gear drive vs. chain drive tiller

[spruce Deere]

Forgive thread topic.....

Rebuilt a fellow tree farmers tiller a while back. In growing trees you only have about 2 months of "go" time to plant and dig. With weather, employee's and various implements getting all things to play together good for those two months can be quite challenging

Chain worn threw the side cover was the last straw for this woods 3pt tiller. Loss of oil from crap wrapping around output on the tine torque shaft ruining the seal was the main culprit. That stringy looking thing by the bearing in the pic is twine, vines and other stuffs that killed the seal, then bearings, chain, side cover and down time.

My 1978 maletti 3 pt tiller has what I call "trash guards" welded on the tine flange that extend over the seal/bearing housing to prevent this damage, but this couple year old woods did not. I have wrapped up untold lengths of twine, vines, strings, wire and what not with the maletti tiller with nary a problem do to the simple guards.

When I bought my KK 60" tiller which also did not have "trash guards" I welded some of my own design to the tine flange to mimic the maletti design..... from my observations not many 3pt tillers have this. Pretty cheap insurance for a implement that gets subjected to this hazzard.

Maintenance is paramount, but these guards are simple protection gear or chain drive

 

[dfkrug]

That chain guard looks worse than any of the JD 550 tillers that I had, and they were all
ex-rentals!

You are right about the grass and twine that gets into the lower seal. In the rental
world, the solution is to use a slurry of grease and oil in the chain box. You
want high enough viscosity to not leak out past the seal, and low enough viscosity
to get into all the chain and sprocket wear areas. I have rebuilt 5 of these
rototillers.

I do like those "trash guards" however.

 

[motownbrowne]

Thanks for sharing your trash guard idea! I've had to do the seals on my land pride also. Trash guards may have prevented that.

I lent my tiller to a beginning veggie farmer this fall to put in some cover crop. It came back with lots of trash wound around the tine shaft. Not even all the organic kind. There was some phone wire and something that was chromed wound up in there too.

 

[spruce Deere]

Glad to share the "trash guards" idea fella's That's what TBN is all about:thumbsup:

Here is a pic of the tines from that woods tiller. They did re-tine the tiller just after they got it back from me and last they talked about this tiller they said it was leaking again... 'but not bad yet':laughing:

Also a pic of the factory trash guards from my nearly 40 year old tiller.... That to my knowledge has not ever needed re-sealed, and boy have I had the junk wrapped around this one a time or two