New toothbar

[Mechanos]

I've been wanting a toothbar for the 60" bucket on my loader. I finally decided to order one and called up Iowa Farm Equipment. My bucket measures 59-7/8" inside, so I needed their 59" toothbar that states it fits buckets with inside dimension of 59-1/2 to 59-7/8. On their website, it says the 59" toothbar has 6 teeth, the 60" toothbar has 7 teeth and both are the same price. So, I asked if I could get a 59" toothbar with 7 teeth. I was told that I could, but it would cost extra since these bars are pre-made and making one with an extra tooth would be a custom piece. Oh well... 6 teeth it is.

I ordered it on Wednesday about noon and while working out in the barn today taking care of a couple pesky leaks on the tractor, I heard a truck outside. The UPS man had backed all the way up the drive and right up to the barn door. He had my toothbar and said, "I figured you'd want it out here." Now that's service. The lady at IFE told me that it would be shipping out of their national wharehouse. When I looked at the paperwork, the item shipped from Nashville, TN. The invoice also states that it was shipped from Woods Equipment.

Looking the toothbar over, it had a tag on it that said it was a 59.5" toothbar. Another thing I noticed is that it has 7 teeth, not 6. Bonus for me!

When I tried to put the toothbar on, it wouldn't fit. I raised the bucket and started looking it over to see why and that's when I noticed that some jackass had welded on a new cutting edge at some point, but didn't bother to remove the old one. So, with two 1/2" cutting edges stacked on top of each other, there is no way the toothbar is going to fit. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the afternoon cutting the cutting edge(s) off the bucket and trying to separate the old one from the new one. I still have a bunch of grinding to do to finish separating the two edges and cleaning up the edge that I will need to weld back onto the bucket. What a pain in the neck!

 

[mpham]

Nice service story. Sorry to hear a prior owner screwed things up for you. Make sure to grab some pics as I am thinking of putting one on my tractor or going for a full grapple.

 

[Tact]

Since it was altered, why not send it back and have them send out a replacement?

 

[Mechanos]

Since it was altered, why not send it back and have them send out a replacement?

The toothbar was not altered. All the replacements in the world still would not fit on a bucket with two cutting edges stacked on top of each other.

 

[mfreund]

Since it was altered, why not send it back and have them send out a replacement?

The bucket had 2 cutting edges welded on.

 

[Tact]

Got it. I misunderstood.

 

[C-Range]

Great decision Mechanos. A tooth bar makes a huge difference cutting into soil. It's a tremendous relief for the tractor/loader, not that this is news to you most likely.

I hope those edges come apart ok.

Photos are overdue.

 

[creekbend]

I have a tooth bar made by W.R.Long. Once you use it, you will question why you didn't get one sooner.:tractor:

 

[Mechanos]

I just never seem to take the time to snap pictures when I'm working on a project anymore. I guess it interrupts my flow... :laughing:

I started trying to liberate the "new" cutting edge from the older one by using the grinder. I was able to separate the back side welds, which were edge welds, with the grinder. I started in the front weld... the entire length of the cutting edge... with the grinder as well. The two 1/2" cutting edges were fillet welded and after a considerable amount of grinding, I was still getting no where fast. Then I remembered that I have a #4 tip for the good old blue-tipped wrench capable of cutting through 3" of steel. I used the torch to slice through the 2" wide remainder of the old cutting edge from back to front and cut the old edge into about 4" pieces along its length. Then used the torch to cut through the fillet weld along the front edge of the old cutting edge separating it from the "new" edge. Using the air chisel between the two edges mades short work of removing the remainder of the old edge.

A little clean up with the grinder and the cutting edge was ready for reinstallation. When I reached for the welder, I realized that I had forgotten to shut the bottle off last time I used it and the bottle was near empty. Luckily there was enough gas for me to get the cutting edge reinstalled. From there it was cake walk to install the toothbar... slide it on, mark the location of the holes to drill in the bucket, drill the holes and slip the bolts in. I still need to weld some reinforcing brackets on the sides of the bucket around the bolt holes.

Quite the ordeal just to install a toothbar... thanks to someone's dumbassery of stacking a new cutting edge on top of the old one. I was so worn out after getting the toothbar installed, I didn't even feel like trying it out.

 

[Mechanos]

Put the finishing touch on this afternoon. I wanted to reinforce the sides of the bucket around the bolt holes with some 1/4" plate. I was going to put them on the outside of the bucket, but I had some space to make up on the inside, so I welded the plates onto the inside of the bucket.

It's all ready to try out now... unfortunately, we got some rain last night and I didn't want to woller around in the mud. I'll have to wait for another time to try it out.

 

[Mechanos]

Ok, here's some "long overdue" pics for those of you wanting to see some. A front shot with the bucket still full of tools used to cut off and reinstall the cutting edge and install the toothbar. Also a close-up of the bolt hole reinforcing plate on the inside of the bucket.

 

[C-Range]

Wow pretty impressive patience and diligence. It looks like it paid off. Nice work and now you have a proper configuration which surely gives peace of mind.