A loving home for a neglected MF1455v

1stDeuce · Oct 26, 2016

PatrickS2222 said:
Sounds like you're getting her into top shape rather quickly - you'll be enjoying the seat time a lot.

What do you think of this idea for a bit of shade and protection from rain?
I'm toying with the idea of using an old car bonnet for a shade canopy, attached to a frame.

Hmm. I had recently heard of using a golf cart roof, but a car bonnet (hood here) might work too... I think the downside would be the weight... they're usually not terribly light. I don't think cantilevering the roof off 2" round or square tube at the back only will support the weight for long before it fatigues and breaks off at the mounting point.

Whatever you do, post up some pics so we can see your Aussie Ingenuity!

You may be better off doing a four point mount for it, like a Kubota TLB... L47.

TractorGuy · Oct 26, 2016

Re: The good and the not so good...

1stDeuce said:
The good:

Now that I'm looking, it appears there's ISO Global/Euro, as well as SAE Global, and possibly even different "categories" of Global... Who knows. I'll make this work, and be done with it.

Sounds like the metric system America got duped into. As it turned out every country has their own idea of bolt size, thread pitch, and wrench sizes to do it differently. Of course the good old US of A had to invent their own bassakwards sizes so you never know what size wrench you need for a ??mm bolt.

PatrickS2222 · Oct 28, 2016

1stDeuce said:
Hmm. I had recently heard of using a golf cart roof, but a car bonnet (hood here) might work too... I think the downside would be the weight... they're usually not terribly light. I don't think cantilevering the roof off 2" round or square tube at the back only will support the weight for long before it fatigues and breaks off at the mounting point.

Whatever you do, post up some pics so we can see your Aussie Ingenuity!

You may be better off doing a four point mount for it, like a Kubota TLB... L47.

Lighter is better - fibreglass or plastic (providing it's UV tolerant and doesn't become brittle) would be ideal, but cost, shape and resistance to being "inadvertently reshaped"

by tree limbs etc are also factors. A golf cart roof is indeed a great idea - would certainly be light, and look neat and tidy too. A lot of bonnets, especially from the smaller Asian cars, are quite light. Of course you are correct in that a 2-point mounting
will need to be sturdy - especially if it gets tangled up in a tree limb!

But one distinct advantage of using a bonnet is being able to bend it back into shape again. :laughing: If at all possible, I will avoid a second pair of posts. I will work it out somehow and I will post a thread so others can utilise the idea - if it works well.

1stDeuce · Nov 10, 2016

Well, look what showed up Tuesday!!

I kicked the bucket off and chained it to the QA and the tractor will BARELY lift it... Actually, the loader lift got it really light, but not off the ground. I could curl from there though, and the loader didn't settle and the BH lifted... So I was able to move it up to the shop with the tractor from where we unloaded it with a forklift.

It's in workable shape, but it does need some TLC... And I can see a couple of repairs already, including one of the bucket pins being welded in, and some plating at the top where the cylinder attaches to the dipperstick. It could also use a new seat, as the one that's on it is pretty rusty underneath.

I'm about to order some hydraulics to get it to work, and I'll get to building it a subframe as soon as I get my trailer done.

Speaking of the trailer, it turns out the devil is in the details on that project... Lots of little things to do before the weekend, but hoping to be painting it this saturday or sunday!!

1stDeuce · Dec 6, 2016

It's been a while since I posted much about the tractor. That's because I was building a trailer.

This past weekend we used the new trailer to haul the tractor up to our property in CO and start the process of putting in a driveway.

There was about 6" of snow on the ground when we got there, and I was quite impressed with the tractor's ability to get around, and get things done. R4's are not known for their snow performance, but they seemed to get around fine. It probably helps that I'm a firm believer in running the "correct" tire pressure for the job, which in this case is much lower than "recommended". (I think I'm at ~20 front and 6 rear, and get decent tire flex, and hence good traction.)

I had a great time pushing over trees with the FEL!! The smaller ones turn up roots and all, but some of the bigger ones, especially those with double or triple trunks, just break off, leaving me with stumps to remove with the backhoe later.

Aside from losing a few pins, which I already replaced, there was no carnage, and I'm very happy with the tractor.
BUT it's time to take care of a few things...

First, the loader makes a horrible screeching noise when it's most of the way up. Makes it on the up, and then on the down too... It was pretty dry when I bought it, but I've greased it plenty now, and it still squawks... Last night I took to inspecting it a bit more. Turns out the back of the loader frame was pressing into the uprights as it pivoted up!!

I pulled the pins and fixed it...
Before:

Scrape marks on the frame:

And witness marks on the loader arms:

And after I used my trusty HF Porta-Band to 45 the lower corners:

I rounded the corners and painted it with some red Rustoleum red that was sitting around. Scraped the rust and loose powder coat off the uprights and painted that too. No more squawking!!

Second, I finally got the fittings I needed to hook up all the Power Beyond hoses for the backhoe, and I took the tire back off and plumbed all the lines.

I used larger hose and fittings where it made sense, hoping to get better flow to the BH. The hydraulics now run the loader via larger 1/2" hose, then out the Power Beyond on the loader valve to the BH quick connect, again in 1/2" hose. If the BH is plugged in, it dumps right to tank through 1/2" hose, and the 3PH is disabled. If the BH isn't there, I plug the quick connect back into the 3/8" hose that feeds the 3PH, and everything works as it always did.

The added bonus of having it this way is that the 3PH is disabled when the BH is mounted, so even if I move the lever, it won't do anything.

I still want to add brackets to each side to hold the female quick connects to the ROPS uprights. I used fittings with double acting sleeves, so if mounted by the sleeve, you can connect/disconnect one handed, and if you forget to disconnect and drive off, it just releases. Genius!!

Now to build a 4pt subframe to actually mount the backhoe to the tractor...

1stDeuce · Dec 22, 2016

Some maintenance

Just using this thread as my maintenance log...
Gave the tractor what I assume was its 3rd oil change ever last night. New filter (Wix 51348XP), one gallon of Rotella T5 (10W30!?) and one gallon of T6 (5W40).

I always have a few gallons of Rotella T4/T6 around (I dump a gallon of each in the truck at oil changes and run T6 in our motorcycles) but I was out of T4, and T5 was on sale for almost the price of T4, so I figured what the heck...

Didn't see that T5 was 10W30 till I got home, but it is diesel oil, and my tractor doesn't get worked that hard, so I'm not going to worry that I'm 5pts off on the avg weight when warm.

Priced out trans fluid today... Going to wait to change it till I run the BH some, since I think it's probably full of straight hydraulic oil instead of trans/hyd. (It was formerly on a NH skidsteer.) This way I'll have that oil mixed well with what's in the tractor now, and after changing all 10 gallons in the tractor, there will only be the tiny bit of straight Hyd that's mixed with trans/hyd in the BH. Not going to worry about that tiny amount.

I did find a WIX P/N for the hyd filter too... WIX 57403. It's not listed as a cross reference, but I'm hopeful it'll work, as it's half the price of the Agco filter, and flows better due to more filter area. (It's taller by ~3")

Now back to making a BH mount...

1stDeuce · Jan 4, 2017

Backhoe mount finished!!

Well, I got the BH mount all finished, and even used it this weekend. It worked great, aside from a badly leaking bucket cylinder. I have seals on order, and will re-seal it myself next week when they arrive.

For those interested in the mount, I did a writeup here on TBN: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/373738-4pt-mount-bradco-609-mf.html

A few glamor shots of it here at the shop today:

It's a pretty powerful backhoe... I was thinking the 24" bucket would be too wide to be any good, but it powers right through stuff. I removed three stumps, and dug a sizeable hole before the cylinder started leaking so bad that I had to stop. If I build another bucket, it'll be 12", for trenching, or digging out stumps, but for digging holes, the 24" bucket seems fine.

I also made up a set of front tire chains from some chains I had laying around. They were originally for a semi-truck, and I cut them down and shortened the crossbars so they would fit 235/85R16's. I don't have that tire size on anything anymore, so I pulled one cross bar and they were a perfect fit on the tractor!! Helped greatly with driving around on frozen ground and in mud this weekend!

I picked up 15 gallons of Traveller universal tractor/hydraulic fluid today too. Figure it's already low, so I'll drain the 13 year old fluid out and replace it with new. They had some "for older tractors" stuff that's supposed to recondition seals too, so I got one bucket of that and two of the normal. And a WIX filter, which I hope fits...

TSO · Jan 4, 2017

Looks great! Nice job on the mount

Venturabass · Jan 20, 2017

I like it a lot, and think you did alright price wise. I love the ingenuity to fix everything you're finding. If your handy with painting, you can make that machine look great. Same for the backhoe.