Restoration of an old Athens Offset Harrrow

[HCJtractor]

Here is the final outcome of my restoration. As told earlier, this disc was embedded in a briar patch for decades at our hunting lease, and the deceased farmer's son allowed me to restore it (I consider it mine now!) I broke it down to transport it, sandblasted it, fabricated a few new parts, replaced the bearing housings which were shot, new bearings, new discs, hydraulics, and even Athens decals. So it is just like a new one. Weighs in at around 3500 lbs. Only thing I did not do was to restore the scrapers as I plan to see how it works without them. If the ground is muddy, I probably could not pull it anyway with my 70 horse Kubota. It is a beast. I took the advice of Mace and towed it behind my truck to my property after restoring it (about 20 miles) and it it went great. Tried it out for the first time this weekend. What a big improvement from my Leinbach 3 pt. disc! This thing really cuts! Several passes and I was done.

 

[bullbreaker]

:thumbsup:

That DH turned out so purty I think if it were mine I'd give her a kiss every night before putting her to bed !

"ENJOYED PIC'S"

Boone

 

[deere5105]

Good job on the refurbishing! Even better when it works as good as it looks!!

 

[mkt]

hi, new this forum. just purchased an older Athens 166. will be delivered on Friday. I have jd 2955. is this enough tractor to pull it? I'm just fixing dove fields.. < 3 acres. thank you. mark

 

[HCJtractor]

That's great. I pull mine with a Kubota M 6800, 4 WD, loaded rears. The plow is all my tractor wants! In dry ground, it does fine. In wet ground, I don't have the power. So I wait until it's dry. But it works amazingly well. It's a beast. Makes quick work out of disking a field. I looked up your tractor, and it's more powerful and heavier than mine. 90 horse? 10,000 pounds? If so, I think you will have no problems.

Do you have scrapers? I never restored mine, nor installed them. If wet, I do get an occasional clogging, which is another reason I don't disk when wet.

Please post some pictures. Curious, if you don't mind, what did you pay for yours? I don't see these often.

Athens Plow is still in existence. Really nice people. They sent me a copy of the original manual and even new decals. They also stock some parts. If you need any advice, I took mine completely apart, so I'm pretty familiar with it.

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[HCJtractor]

hi, new this forum. just purchased an older Athens 166. will be delivered on Friday. I have jd 2955. is this enough tractor to pull it? I'm just fixing dove fields.. < 3 acres. thank you. mark

Just saw you're in Greenville. So am I.

what size tractor for the Ozarks

 

[mkt]

HCJ, when I originally posted, I had not seen your finished product.. Wow! You did a beautiful job.. well done sir!!.. I paid $1150 for the harrow..I don't have any pics yet. But will post when I do..I had a friend look at the harrow and give me Intel.. I haven't actually seen it yet. He says it looks to be in fair shape. It has 24 discs... Not sure the spacing or diameter. The disc are notched.. but worn greatly...Your resto has me motivated to restore mine at some point in time. It does have scrapers...I may call on you for restoration / info / advice / thank you!!!

 

[HCJtractor]

That's a good price. I've seen used ones for $5000 and newer models are (I think) $15000.

I'd be happy to look at it and advise. I learned a lot during my restoration. The bearings are readily available, but really hard to remove. It took me a week to figure that out. Even then, when I finally got the bearings out, I found the cast bearing housings trashed, so bought new ones from Athens. Discs are easy to find.
Shoot me a message. I'd be glad to help
As I said, we live nearby.

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[mkt]

HCJ,
That would be great if you can look at it.
PM sent

 

[kthompson]

HCJTractor

Just wondering you have that disk with your Kubota for 2 or 3 years now. Have you had any transmission issues? I have same Model Kubota and was pulling a 10 foot or so tandem disk and had failure in my transmission twice when pulling it hard all day long. Had a person tell me Kubota trans will not take that kind of work for long period of time. that is why I am asking.