No Joy Joystick

[jinman]

<font color="blue"> Now to evaluate the effect of Jinmans hose clamp repair </font>

I can report on that one. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif After 400 hours of use, I have not had another joystick failure. My hose clamps work just fine. And one of these days, I may just weld the two pieces together instead of clamping them together. I think it's a shame that my simple "shade-tree" solution is far superior to New Holland engineering. What is even more shameful is NH acting like they don't even think it's a problem. At least they took the time to "cure" the hydrostatic pedal weakness on newer tractors. I love my little tractor, but these two problems (and maybe, putting the battery right below a screen on top of the hood) are engineering SNAFUs that are laughable...unless you are experiencing their results. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[gmason]

The reason I thought it was cast and not forged was that when I looked at the broken pieces at the break, I saw what looked like a very clean break with a crystal effect of the metal and nothing that looked like metal had been streached or pulled from itself.

Here's a question. Could the heat from the drilling/taping of the holes change the properties of the surounding metal enough to make it brittle? Maybe Harv can take a poke at that one.

gary

 

[jtn]

Generally it takes a weld to significantly change the properties of steel in the manner you describe. When the steel is rapidly heated and cooled by welding it can develop thermal strains. This effect is exacerbated by fatigue loading.

JT

 

[Jonnydiesel]

Its funny how you can tell when there is a common problem among owners of similar equipment, one post will generate a ton of replies from people who are glad to know that they are not alone! I too have had my loader control lever break off (at the first screw hole), but after looking at it, I figured a new one would do the same thing, so instead of going through the hassle of calling the dealer and getting him to get me a new one, etc.. I just spent fifteen minutes and welded a extra piece of steel to it to beef it up, filled the bottom (broken) hole with weld and redrilled and tapped it, and wola, 200 hrs later and it still works fine. I'm glad to have this forum as an information tool, its great to see how others have dealt with and fixed some of the same problems I've had. <font color="blue"> /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif </font>

 

[jlong]

Hi all,

Add my 35D to the list. Broke at 350 hours, during the big snow storm of this weekend in WV. Rigged it for a while with hose clamp, but that only lasted a day. Ended up using the remaining piece of rod to work the loader yesterday. Contacted the dealer today, and they are ordering the replacement assembly, shipping to my place and I will make the swap. Warranty ends this June.

 

[jlong]

Hi all,

I just went through the replacement process, and figured why replace it with something that will only break at the worst possible time. I figured I could do a better job at a replacement, So-- I went to the local hardware store and matched up some all thread 7/16" x20 thread, and small 4" long pipe and made my new one. I took the piece of pipe and welded the nut which matched the all-thread that I used. I then drilled three holes in the pipe. I matched the holes from the joystick handle and drilled the pipe. I also drilled a hole in the pipe near the bottom, to pass the control cable through the pipe. (I needed to cut the control cable at the bottom to make it small enough to pass through the pipe. I then soldered it back together once it was fed through the pipe.) I then drilled the joysick holes all the way through the other side. After bending the all-thread to match the original part, it turned out great. The joystick is now attached to a complete piece of pipe, with two 1/4" nuts/bolts. Although I made two of them, since I had the material, I doubt that it will EVER break!!

 

[jinman]

It sounds to me like you've come up with a working design that doesn't require any welding. My hoseclamps are still holding my joystick firmly in place, but cosmetically, well... /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
Is there a chance that you could post a photo of your assembly? I'm sure there would be lots of interest in seeing your solution. I just wonder what solution NH will finally come up with? With all the warranty replacements, they have to be trying to figure this one out. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Oops! On reading your post again, I noticed that you did weld the nut for the all-thread. I should have said "minimum" welding.

 

[jlong]

Hi JINMAN and all,

I took some photos of the design that I came up with for the Joystick on my TC35D. First let me say that I'm sure that there is room for improvement. Let me also say that I am NOT a welder, but I can usually make metal stick. I will need to make three seperate posts since I was not able to place all three pictures with text on one Word 97 document.

So, The first post will show the original piece that broke, my replacement design and also the complete replacement supplied by NH.

The second photo will show a close up of my terrible welding, but more importantly the hole drilled that is necessary to route the control cable through to the top of the joystick.

The third post will show the finished product.

Here goes!!

 

[jlong]

Here is a photo of the hole necesssary to route the control cable.

 

[jlong]

Here's a picture of the finished product.