My F-1700 home made ROPS in progress

[JC-jetro]

Great looking stuff JC.

Rops are hard to find. I had a guy 1000 miles away buy the one off the 1210 I parted out. Shipping wasn't too bad at 150 bucks.

Yours will be better than the Ford one!

Thanks sld,

I trust it would take a bit more than a simple roll over to budge it. I have sum total of $50 in consumables and hardened fasteners but came across a few good scrap pieces. I did have to buy the 4" channel. I will put a black enamel on the uprights and the top hat and will put it on tractor hopefully tomorrow morning. The top is flat with the 4" channel and I did put 8- 3/8" holes equally spaced for a rudimentary sun shade for now made out of some scrap plywood and piece of 5 mil EPDM. I need to work on factory options next.

JC,

 

[JB4310]

JC, don't take this the wrong way, you know we are friends, so i will give my honest opinion.

I think your fab work and welding look great, but I would not consider that a rops with its present design. More of a heavy duty canopy base. Do you even have a seat belt? can't remember if mine has one, cause I never wear mine even with my modern machine with factory rops, which I know defeats the purpose.

I know factory rops are so over engineered, but I think yours needs a little more, before you trust your life to it.
For now you're better off jumping clear during a roll IMO

The narrow width is the first thing that catches my attention also the 2 bolt attachment isn't suitable for such a critical app.

Is it better than nothing? probably, but I'm concerned enough about your safety to "criticise" your project.
If I didn't care about you I wouldn't say a thing Plus you're one of the best 1700 knowledge bases on TBN, we need you around.

JB.

 

[JB4310]

OK. looked closer and see the 6 bolts, maybe I am being over cautious and unreasonably critical :ashamed:

edit:
I think because I read "home made ROPS" I was automatically skeptical before I even looked closely and really tried to analyze it. I am still a little suspicious of it's ability to fully protect you, but I should expressed it differently.

Sorry, JB.

 

[JC-jetro]

JC, don't take this the wrong way, you know we are friends, so i will give my honest opinion.

I think your fab work and welding look great, but I would not consider that a rops with its present design. More of a heavy duty canopy base. Do you even have a seat belt? can't remember if mine has one, cause I never wear mine even with my modern machine with factory rops, which I know defeats the purpose.

I know factory rops are so over engineered, but I think yours needs a little more, before you trust your life to it.
For now you're better off jumping clear during a roll IMO

The narrow width is the first thing that catches my attention also the 2 bolt attachment isn't suitable for such a critical app.

Is it better than nothing? probably, but I'm concerned enough about your safety to "criticise" your project.
If I didn't care about you I wouldn't say a thing Plus you're one of the best 1700 knowledge bases on TBN, we need you around.

JB.

Hello John,

Please believe me there is no hard feelings and I do very much appreciate your good will and glad you chimed in. I would have no other reason to post. I respectfully believe this design more than meets factory design. If you look at the after market available for Ford 1700 you'll shake your head. I feel confident that I would put my PE stamp on it although I do not do structural work.

addressing your concerns;

1- As I said earlier on, I'm am planning to wear seat belt and do have one.

2- your concern about the width. my rops is as wide as the OEM. The oem is about 1 inch from the rear fender.

Few pics from the factory:




Factory rops is connected to the axle using two bolt, two other bolts to difffy that actually around 6 mm in dia. The base is formed to not interfere with lift arm movement. The vertical pieces just hug the side same as mine.



Now look at my design. I had added two tabs that is very tight against the diffy. Those two tabs are made are high strength structural steel and not your basic angle iron you buy from Home Depot and such. Actually 4 bolts and two stud would not experience any shear force unless the tabs completely and cleanly shear off.

This happens on both side of heavy cast diffy housing.



here you see both tabs that is tight fit against the diffy and two angles are used with the studs. the back piece is not just a flat piece and it's geometry adds much torsional strengths to already though structural 4"x4" angle. The angle scarp piece come from one of my jobs with seismic consideration.



I see very difficult for these tabs to break off clean. it is just not going to happen as yield strength of this pieces are very high and they can never snap as they are not brittle like cast block. The



I have pretty good penetration on the base and added two gussets in a form of angle that add much torsional strength to the angel.

close up of the hat section section with added gussets. All the fastener I use for the for the parallelogram are 1/2" dia by 4" long grade 8. the metric fasteners I use are metric 10.9. Again there will be no shear force on the bolts unlike collapsible rops. The ID of 2-1/2" sch 40 pipe is just a hair bigger than od of 2" pipe . there is more than 6" of contact internally between the pipe and bolt cant have much shear force and fastener are just not going to clear shear off in two spots.




The upright are sch 40, black steel. They will not break no matter what you do. They do bend and absorb energy. one more thing this members are not pre stressed by bending and have much more spring. I have not seen cross section of OEM rops, considering the weight ofter market like Hercules I doubt it is ant thicker than sch 40 stuff.




Well, I hope I was able to explain my views well. I figure this thing will be much more stout than my puny body. I still rock climb and play soccer with my 17 year kids and have some spring left in me but I don't think I'd be more than a rag doll during a roll over.


Thanks for your concern.

JC,

 

[JB4310]

Good, I'm glad you're not upset.

Like I said homemade rops is something that raises concern just upon hearing it, kinda like homemade root canal

So just to objectively critique it, I would say that if it were subjected to destructive testing, it's weak point would be where the 2.5 inch tube is attached to the angle iron and the angle iron itself.

You could of made those supplemental tabs between the angle and the 2.5" tube at least the full dimension of the angle iron, to give you the max surface area of weldment.

The angle iron itself could of been heavier gauge, that could still be beefed up. The 6 bolt attachment is adequate IMO. The 2 inch schd 40 pipe in that design is something I'm not sure about, (whether not enough or more than adequate) wall thickness compared to the oem is not as important as design.

I know we are not talking about a super heavy machine here, so overall I'd say you have a better chance with it than without in a roll over.

I'm really the last one to be talking about ROPS, like I said I never wear my seat belt unless going on the road at higher speeds. To me the most important job for my rops is to hold my canopy and auxiliary work lights.

JB

 

[JC-jetro]

Good, I'm glad you're not upset.


JB

JB,

Why the heck would I be upset for? You made good points. Well, I went to my place. It took 30 minutes to put it up. 1/2 hr to put epdm on my sunshade and put it on the rops. All looked good, put the brush hog on my quick attach. I'm slowly beginning to hate this torture device, heavy implement and uneven ground and things quickly bind up. Any how back to the subject.. I have to earn every single thing I do in life no difference here. As I raised the 700 lbs brush hog up all the way noticed it getting a wee bit close to my upright and sure enough a little higher and it did hit the upright almost 1/8" of before the final travel. On dry run and no weigh on 3 pint it did not do it. Next 2 hrs I fiddled and fiddled with the lift system, adjusted the final travel 1/4 short of hitting the upright. I put the brush hog back on and did not like the result. Brush hog is not very important but things like landscaping rake need to be taken as high as one can. I could not afford being apprehensive if I'm hitting or not and not be able to totally benefit from my 3 point system. So after sum total of 4 hrs messing around ended up taking the top hat off, uprights and the base. I already made the prep work and will flip the base pipe 180 degrees mirror image. Although nothing was damaged on the base might look at what I have in the scrap pile to beef it up even some more. So the saga continues...

JC,

 

[sweep]

It appears the uprights are taller than they need to be and being taller they are actually weaker that shorter uprights.

Good overall job though.

I might add in some diagonal x-bracing somewhere in the tube though to keep the upright from folding sideways in case of a rollover..

 

[JC-jetro]

It appears the uprights are taller than they need to be and being taller they are actually weaker that shorter uprights.

Good overall job though.

I might add in some diagonal x-bracing somewhere in the tube though to keep the upright from folding sideways in case of a rollover..

Thanks. I wish I was done though. One more iteration to go yet.Actually the top of my rops measure to 84" and TC-30 about same size tractor is at 83" I believe. On my owners"s manual they list out top of rops at 92.5". it is actually lower than the oem unless there is a typo on owner's manual.


JC,

 

[JB4310]

JC,

You learn more from adversity than from triumph
So don't let it get you.

Is it that little bit of extra lift you are worried about, or the 3pt hitting a solid stop? I don't think it will hurt the rops. Is it destructive for the 3pt to hit a stop when there is still lift force left or will it just bog the pump a little?

I think I understand what you're saying about flipping the base plate 180.
If I understand correctly and there is enough room, you would have to cut a section out of the angle iron to flip it around so you could bring it in close to the dif housing, you would still use the same mounting holes.

If this is what you're thinking about, then you would have to really beef up what's left of the angle iron, since so much would be cut out. maybe like a 1/2" x 4" flat stock right across the whole length of the angle iron where the 4 mounting holes are. That would be solid enough IMO

That's if I'm picturing correctly what you mean by flipping 180?

JB.

 

[JC-jetro]

JC,

You learn more from adversity than from triumph
So don't let it get you.

Is it that little bit of extra lift you are worried about, or the 3pt hitting a solid stop? I don't think it will hurt the rops. Is it destructive for the 3pt to hit a stop when there is still lift force left or will it just bog the pump a little?

I think I understand what you're saying about flipping the base plate 180.
If I understand correctly and there is enough room, you would have to cut a section out of the angle iron to flip it around so you could bring it in close to the dif housing, you would still use the same mounting holes.

If this is what you're thinking about, then you would have to really beef up what's left of the angle iron, since so much would be cut out. maybe like a 1/2" x 4" flat stock right across the whole length of the angle iron where the 4 mounting holes are. That would be solid enough IMO

That's if I'm picturing correctly what you mean by flipping 180?

JB.

Well, it takes a lot more than this to get me down. Yes, you picked up what I meant. Actually, I do have 3x3 angle that I'm taking your suggestion and will beef it up from bottom as well. Nothing out of ordinary happened after I put it on and nothing is damaged. That little bit of travel at the end is quite important for me and things I do. I was able lower the max lift with no problem but end result was I was not able to lift the my brush hog to my satisfaction. Then I moved the lift link on the arm more forward to last hole on the arm. I was able to lift more but could not lower well enough to drop it with my "evil" HF quick attach. I very carefully lifted the arm a bit more and could see a bit of spring in the horizontal piece when it touched the uprights. The force at the tip of the arm is probably greatest there. I just did not want to worry about how high I lift? There is plenty of room in the back. I would use the same 6 holes (two for studs and 4 bolts). I'm not a tall and big guy and like one of the guys here commented the rops looks high but it is actually 8" lower than oem. I already cut the pipe base to 6 inch or so and would add two brackets from the new pipe back to first side pipes for more support. I'm just winging it

JC,