MT160D

[Capricious]

Working on the "Worksaver" blade (ironic or what?)



The bent swivel plate; 1/4 inch steel when it should have been at least 3/8 inch



The home-brew steel bender, utilizing my old Hi-Lift jack*
x


Plate more or less straight




Fitting a piece of 1/4 inch by 2 inch flat bar to stiffen the back edge of the plate.




Poor welding job









*I bought the Hi-lift in the fall of 1977, from a little one-man 4X4 shop in Hazelwood, Missouri, an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis. When I pulled into the parking lot in my 1974 IH Scout II I parked next to the shop owner's truck, a 1975 (I think) F250 with raised suspension (not that the "High boys" of the day really needed to be raised) and very large tires. I don't believe that he was using the name yet, but this was the first incarnation of the
"Big Foot" truck, which went on to be a very big deal, and became the primary focus of the business.

 

[Irishman73]

I live in Bloomfield, Indiana home of the High Lift jack. Around here they are called Bloomfield Jacks. It never ceases to amaze me in what you can do with one. I used one for building fence to stretch the barbed wire.

 

[Capricious]

Still working on the MT160D

I am setting it up with "limit chains" for the cutter to ride on. Drilled holes in the cutter, through the steel angles that the A-frame bolts to. The bottom termination of the chains will be just below the bolts that hold the A-frame to the cutter. Considered attaching the bottoms of the limit chains to the lower "pins" of the cutter but then the chains would angle back more than down. Upper ends of chains will be secured just below the top link.

Waiting on delivery of a PTO slip clutch and will then need to shorten the PTO shaft. The shaft had been left laying for years in a fully compressed condition, resulting in light surface rust over the entire exposed exterior of the sheet metal tubing shield / guard. So the "bright" area showing on the shaft in the photo below shows the extent that the shaft is extended. Even without the slip clutch the shaft could be shortened, probably SHOULD be shortened. Hope to deal with the clutch & shaft and chains this weekend. Still need to deal with changing the front axle oil and secure the battery in place and the thing should be ready for a test run.


Discovered that the lights all seem to work; I had thought that they did not. Horn does not work. Would like to install a temp gauge but running out of time. Need to get into the field.

Oh, also need to think about some sort of shield/guard for the gearbox/slip clutch / universal joint.


EDITED: No clutch and shaft work this weekend. Ordered the slip clutch from Agri Supply on Monday, and they just handed it to UPS today (Thursday).

 

[Capricious]

Where the tractor will be used:

 

[Capricious]

The road that the "Worksaver" blade will need to maintain:

 

[skylarkguy]

Nice looking property.

 

[284 International]

I love your use of the Hi-Lift jack to straighten that bent plate, and what a cool story to go along with it! They are extremely useful jacks. It would be neat to see a collection of all the creative ways people have utilized those jacks.

Ordered the slip clutch from Agri Supply on Monday, and they just handed it to UPS today (Thursday).

I have ordered many times from Agri-Supply, and have always been happy with their products. Their customer service is excellent as well, but I have experienced similar delays in them shipping my orders. They always come, and are well packaged and of good quality. I just wish they shipped more quickly.

 

[Capricious]

"..I love your use of the Hi-Lift jack to straighten that bent plate, and what a cool story to go along with it! They are extremely useful jacks. It would be neat to see a collection of all the creative ways people have utilized those jacks..."



Probably 20 years ago i used the same jack to partially "dry dock" a 43 foot long boat. Houseboat with twin MerCruiser 351 CI "V" drives, with water-cooled exhaust out the transon right at the waterline. The (4) exhaust outlet flanges @ the transon needed to be re-sealed, but were partially submerged, so of course one could not just remove the things. Ran a doubled line (rope) from the stern cleat on one side, down underneath the hull and up the other side to the jack which was hung from the roof structure of the floating dock (slip). Jacked up enough to "roll' the boat slightly, lifting the exhaust outlets on that side of the boat above the water, removed the outlet flanges, re-sealed and re-installed. Then re-rigged the lines & jack and rolled the boat the other way and resealed the flanges on the other side.

Not my boat, by the way. This photo is not of the actual boat, but of the same model:
http://piratescovemarina.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/4372NautalineMain.jpg

 

[Capricious]

A busy weekend working on the tractor & realted items.



Made up a set of limit chains for the cutter. Used some old rusty chain and fittings that I had on hand, but dressed things up a little with some gray spray paint (that I also had) so in the end I only needed to buy (4) cotter keys and a couple of bolts with nuts & washers. I drilled holes in the cutter as low as posible and bolted the bottoms of the chains on, rather than ultilize the "pins" as most sets of chains do. I thought the pins too high.



The battery was unsecured and rattling around on it's platform so I used some 1/4-20 all-thread and some light steel channel that I had laying around, so the costs of securing the battery were some wing nuts and washers.



After changing the front axle oil, i bolted on the steel I-beam front bumper, which should protect the grill and headlights from brush as well as add a bit of weight (probably 70 or 80 lbs) to the front of the tractor.


My trailer had come with a "gate" of metal mesh, which i had removed in favor of a couple of ramps that i welded up. The ramps are fabricated of 2 by 2 by 1/8 inch angle and only about 38 inches long (trailer has a dove tail) and while they had proved themselves strong enough for the tractor alone, I was concerned that they might not be strong enough for the tractor with the cutter. My original plan had been to buy a rusty-looking 4 ft cutter and leave it on the property, and just haul the tractor back and forth, but since I has able to find a nice-looking 42 inch cutter i am now going to try to haul the cutter as well. So Saturday afternoon was spent "beefing-up" the ramps.

Wile working on things Sunday, I shut the tractor done with the lift fully raised and left it for 4 hrs, during which time I noticed no "leak-down" at all

 

[skylarkguy]

That bumper will make a great platform for "stuff"...a toolbox, chain storage, chainsaw...whatever.
Neat!

 

[Capricious]

I have throught about enclosing the I-beam with some expanded metal or something, for holding small objects, but other than installing the slip clutch (and shortening the PTO shaft to suit) I think i am about done putting work and money into this machine for the moment until I see if it is going to hold-up under a load.


Once the clutch and shaft are done, I need to load the thing onto my trailer and see how it is going to pull, as I am bumping up against the limits of both my trailer and truck. I have already weighed the empty trailer on a truck scale, and will weigh the loaded trailer and the loaded truck/trailer combo.

 

[Capricious]

Received the slip clutch on Monday







I assume the "over-hanging" load will not be an issue with the gearbox bearings




That's a nasty-looking chunk of steel to have spinning @ 9 rotations per second. Perhaps a guard could be cut out
of a 5 gallon bucket



The slip clutch adds about (5) inches to the driveline, so the shaft will need to be cut down (5) inches for that, and it
wouldn't hurt to cut a few more inches out of it, as it is almost too long as is.




EDITED TO ADD:

Checking out slip clutch adjusting:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/119531-how-properly-adjust-king-kutter.html

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...920-pto-driveline-slip-clutch-adjustment.html

 

[Capricious]

No work on the tractor last night (Tuesday). Had to go vote, but as i got home before the wife did, I took the bathroom scale out to
weigh the kubota model 342, 42" rotary cutter.



385 lbs, with PTO shaft, slip clutch & limit chains. The shaft will need to be shortened about 5 inches to allow for the clutch in the driveline, and as the shaft was a bit long to begin with, I will probably shorten it about 8 inches or so. Since one side of the shaft is a solid square steel bar, that will reduce the weight by a few pounds.

 

[Capricious]

Ran into an issue with the PTO shaft when i went to shorten it to allow for the addition of a slip clutch:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/319182-shorten-pto-shaft.html#post3859537

Hope to resolve that issue this week.

In the mean time, actually tried to use the tractor for something useful on Saturday. The wife and i do volunteer work for
a charity, and they have a couple acres out back that they would like to put a walking path on, either gravel or mulch. In order to contain the fill I suggested trying to grade a shallow trench with a vertical outer edge on each side of the path,
and crowned in the center. An issue is being able to run mowers over the path, especially since I have been the one doing
the mowing.

Used the repaired angle blade, tilted and angled, and cut a "test" path in a secluded area of the property:



First grading I have ever done.

Found out that the 4 wheel drive does, indeed, work. Had one front wheel spinning and both front wheels spinning at different times when i went too deep with the blade. Found out the diff. lock does not work, but in playing with it afterwards I think the problem is the pedal out of adjustment.

Tractor seemed to run OK, but it was only about 30 minutes of work so not a real long test.

 

[techwrtr2]

Little beast will be earning its keep for you doing projects you didn't know you had.

 

[Capricious]

Loaded up the tractor & rotary cutter and headed for the truck scales




According to the scale, the loaded trailer weighs 2780 lbs.

I had already weighed the empty trailer- 1020 lbs including a 3 ft gate, which I have removed, and excluding spare tire, which I have added. Does not include the ramps I made, which were in the truck.




8 chains, 8 load binders and one winch cable. Load is secured. The cutter does hang off the back a couple feet.







Mama's bathroom scale sez about 250 lbs tongue weight (Mama wasn't home). Could maybe use a little more tongue weight, but the hitch says 300 lbs max, unless a weight distributing hitch is used. No indications of any fish-tailing on the highway.

 

[skylarkguy]

Have a safe trip. Looks good to me.

 

[Capricious]

It'll be at least another week before I hit the road for the first real test of this thing in the field.
But I wanted to make sure I wasn't overloading my trailer, or my tow vehicle, and i was able to wrangle free use
of a truck scale for a few minutes, so I made good use of it.



I ordered a new PTO shaft (story here :http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/319182-shorten-pto-shaft.html )


The shaft just showed up 5 minutes ago, but i had it delivered to work, and since the weather is nice today I rode the bicycle to work, so I sitting here wondering if I can get this shaft home on the bike, or just wait until Monday, when it is supposed to rain and I will probably drive to work.

Agri supply had a good price on it; about 90 bucks (plus shipping). I think I was able to find exactly the same shaft elsewhere on the net for over twice the money.

 

[techwrtr2]

Nice on the shaft. I've looked for one to put on my old Woods mower to make selling easier and it hasn't exactly been successful.

 

[284 International]

That's a really good looking load! Threads about "how to secure my ______ " always seem to bring out vast amounts of criticism, but that load is well secured, carefully managed, and attentively driven, by the sounds of things. Well done! I really like that you have secured the machine so well. Extra time securing things down is nothing compared to the time spent cleaning up a mess! I have found that a motorcycle tiedown can do well to ensure chain overrun or a bit of slackness is kept taut, but it doesn't look like you have any need of that. Again, bravo!

I have really enjoyed reading your writeups about everything, and the excellent pictures. I love bringing back abused and neglected compact tractors into service, and I expect this one will serve you well now.