</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Question? Looking at the attachment that jinman posted of the 8N with the sway bars attached to the top link, will that lift work that way? It appears to me that if you would engage the lift it would bend the 2 sway bars? Just curious.
sherpa )</font>
You are exactly right, Sherpa. The reason for the stays is to lock the arms into position so they will not move. Many of us have towed an old trailer with a split tongue which fits over & under the drawbar. That's how trailers were made before trailer balls became popular. With those trailers, you didn't have to worry about the drawbar rotating, but if you started too quickly or got a load too far back on the trailer, the tongue would just raise the lift arms since the lift cylinder is single-acting. To prevent this unstable situation, the lift-arm stays were invented.
If you look at my photo again, you will see that the stays are slightly bent. That happens when someone forgets they are attached and raises the 3PH. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif You have to use your "noodles" when the stays are attached. On the other hand, they hold the lift arms so they won't flop around. They are also two-piece assemblies, making them adjustable in length. This allows the drawbar to be set at different heights for different trailer applications. I suspect the old Ford tractors have pulled lots of drawbar towed implements with varied height requirements.
If you forget and raise the lift, most likely the pressure relief valve will open and save the lift arms from looking like doglegs. That was the case in the old Fords where the 3PH maximum lift was 2000#. I wouldn't recommend the stays on a newer tractor unless they were "beefed up" quite a bit. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
