You may not know this, but the tang drive is very common in the industry. Dennison, Rexroth, etc. use the tang drive in some applications. Any hydraulic pump I have ever installed or worked on was pilot indexed. This insures proper depth and alignment.
You must not forget that these components are made in China, not the US. Some of their standards differ from SAE and metric. When you purchase a Chinese tractor, it's the same as living in China - you have the choice to get used to it or take the alternative.
Nice job on the repair. I can tell you are an accomplished machinist whose time must be worth about $40/hr. Just curious how much time it took you to affect the repair versus what new replacement parts cost.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the input. I did not know, and am surprised to hear, that more expensive brands of tractors also use tang (thanks for teaching me the name) drives. I suppose that indexing them makes for a better joint, though I would have thought that a Lovejoy or Oldham coupling would be what they would have used. I guess I better get used to this type of drive as I have one more tractor to start re-building this summer.
I really love China for the way they do things. Very old school. I travel there on business all the time and often see incredible things first hand. For example, next time I go I am going to examine a used steam locomotive for sale. It was built in - get this - 2004! Yes if you buy it, be prepared to repair it like the Chinese do, which is why I have a lathe and mill.
Thanks for the compliment on my work. I am not a professional machinist. In fact my machinist friends claim that my mechanical engineering degree proves that
"I don't know **** about fabrication!"
I don't know about that, but I do admit to having sent drawings down to the prototype shop that in hindsight required some
"unusual" machining that would have been avoidable but for a non critical hole that only needed to be moved over a 1/4 of an inch LOL.
The whole repair took about five and a 1/2 hours. However:
- 2.5 of those hours were spent looking for tools in my incredible mess of a shop
- 1/2 hour was spent trying to remember how to Tig weld.
- Another 45 min was spent hand filing, whereas the same job could have been done in 15 min on the mill. Note:I have been trying to do more hand filing becuase I am tired of hearing old timers say "Filing is a lost art! You whipper snappers don't know **** with your fancy degrees and CAD/CAM software BS". Of course my filing skills are horrible - but some day I will prove them wrong; probably around the time I become an old timer!
If I had a clean shop where all the tools had a place, and were in their place - and I was in a hurry to finish it - the job would have taken 45min ~ 1hr. I still have probably another 45 min for the pump side.
However, I did not choose to do the work to save money. I like real projects on which I can build my fabrication skills, and I like feeling self reliant.
Cheers, and thanks again for education and input.