djradz
Veteran Member
As others note, chains are not "required", but I think you're missing some of the bonus of using them beyond help with weak hydraulics. With a flexible (toggle or chain) top link installed also, the check chains serve to do the following:
1) The chains provide a hard stop for adjusting the deck, better than any set point that the three point hydraulics can attain, even with a set point on the control lever. So, never any need to look back and find the right height. If additional temporary higher adjustement is required, one can always revert to the lever for a different (higher) setting.
2) If you install the chains so that the attachment point to the deck is NOT at the same point that the lower arms attach to the deck, there is no rigidity caused by a "triangle" established by the chains, lower arms and tractor frame. (See the picture found at the previous poster's TBN link) Thus, the geometry is free to move. The resulting shape has sometimes been refered to as a bow-tie quadrilateral or complex crossed-trapezoid. Obviously, a little difficult to describe, but the point is that the bow-tie shape is free to rock/flex/rotate.
3) The geometry results in the deck reacting to dips and rises of the front of the tractor in a reduced way vs what otherwise would occur using the lower link support.
4) The lower link control is set all the way down, but the links don't go to that point due to the limit of the chains. Because of this, there is some minimal weight put on the tail wheel as the lower links no longer provide any support except to "push" the deck away from the tractor. Although the chain provides most of the support, these also tend to try to pull the lower (below the 3-pt arm attach point) part of the deck toward the tractor, but this in turn is limited by the tail wheel(s) support.
5) The lower links are rigid. When using only these to support the deck (as advocated here), the deck seems to bounce more with every motion of the tractor. The chains seem to provide a bit of cushion.
I know this discussion has been had here at TBN before, and yet no one that has disagreed has tried the exact setup. If there still is doubt, and you don't want to bother to try, one might want to sketch the setup up or create a little cardboard, stick or other form of mock-up before shooting down the setup further. Then again, that's the beauty of TBN!
1) The chains provide a hard stop for adjusting the deck, better than any set point that the three point hydraulics can attain, even with a set point on the control lever. So, never any need to look back and find the right height. If additional temporary higher adjustement is required, one can always revert to the lever for a different (higher) setting.
2) If you install the chains so that the attachment point to the deck is NOT at the same point that the lower arms attach to the deck, there is no rigidity caused by a "triangle" established by the chains, lower arms and tractor frame. (See the picture found at the previous poster's TBN link) Thus, the geometry is free to move. The resulting shape has sometimes been refered to as a bow-tie quadrilateral or complex crossed-trapezoid. Obviously, a little difficult to describe, but the point is that the bow-tie shape is free to rock/flex/rotate.
3) The geometry results in the deck reacting to dips and rises of the front of the tractor in a reduced way vs what otherwise would occur using the lower link support.
4) The lower link control is set all the way down, but the links don't go to that point due to the limit of the chains. Because of this, there is some minimal weight put on the tail wheel as the lower links no longer provide any support except to "push" the deck away from the tractor. Although the chain provides most of the support, these also tend to try to pull the lower (below the 3-pt arm attach point) part of the deck toward the tractor, but this in turn is limited by the tail wheel(s) support.
5) The lower links are rigid. When using only these to support the deck (as advocated here), the deck seems to bounce more with every motion of the tractor. The chains seem to provide a bit of cushion.
I know this discussion has been had here at TBN before, and yet no one that has disagreed has tried the exact setup. If there still is doubt, and you don't want to bother to try, one might want to sketch the setup up or create a little cardboard, stick or other form of mock-up before shooting down the setup further. Then again, that's the beauty of TBN!