Bent Box Blade

patrickg · Jul 16, 2001

This and the following two posts have attachments to show my latest woe, a bent box blade scarifier raising lowering mechanism. Pride cometh before a fall. I was so proud of my hydraulic raise/lower scarifier type box blade but it is getting a bit recalcitrant regarding returning redily to its regular position. Anyone got experience on these things? Did they bend so easily? It has goten progressively worse and makes for difficulty raising and lowering the scarifiers while the blade is working. It still works fine, in the air doing nothing, but binds under load when the feature would actually be useful. It looks to me that the mfg could have put a litle more steel and welding bead in it and not have this problem. I don't use this thing every day, I have to have time to use the brush hog, tiller, palet forks, etc.

I could weld on some reinforcement where they did but higher, wider, and longer after bending it back into shape. I think I could do that on the long bar which looks bowed up in the middle (picture of back of tractor from behind tractor) Wouldl probably have to replace the parts on each end that used to be straight and now are curved so much that the paint chipped off.

Patrick

patrickg · Jul 16, 2001

Pivot arms or whatever they would be called. Bent with flaking paint falling off of the bent portion.

patrickg · Jul 16, 2001

The other end, also bent. Sorry, gee, I guess I accidently included the name on the side in one of these shots, hope this doesn't influence anyone's purchase decisions on box blades or whatever else this company produces.

GlueGuy · Jul 16, 2001

Patrick,

That box looks a lot lighter than the Woods model that I have. Mine has cross braces, and gussets in the corners. Also the square tube that the scarifiers drop through is 5" thick. Remind me next week, and I can put up pix (don't have a camera (yet)/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif).

The GlueGuy

patrickg · Jul 16, 2001

GlueGuy, My blade is only 6 ft wide. The square tube that the scarifiers go up and down in is 4x4 and shows no sign whatsoever of stress or having ever exceeded the elastic limit in any way. The box is still square and shows no signs of wracking or bending of any of its flat surfaces. I assume that the 4x4 tube and all other unharmed parts are strong enough until I see some sign of deformation. It is the part that "manifolds" the scarifiers together at the top that is bent and the two (mirror image) pivot thingies at the two ends where the paint flaked off due to the metal bending that is under engineered. So, until something gets out of whack besides the parts in question, I assume they engineered (or guessed) real well on the rest of it.

It isn't a case of babying the box blade, I havent. I back into unmovable dirt piles faster than a sane person trying to budge them and if I fail I contemplate the V squared part of MV squared and hit it faster. I zip around in middle range with full throttle, controlling rpm with load via hydrostat to not exceed PTO speed, usually a couple hundred RPM less. As I approach a dump zone I reduce throttle a bit (keep from over reving when load is removed and not enough hydrostat pedal left to curtail RPM) and then raise the box, then when nearing dirt source location I dump 3ph in one fast whomp to fill up and repeat bombing run delivery. The parts that got bent aren't particularly stressed by this. The parts seemingly unaffected are the ones I'm really stressing to my max capability. I think the box blade is a well designed, fabricated, stout implement. The add on hydraulic cylinder is taking it well but the other add on parts to make the unit raise/lower with hydraulics are not of similar robustness and are clearly (based on empirical evidence) under built/engineered.

Not knocking your unit, I'm sure it is a good one. If it is heavier duty in the box part than mine, then it is over engineered for my tractor/needs and perhaps more costly than neccessary for my purposes but maybe you need more strength with your tractor or your uses (I am virtually rock free) or because it seemed like a good idea at the time. No owners ever complained that a tractor was too strong or got the work done too fast and easy. I suppose that sort of thing is true for implements as well. With luck my implement will continue to hold up in the box blade and scraper part. I expect to get some redress of my grievance from the manufacturer. Even if I didn't it wouldn't be a big deal to reinforce the obvious under strength areas with straight forward welding on of more metal after a bit of straightening.

Patrick

gordon · Jul 16, 2001

Well you have done the correct thing get in touch with the people who built it. It should have more steel that what is there. Tell them that the box is well built it's the hydraulic add on that isn't.

Bet you won't have to do any welding. The company will take care of that bill.

Gordon