Do I really need the tail wheel on my BH?

[Ford960]

wrenchturner,
Thanks for the heads up. I keep a close eye on things like that.

Last week I broke one of the blades on my squealer. Don't know what I hit but it left a 3/4" half moon gouge in the cutting edge and the blade broke clean off at the pivot hole. The break shows no evidence of a prior crack or fatigue. I think that it came out and hit the right lower lift arm and bent it pretty bad but can't find a strike mark. Of course when the arm bent I shut down the pto because I didn't know what was going on. The tractor didn't stain or bog and I wasn't cutting anything major at the time. I replaced the lift arm and took a look under the mower to find that the blade was gone. I rode back down to the lot and found the blade laying about 5' to the right side of where I was cutting at the time.

I plan to replace both blades and pivot bolts so I'll have a back up unit if needed.

 

[normde2001]

"Well that didn't take long for replies, I must not be the only one sitting watching it rain."

Bird and I are retired, but I suspect Soundguy is doing it on company time .

 

[Ford960]

Well I got up this morning and pulled the tailwheel off the squealer and adapted it to the 305. It's kinda sloppy but seemed to do the job. On the second lot I backed into a tree and snapped the new lower lift arm clean in two. I took it back to the tractor dealer but wasn't able to convince him that it was defective. I bought two arms so that I would have a spare and I'll weld the broken one back together for another spare.

The difference in the two mowers is like night and day, I can easily knock down and destroy 3"-4" trees. The 305 cuts them off right at ground level and then chops up the limbs and leaves to mulch.

I was able to clear 4 lots today in 4 hours, got stung by 2 yellow jackets and had to chain saw the tractor out of the trees once. Also I got an entire tree hung under the mower and had to chain saw that too.

In the last three weeks I've cleared 17 lots and there should be another 4 coming up today or tomorrow.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[Soundguy]

Now that kind of post is what it's all about.

have fun, and keep us updated.

Soundguy

 

[sandman2234]

What is fun about getting stung by yellow jackets???
Been there, done that, it is anything but fun!!
I sold my Ford 1100 and bought it back for the same $ a year later. The owner had taken the wheel and bracket off so he could mow in some really tight areas around his grape vines. He put it in the attic of a shed. After he sold the property and I bought the Ford back, I realized the wheel was missing and asked about it. He called the new property owner and I was able to retrieve them. (They found them when they bulldozed the shed) I have never put them back on, as it works fine without it. However, since I am selling the tractor again, I need to drag it out and throw it on the truck for it's trip to Gulf Breeze.
David from jax

 

[Ford960]

Those little yellow ******** do hurt, a few weeks ago I had one get up my pants leg. The sting on the inside of my leg was a bad one too. Thing is that you don't know that they are attacking until the hurt starts.

Today I went to Harbor Freight and bought me a 1" impact wrench so the next time that I have to deal with blades it will be much easier. This wrench listed for $169.99 on sale for $99.99 and then the old lady said that she had a 20% off coupon so it cost me $80+tax. Now I have to go get my big air compressor from Charleston as I traded my son-in-law for his 20 gal compressor since I didn't have 220v power to run my 60 gal. He's never even put a plug on my compressor and is still putting the bare wires in the receptacle when he needs air. Now I have 220 and it's time for my new compressor to come home again. Who knows, I might even start sand blasting the sheet metal on this 960 to get some of the rust off, and a little paint couldn't hurt.

With the big compressor and 1/2" air hose I'll have 1,400 ft/lbs of torque to wring off as many bolts as I want. I also bought a set of 1" impact sockets, they weigh as much as the wrench.

I plumbed the wrench to the little compressor with a 3/8" hose just to see it work and it had an amazing amount of torque, enough to easily loosen the nuts on the axle of the tractor that I tightened with a 5' cheater pipe.

So now I've decided to replace the blades on the squealer and hold on to it as a back up unit. The stump jumper could use some work too but it's still a good mower.

 

[Soundguy]

Take pics along the way!!

Soundguy

 

[Ford960]

Take pics along the way!!

Soundguy

Of what? My trip to Charleston?

I go down there about every month and take my 35' fifthwheel for a week since it cost less than staying in a motel and we don't like staying with family.
Already this morning I've been getting ready to go in the morning and put the little compressor in the side compartment of the camper. The big compressor however is going to require a trip back up here to NC since it's too big and will have to be hauled in the back of the truck. What's another 500 mile round trip anyway.

I pull the camper with an F-350 DRW 6.0L PSD, 6sp man trans crew cab and have a 50 gallon aux fuel tank in the bed. Fuel in SC is ~$0.12-0.15 cheaper than NC and I fill my tanks down there which lasts me till the next trip. When I went to Ohio to get the Bush Hog last week I checked the fuel prices in all the states that I would be in and found that VA had the best price at $2.699/gallon as compared to $2.859 here in NC. I stopped in Wytheville and got fuel on the way up and again on the way back. Right now my main tank is full in the filler tube and the aux tank has a little more than half left with over 400 miles since fueling. I can regularly get over 1,200 miles on the available fuel.

I guess that I could take a few pictures when I put that big impact to work changing the blades on my squealer. I can't wait to pull the trigger and feel the power. I always did like to do that when changing tires on an 18 wheeler, you just can't beat the brute force that one of these wrenches has.

Well, we're headed over to some friends place and an afternoon on their boat. They have a place right on the lake and we ride the golf cart over. When we bought our lot here there were no waterfront properties available so we're one street back. As full time RVers we live in this fifthwheel year round and love it.

Gotta go.