Making a CAT 0 implement into a CAT 1 project

[kebo]

Here are two pic's of a Howse 4ft landscape rake that I bought off of CL last year for $100. It's actually made to pull behind atv's and large garden tractors with a CAT 0 3pt hitch. Well, that wasn't good enough for me so I got some 2" angle iron and cut three pieces and welded them all togther. The long piece is about 23" long which works out to being close to the width of other CAT 1 implements that I measured by. Cut two pieces of 3/8" bar stock, welded them to the ends, and drilled two holes in the barstock to bolt the two 3/4" draft link pins into. I also drilled a couple extra holes for some bolts so the bracket would have more stength and not try to "rotate" under stress. I then took a couple small 3/8" thick iron plates, cut to size, and welded them to the top piece for the centerlink to attach to. It's a kluged up thing, but it does allow me to use the rake either as a CAT 0 attachment, or as a CAT 1 attachment merely by unbolting the adapter bracket, and then turning the smaller original draft link pins around as they were originally designed to mount. The holes in the top part for the centerlink can accept either size pin as needed for a CAT 0 or CAT 1 top centerlink, so it stays in place.

It's not a heavy duty unit, but for what I use it for it works just fine. The only problem with my kluge bracket is that I cannot fully rotate the rake 180 degrees. The rake will hit the bracket at some point while trying to angle it. Bummer, but it's not a perfect world huh?

 

[greg_g]

Your toplink bracket is done the same way I converted my Cat 1 box blade to accept a Cat 2 pin. But given the extra power a Cat 2 tractor can exert on a Cat 1 implement, I had to reinforce the lift pins too - something you might want to consider on that rake.

But I am wondering why you'd want a 48" rake behind a 53" wide rear wheel width? Or do you use this rake on something other than that 790?

//greg//

 

[kebo]

Your toplink bracket is done the same way I converted my Cat 1 box blade to accept a Cat 2 pin. But given the extra power a Cat 2 tractor can exert on a Cat 1 implement, I had to reinforce the lift pins too - something you might want to consider on that rake.

But I am wondering why you'd want a 48" rake behind a 53" wide rear wheel width? Or do you use this rake on something other than that 790?

//greg//

When I got the 4ft rake, I had a JD 750 which is about 4ft wide. I just got the 790 about three months ago. You're right that the 790 is wider than the rake, but for the amount that I use it, I can deal with it being narrower.

 

[Soundguy]

Be carefull.. a cat 0 implement can turn into a pretzle fast behind a cat 1 tractor.

soundguy