General Bushing Replacement

[CTPhil]

Anyone up for a discussion about re-bushing? I'm talking from loader attachments with egg shaped holes, to a snowplow on a lawn tractor that has a sloppy pivot pin. Some had bushings once, some were just metal in metal. Nowadays if you search you can find just about any size/material bushing on the 'net, but how do you tackle it? Any special tools? Reamers?

Preferably tips and tricks that can be put to use by a driveway mechanic.

[ThomasH]

I have rebushed my Case 60 front end loader as the bushings and pins were either worn or undersize bolts had been put in place of many of them and the bushings were pretty messed up, even worn all of the way through the side of the steel bushings. So I took an angle grinder and ground the part sticking up above the steel down, and used a magnetic drill and annular cutter (hollow drill bit) to drill out the hole to the size that I wanted. Mine were 3/4" pins fitting into 3/4" inside x 1 1/4 outside DOM tubing. To use that pin size, you have to spin the rod in a drill or drill press, and take some 400 grit emory cloth and buff the outside until it has 3 or so thousands clearance inside the DOM tubing. My pin material I made from L1214 steel rod that I bought from a steel supplier, and the steel DOM tubing was mild steel.

I put a "top" on the rod by taking a shaft collar and welding it at the end.

Also, if you have a l a steel frame with two bushings, and something that normally fits in between, then it's best to weld in a longer section of pipe rather than two cut off bushings, because it is not easy to keep two separately welded in bushings in alignment with each other. Once you have them welded in place, then cut out the part in the middle where the other part goes.

Also, I have bought some reamers that I can use to take a few hundreths out of the inside of tubing. The longer ones are called bridge reamers, and you can find them on eBay at times up to several feet long.

[ThomasH]

I have rebushed my Case 60 front end loader as the bushings and pins were either worn or undersize bolts had been put in place of many of them and the bushings were pretty messed up, even worn all of the way through the side of the steel bushings. So I took an angle grinder and ground the part sticking up above the steel down, and used a magnetic drill and annular cutter (hollow drill bit) to drill out the hole to the size that I wanted. Mine were either 3/4" pins fitting into 3/4" inside x 1 1/4 outside DOM tubing. To use that pin size, you have to spin the rod in a drill or drill press, and take some 400 grit emory cloth and buff the outside until it has 3 or so thousands clearance inside the DOM tubing. My pin material I made from L1214 steel rod that I bought from a steel supplier, and the steel DOM tubing was mild steel.

I put a "top" on the rod by taking a shaft collar and welding it at the end.

Also, if you have a steel frame with two bushings, and something that normally fits in between, then it's best to weld in a longer section of pipe across the whole span, rather than two cut off bushings, because it is not easy to keep two separately welded in bushings in alignment with each other. Once you have them welded in place, then cut out the part in the middle where the other part goes.

Also, I have bought some reamers that I can use to take a few hundreths out of the inside of tubing. The longer ones are called bridge reamers, and you can find them on eBay at times up to several feet long. One last thing is to consider putting in grease zerks. Just drill a 13/64 hole, thread the hold to be 1/4x27, and screw the zerk in. This will greatly extend the life of the bushig and pin.

[Brad_Blazer]

Depending on the original weld penetration, you may be able to beat them out after grinding both sides flush. Otherwise after grinding flush you could just weld shaft collars on both sides and not worry about the middle.

[CTPhil]

I have rebushed my Case 60 front end loader as the bushings and pins were either worn or undersize bolts had been put in place of many of them and the bushings were pretty messed up, even worn all of the way through the side of the steel bushings. So I took an angle grinder and ground the part sticking up above the steel down, and used a magnetic drill and annular cutter (hollow drill bit) to drill out the hole to the size that I wanted. Mine were either 3/4" pins fitting into 3/4" inside x 1 1/4 outside DOM tubing. To use that pin size, you have to spin the rod in a drill or drill press, and take some 400 grit emory cloth and buff the outside until it has 3 or so thousands clearance inside the DOM tubing. My pin material I made from L1214 steel rod that I bought from a steel supplier, and the steel DOM tubing was mild steel.

I put a "top" on the rod by taking a shaft collar and welding it at the end.

Also, if you have a steel frame with two bushings, and something that normally fits in between, then it's best to weld in a longer section of pipe across the whole span, rather than two cut off bushings, because it is not easy to keep two separately welded in bushings in alignment with each other. Once you have them welded in place, then cut out the part in the middle where the other part goes.

Also, I have bought some reamers that I can use to take a few hundreths out of the inside of tubing. The longer ones are called bridge reamers, and you can find them on eBay at times up to several feet long. One last thing is to consider putting in grease zerks. Just drill a 13/64 hole, thread the hold to be 1/4x27, and screw the zerk in. This will greatly extend the life of the bushig and pin.

Thanks for the reply. I think magnetic drills and annular cutters may be a little out of my reach, I like the bridge reamer idea. Do they come with shanks that could be chucked into a large drill?

Depending on the original weld penetration, you may be able to beat them out after grinding both sides flush. Otherwise after grinding flush you could just weld shaft collars on both sides and not worry about the middle.

This seems like something I could do, if it works it works.

[Tractor Seabee]

When building some attachments I found small qtys of bushing stock almost impossible to find. Most places have a $100-200 minimum order plus shipping costs. I found shaft couplings on Amazon as individual pieces and sometimes free shipping. Even found 30mm ones for the curl cylinder link of my BX15 FEL. Strange the bottom ones are 3/4" and the top 30mm. I put them in the bandsaw and cut to lenght and welded in. Reamers then are not required. HF has a set of reamers pretty cheap though.

Ron

[joshuabardwell]

Also, if you have a l a steel frame with two bushings, and something that normally fits in between, then it's best to weld in a longer section of pipe rather than two cut off bushings

My goodness, this would have been really good information for me to have about two weeks ago. Thanks anyway. Now I'll know next time!

[joshuabardwell]

The way to do this job without specialized tooling, IMO, is to buy DOM tubing of the appropriate thickness and ID, then cut out the old bushing, weld in the new tubing, and use a drill press and emery cloth to take a pin down by enough thousandths to let it slide in smoothly. For me, at least, it is trivial to cut out the old bushing with a hole saw, and trivial to chuck up a pin in the drill press, but it would require a lathe and/or a reamer, neither of which I have, to buy the DOM tubing and ream it out the few mils, vs. taking the pin down a few mils.

The one downside of this is that you won't be able to use store-bought pins right off the shelf, but it may be an acceptable tradeoff for somebody who doesn't have the tooling to ream out the tubing.

[texasjohn]

Guess I'm lucky. I've got a reasonably local welding/machine shop, familar with tractors, which could do all that at very reasonable price. Are you sure there isn't one in your area or that cost is prohibitive? These are known high stress points and fix needs to be right.

[CTPhil]

Guess I'm lucky. I've got a reasonably local welding/machine shop, familar with tractors, which could do all that at very reasonable price. Are you sure there isn't one in your area or that cost is prohibitive? These are known high stress points and fix needs to be right.

Unfortunately there are no reasonably priced shops here. Most don't even want to talk about repairs, they've gone over to the high end "sculpture" market driven by wealthy weekenders out of NYC.