Hood Guard…Head Guard

[Henro]

Soon after taking delivery of my tractor two summers ago I dropped a piece of something on my hood. Rolled the bucket back too far, as I suppose many of us do at least once.

So the need for some kind of a hood protector has been in the back of my mind since. On top of that, I have a couple acres of hillside that I want to improve a bit, by taking down the small trees (up to about 7” diameter m/l ) some of which are standing dead. And I can’t stop thinking about my head! And a hard hat does not seem to be the answer for protection against the possibility of a falling dead treetop or branch.

So as a learning home-hobby welder, I figured it would be more productive to actually build something than to just practice welding scrap for the sake of learning.

In this light I decided to build a hood guard and head guard for my tractor. I bought some 1.25 x 0.060 square tubing and a piece of flattened expanded metal with a half-inch diamond.

Both guards will share the same design features, so I thought it best to try the hood guard first. The nice thing about this design is that it is quick detach, and comes off and goes on in about 5 seconds max. The front has two bolts that act as pins, and drop through two holes drilled in my front grill guard. The rear is held on magnetically with switchable magnets.

The design is quite strong and I am sure I could stand on this and work off it if I wanted to mess up the paint. It is not designed to take a hard side thrust. The magnets do hold it on pretty well, but I am sure they will slide if pushed hard from the side. But I am not worried about a side thrust. I want protection from something falling from above, so this setup seems good for that.

Anyway, at this point I will post some pics of the hood guard, and of the mock up of the head guard, which I need to start building. The head guard will be bolted on.

The first picture is of the underside of the hood guard before I took it outside to paint.

 

[Henro]

This pic shows what a difference a spray can of orange paint from the dollar store makes! That hillside behind the pond is where I want to work this summer.

 

[Henro]

Test fit of the hood guard before mounting…

 

[Henro]

View from the driver’s seat. You can see through the expanded metal so it does not limit the visibility as much as you might expect.

 

[Henro]

These magnet blocks have on-off switches. In the on position they are quite strong. In the off position they are just a block of steel. The switch turns as easy as a light switch in your dining room.

 

[Henro]

Finished job. It takes all of 5 seconds to put this on or take it off. There are two bolts on the front that drop into holes drilled in the grill guard. The magnet blocks have a V-shaped bottom that rests on the cross bar of the loader, and will sit there fine even with the magnets turned off. The guard sits on a piece of rubber on the front, and it could be held on better with wing nuts on the bolts, but that would increase the on/off time and I doubt that it is necessary for my needs.

 

[Henro]

View from the other side.

 

[Henro]

Front view of mock up of the head protector. Just the outline in blue. It will be similar to the hood protector, but will have two bars in the center running front to back,. The head protector will also taper back to front, going from the width of the top of the ROPS to 24”, which is the width of the back of the hood protector.

The head protector will also angle downwards. The reasons for the taper and downward angle is clearance. I don’t want something sticking out to hit trees that may be leaning or to catch on branches. The ROPS does this enough.

Also, I am not making a canopy. I just want physical protection, in case something unexpected falls from above.

 

[Henro]

Final shot. The head protector will be attached to the top of the ROPS and I will put side supports that run from the bottom of the ROPS to about the mid-point of the side rails of the head protector. Those two wood strips are the approximate position. Those supports will also be 1.25 square tubing.

I originally planned to put supports at the front corners, and attach them to the loader frame using an existing bolt on each side of the loader cross bar, but then realized that the bolt I was going to use was part of the loader, and would be a problem if I wanted to take the loader off while the head protector was on the tractor. So I thought about it, and figure that I can still get a fair amount of protection supporting the top as shown in the mock up, and that way I can remove the loader anytime I want, without concern for the head protector.

The other thing driving my desire for something in addition to the ROPS is this fear I have of being on that slope next to a tree, and having the tractor [for whatever reason] do a slow tip. And me finding the tree sliding down the ROPS on my side, with me belted in, and squash! So I figure that the head protector in a slow-motion event might catch the tree and stop such a squash from happening. I know that in this scenario support at the front corners would be better. But I don’t expect to put myself in a position to find out in any case. But you never know what MIGHT happen.

I still may weld on tabs, on the front corners, so I could easily bolt on supports between the corners and the loader frame if I feel like I need to in the future. Guess that this would not hurt. I just may do that. Before I paint the thing. Guess I got to build it first, eh? I better stop turning this computer on in the morning!

 

[Bob_Skurka]

I always thought that big hat in your pictures was the Head Guard /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif