i took a deture and jumped ahead a lil. i wanted to get a beater mower and angle blade for this machine to use it on my other farm property for road maintenance, and fence line mowing.
found a cheap mower today:
been keeoing my eye out for a cheapo 5' mower to hang on this 2000 i just got, and use it for my other farm property, easier than trailering one over when I need to trim fenc lines and arounf the gate.. etc. place harder to get to with the larger tractors and mowers.. etc.
went by that used tractor dealer yesterday the one i got the kilelr deal on my 4600 a while back.
he had a decent looking howse that had come in on a tradeded in tractor , but new buyer didn't want it.
tal wheel had been ran into something and bent the forks up. 1 3pt pin was wobbly loose, and a couple nuts and bolts were loose.. gearbox was tight feeling, and blades looked quite good.
oil had some condensation in it it was a tad cloudy.. but at least was holding oil. pto shaft coupler end feels locked up.. it's one of those twist collars. I had to free up one similar to that on the pto pump for my backhoe.
had apparrently been setting in his back lot and he just cleaned the place up and moved it out front.. and just wanted to get rid of it and made me an offer I couldn't refuse
got home, and the spindle pin was in good condition. there was a couple degrees bend where it passed thru the upper late of the fork and hit the bottom plate. top plate was bent, and both forks were bent and bowed, one ford had the hole wobbled out in it from a loose bolt... bolt was also buggered and would not come off with a 3/4 impact gun, but unsurprisingly, came right off with the smoke wrench.
flapstyle tail wheel was worn a lil uneven side to side as apparrently it was run bent like that a bit.. but otherwise was in useable shape.. had to do a lil doctoring on the hub to get it to take grease and hols the seal in.. but a big that was a 5 minute fix. i decide dthe old fork was a lost cause and would eat too much O/A and hammering time to try to true up, and then wouldn't be perfect.. I still had a piece of 3/8 x 2" scrap flat in the pile from the backhoe subframe.. so i cut the top, brace and forks out, copied the angles with a protractor, and tacked it togehter with some 6013 3/32 rod just a few blips to see what it looked like... looked good. I torched the old pin out of the fork, ran it around ont he grinder wheel to clean up.. roled on a straight edge and found a couple degree bow. torched a hole in the bracket for the pin, and made is so the bow was not in the part that mattered, IE, the part above the bracket was true, and the bowed part below the top, and touching the 2nd brace. tacked that in, traced out my tailwheel axle hole, and torched. came out pretty nice.
i took a few quick pix.
unit is back installed on the mower, and I tacked some large bushing washers over the holes i torched to make them look nicer, and also burned in all the joints with 6011 1/8 rod. slipped the fork in, perfect fit.. was kinda scarry..
greased the spindle up, greased the tail wheel hub and installed the ney axle bolt and locknut, again.. awesome fit.
i have the coupler end of the pto shaft setting face down in a bucket fileld with a mix of diesel, kerosene, mineral spirits, and some used oil. this is my bucket I throw rusty tools and parts in while i do other things for them to soak... usually after a few days they are ready to be worked on.
i put a new lock washer and flat washer ont he loose 3pt pin and buzzed it back on withthe 3/4" air gun ( man love that tool! ).
during this, I had the plugs out of the gearbox and it jacked up and had the box filled with mineral spirits, pluued the plug and let it flush into a mayo jar thru a paint strainer.. poured the mineral spirits back in and dumped the emulsified oil that had floated to the top of the oil... next work day on it will likely be wednesday.. box will get it's final draining of mineral spirits after it has set again, then I'll refill with gear oil. lower seal and input shaft seal appear to be 'dry' and holding oil and / mineral spirits with no weeping or leaking.
I see one seam on the side of the mower that is cracked and needs a weld up, and I see one place on the rear where they hit something.. likely when they bent the tail wheel. looks like a wood block and couple bangs with a 10#er will fif.
then I'll just be waiting for the pto shaft coupler to loosen up.
so far happy with the mower.. don't even have the price of a good meal into her...
soundguy
