LADTAD
New member
Im a New first time tractor owner. Bought it 10 days ago, A 2001 JD 4400 SyncReverser with a Frontier RB2072 Blade and a MX5 Rotary cutter.
I read the owners manual and was worried at first about mowing with no front weight but I mowed a few acres of small trees and it did great, except for no Grill guard. So I looked around on ebay and couldn't find any so I thought buy one for similar size tractor and modify it. All were so expensive so I bought a new seat and a filter kit instead. I decided to just build a brush guard out of what ever I had laying around. Stainless Steel would look good I thought and I have more SS than carbon steel plus you dont have to worry about painting it either.
Well I started cutting pieces with a porta-band sch. 40 1" pipe & 1/2" pipe Mitering the 1" and coping the 1/2" with 4-1/2" grinder tiger paw sanding disk. I started welding the 1" pipe together well i had to weld 2 pc's together to make 1 pc. of pipe the welded the 90's but before I had that done I cut 1/2" pipe to fit between 22" c-c of frame. I tacked 1/2" pc's in so that when i welded the 1" it wouldn't pull or get distorted, stainless pulls a lot more than carbon does. At this point I still had no idea of how i was going to mount it to the tractor, was thinking of bolting it to another piece that would be bolted to frame like the one i seen. I welded 3/8" round stock between the 1/2" pipe. The measurements I went with were 26" from center of front weight bar up to hood and i measured to center of the head lights, and 22" wide. The front bumper was 17-1/4" x 4-1/4", it had some holes 15" c-c . So thats was i was aiming for. I decided to just bolt to the front but was tricky since i only had this one piece of 1/2" plate full of holes and they are all offset so I had to cut it just right so i could hit those holes. I was planning on drilling through the weight bar if it didn't work out. I added few more pieces to help strengthen and last piece with all the small holes a Perforated piece was cut to fit. Then i was thinking of adding more to sides like Deluxe brush guard or maybe wider at bottom as wide as front tires. I can modify it if need be
hope i added pictures right. Thanks Ladtad
I read the owners manual and was worried at first about mowing with no front weight but I mowed a few acres of small trees and it did great, except for no Grill guard. So I looked around on ebay and couldn't find any so I thought buy one for similar size tractor and modify it. All were so expensive so I bought a new seat and a filter kit instead. I decided to just build a brush guard out of what ever I had laying around. Stainless Steel would look good I thought and I have more SS than carbon steel plus you dont have to worry about painting it either.
Well I started cutting pieces with a porta-band sch. 40 1" pipe & 1/2" pipe Mitering the 1" and coping the 1/2" with 4-1/2" grinder tiger paw sanding disk. I started welding the 1" pipe together well i had to weld 2 pc's together to make 1 pc. of pipe the welded the 90's but before I had that done I cut 1/2" pipe to fit between 22" c-c of frame. I tacked 1/2" pc's in so that when i welded the 1" it wouldn't pull or get distorted, stainless pulls a lot more than carbon does. At this point I still had no idea of how i was going to mount it to the tractor, was thinking of bolting it to another piece that would be bolted to frame like the one i seen. I welded 3/8" round stock between the 1/2" pipe. The measurements I went with were 26" from center of front weight bar up to hood and i measured to center of the head lights, and 22" wide. The front bumper was 17-1/4" x 4-1/4", it had some holes 15" c-c . So thats was i was aiming for. I decided to just bolt to the front but was tricky since i only had this one piece of 1/2" plate full of holes and they are all offset so I had to cut it just right so i could hit those holes. I was planning on drilling through the weight bar if it didn't work out. I added few more pieces to help strengthen and last piece with all the small holes a Perforated piece was cut to fit. Then i was thinking of adding more to sides like Deluxe brush guard or maybe wider at bottom as wide as front tires. I can modify it if need be
hope i added pictures right. Thanks Ladtad