Frontier SB1106 Sickle Bar - Bad Grease Zirks problem

[eepete]

I like my sickle bar mower for mowing under trees and the banks of the dams. It's a little maintenance intensive in that the manual says to grease the reciprocating mechanism every 2 hours of use. The problem is that the center set of fittings can't be acessed with a grease gun. There is a green preforated piece of metal with holes in it, but the grease fittings are straight not angled. One of the fittings on the bottom set of grease points is angled, so it's not like Frontier (really the company that make this for Frontier) doesn't have angle zirks lying around. I took the green shield off after the 1st two hours, am ready to grease again, there has got to be a better way :mur:.

Went to my Deere dealer, got a assortment kit of fittings (the kit was $7 and had 3 45 degree 6mm fittings in a set of 21 fittings, a single fitting priced out at $4.50 :confused2. Took the green shield off, changed the two fittings. One fitting was 180 degrees out when it first got tight, the other two were about 90 degrees out when hand tightening and they tightened into the correct spot with a wrench.

First pix is the "before", 2nd is "after", 3rd is close up of "after".

I asked the dealer if he had any copper compression washers so that one could get the zirk tight and at the right angle, got a funny look . What do real tractor owners do to get an angled zirk so that it lines up OK? Just keep tightening it up? Use a split ring lock washer?

At any rate, just wanted to vent and hope that maybe the manufactures read some of this stuff, and also look forward to the answer on how (other than luck of the tread position draw) one gets an angled zirk fitting pointing in the right direction.

You'd think that the engineers that made this product would have taken the final product and tried to grease it at least once....:confused3:

Pete

 

[beenthere]

eepete
Cut out the holes to match up with the zerks when straight, or tight.
Or put extensions on the zerks so they stick out further, if that might not be a problem.

 

[AKfish]

It is enough to make you want to grab the engineer by the neck-tie and give it a couple of good jerks.... er zerks!!!

I had to do more or less the same thing on the BH on my 110. There is a straight-up zerk that is subject to direct dirt impaction on the bucket linkage - when you curl the bucket it jams the zerk right in the ground!

After it would no longer take grease - I swapped it for a 90 degree angle.

Like your idea for the copper compression washer. The split-ring washer would likely be too much extension and probably puke grease from the base of the fitting - IMO.

Nice to vent - huh?

(Did I ever tell you what I think of the JD engineer's placement of the additional SCV's for the TnT on the 110...) I'd like to put one of the hyd hoses in an appropriate location of the lead engineer's anatomy and give him the full-tilt!!

AKfish

 

[kennyd]

Would one of the needle attachments worked to get to them?

 

[om21braz]

Depending on how bad it bothers you, you could make/buy a manifold & yet more fittings + lines to create a central grease location that is easily accessed. If you can find a good place where it won't be damaged. Done this a few times per customer requirements on woodworking machinery. I understand your grief about engineers - I think most of them majored in finance first - make it cheap.

 

[sweettractors]

Who, actually is the manufacturer of the Frontier sickle mower? Ken Sweet

 

[eepete]

beenthere, I might cut out a bit more on one hole. With the 45 degree fittings it's OK, but one is still a little tight. With the straight fittings, I would have had to cut about 3" out of the shield. The shield probably keeps big sticks and rocks out of the assembly, so the more/bigger the holes the higher the chance of an ooops.

This is the mechanism that takes the rotary movement and makes it the dual back and forth for the cutters, so these bearings are seriously moving during operation. So the manifold and extenuation ideas unfortunately won't work in this situation.

kennyd, what's a "needle attachment" ?

Ken, I don't know who makes this Frontier mower. I do hope that somewhere in a cubicle at Deere Inc someone is reading this forum from time to time...

AKfish: I design electronics stuff that people use. When it goes to production, I got to the plant and look at every stage to figure out how to make it more manufacturable. After you break the ice, the little old ladies in manual placement are very helpful. I've even set up a station in the line and sat and worked with them for a day.
I have also taken a week and worked in customer support on products I did. I also took a few weeks and did house calls on people who bought the product, and worked with the dealers on a number of installs. Finally, I used the product myself daily. So I don't give the engineer here a pass.
When I was designing network equipment, I went out in the field and did several installs myself, and worked with various IT techs. After each trip, there were tweeks to be made to software and sometime the hardware based on what was learned.

Thanks for letting me vent, and when I learn what a needle attachement is, I'll have solved a problem _and_ learned something. What a great day :thumbsup:

Pete

 

[sunnyside360]

Who, actually is the manufacturer of the Frontier sickle mower? Ken Sweet

I'm pretty sure the Frontier sickle bar cutters are made in Italy -- possibly by Gasparado or Tonutti. I have the Tonutti and the design/parts look identical to the Frontier. I know exactly what you are saying about the grease fittings being difficult to access. I enlarged the 4 holes slightly to enable better access to the fittings. The other thing which helps a lot is to turn the PTO shaft which moves the grease zerks out closer to the holes. I usually get two of the easiest zerks then turn the PTO manually with large screw driver until the other two are easy to get to.

 

[beenthere]

eepete
Google "needle nose grease adapter" and a pic should come up.
You point it into the hole in the zerk that pushes the ball back and then forces in grease.

This link should show one too.

Edelmann Needle Nose Grease Adapter, Model 05-019 (usahardware.com)

 

[eepete]

sunnyside360, turning the PTO shaft does help, and with the 45 degree fittings it brings them very close to the outside. Might still need to nibble off 1/8" from one access hole. When they were straight, rotating didn't help.

beenthere, tnx for link with pix . There's my daily education.

Thanks to all for the replies !

Pete