Adams pull type road grader

[rlfii76f]

I bought an adams no 8 leaning wheel road grader, I am wanting to convert it from steel wheels to rubber tires. I know it can be done because I have seen them like that. The one I have has spindles that are bigger than 2 inch. I will have an exact measurement tomorrow, the battery in my mic is dead. Any ideas on how to do this. Thanks

 

[MIKE R]

Congratulations on your grader. These old graders are interesting. You can probably make hubs to fit on the shaft and have the bolt pattern to mount rubber wheels on. On another idea you can buy rubber strips to bolt onto the steel wheels from millertire.com.

Do you have any photos of the grader.

 

[hank193]

I bought an old Adams grader at an auction years ago. Planned to pull it behind a small tractor or paint it up and just have it around. Never got to do either! Guy came by , fell in love with it and offered too much money !
Good luck with yours!

 

[Craig Clayton]

How many thousands of Feet or miles do you plan on grading? This might be a pivotal point to the wheel redesign.

Craig Clayton

 

[zzvyb6]

Well its possible (just use better tires than these). Another possibility is to weld onto the axle some rear wheel bearing assemblies from a recent FWD domestic midsized car. Then you can mount any of the wheels (production, compact spare, high pressure spare, Cragers, etc.) on these hubs. Bearings are bolt or weld on. Wheels & tires are usually a few bucks at the junk (I mean re-homing) yard.

I've converted a few old steel wheel hay elevators using this method.

 

[rlfii76f]

Not grading a bunch, I got a 1/10th mile high banked go kart track that washes out everytime it rains, needing this to get the track back in shape.

 

[rlfii76f]

Here is a link to a picture of it.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/10148

 

[bcp]

Use the wheels like they are for a while. Then decide if you really need rubber tires.

Bruce

 

[DJ54]

Are those 16" split rims..?? If so, shouldn't be too hard to find a decent used set to put on it, and most likley 8 plys. If the rims are half decent, I'd clean them up in, and out, paint, and a new set of good used ones on it.

Just be real careful with the rings... Many tire shops won't even mess with split rims anymore...

 

[rlfii76f]

It just has the old steel wagon wheel types, one of the big reasons I am wanting to switch is the bushings or whatever these steel wheels have in them are worn alot, and when you pull it the wheels rock side to side pretty good.

 

[DJ54]

Hard to tell with the small picture, but looks like the axle nut is exposed, due to no dust cap. It very well may have tapered roller bearings. Just hope there is something left of the race.

IF they are trb's and can find a number, do a search on ebay. I bought enough Timken nos USA bearings & cups for my tri-axle trailer, and two complete extra sets for like $40.00.

 

[Mace Canute]

Nice grader! I have an old A.E. Adams grader that has been converted from pull type (with a tongue and two wheel dolly up front) to just direct hook up to the tractor's drawbar. It is the plain Jane model, no options at all, just up, down and swivel! My buddy and I found an brand new 8' grader blade at the recyclers and bolted it to the moldboard, added a lot of strength to it and also quite a bit of weight too...(it was a very heavy duty blade). It's well worn and like the OP's, the spoke steel wheels lean over a lot when loading the blade up. We've talked about replacing them with spindles and hubs from a 3/4 ton truck (SRW) with full floating axles but there's other things that need doing more than that needs to be done.

One thing I've noticed is that there doesn't seem to be any Forums that deal exclusively with A.E. Adams graders and any of the grader forums out there don't mention anything about mine. I'd like to know more about it so if anyone has any knowledge about them please share!

 

[steam]

Just came across this thread and joined just to put in my 2 cents. I have a smaller Adams grader that I am rebuilding now. My steel wheels were lose but I wanted to keep them original so am re-bushing the old cast iron bushings. Your grader is an older one before they enclosed the gears. Adams did have an option of roller bearings. Its hard to tell from the picture but yours my have them. If you have questions I do have some information on some sizes. Does yours have any name plates on?

 

[rlfii76f]

It has the old copper name plate, but it is so faded you cant hardly read it. The steel plate on the side says adams no 8. The inside of steel wheels do not appear to have bearings.

 

[Taylortractornut]

I helped make one over to rubber tires. I had a rear axle from a 1 ton and one from a 3/4 ton and welded the spindles to axles. We did this so if it was ever restored that we could put the originals back inplace. On another we removed the whole front axle and put a hitch in its place to pull from the drawbar.