, with (2) 1/4" bolts or so at each joint. An oxy-ace torch set, and a welder will simplify and speed up the frame-building job a bit, but are not necessary, as a drill , with a sharp bit, and a bunch of 1/4" - 1/2" bolts, nuts and lock-washers will "get her done", and it will be easier to rebuild if you break it that way. Af far as the size goes, you definetly don't want to go too wide. There are 4 reasons for this: First wider is heavier, and bulkier, making transport and storage more difficult. Second, wider takes more hp to operate, although cultipackers generally draw little hp, compared to most implements of similar width, and your tractor likely has plenty to pull your's at its current width. Third, and probably most significant, is the fact that the wider the cultipacker, the poorer it will get the intended, ground-packing job done. The narrow cultipacker will more closely follow changing contours in the field, while the wider one will leave more gaps, as it spans over rather than rides down in like the narrow one does. Finally, making the cultipacker narrower (I think 6 foot is about perfect for you), should leave you with plenty of spare wheels, to keep for your own use or to dump on craigslist. It looks like you have the two most popular size wheels and, in good condition, they fetch a big buck and are in very high demand on. Them old American-made wheels often bring even more money than brand new Chinese wheels, which are all that are available brand-new, these days. You have there an implement that is in extremely high demand these days. It takes a lot of luck to find them cheap. I was extremely lucky to find a few of them for little or no money over the past 10 years or so. I remember getting one (8 ft Mcormick) in exchange for a $14 case of beer. That is the one I rebuilt, cut down to 7 feet, and still use on my own fields. It works great behind a 3 point, 6 ft drag (making it into a "cultimulcher") and use that just prior to planting corn. I also use it, by itself, To push in clover, wheat, turnip, oat, and rye seed. It always does a good job for all of that. Another time I found a 4 ft Brillion for $25 at a local garage sale. I relined the bearings on that one (maybe a 2 hr job), and sold it on Craigslist, in a day, for many times what I paid. Then there was the time I loaded my 3/4 ton pickup with as much old farm equipment as I could carry, including a 10 foot Brillion cultipacker, at a friend's place, who charged me $50 for the load, which is considerably less than scrap value. I rebuilt that one into a 6 footer and sold it for big bucks on craigslist, used some of the wheels to repair broken ones on my 7 footer, and the 4 footer, and I saved a few of the leftover wheels to keep around as spares.
