Top arm connecting plate woes...

[normde2001]

Re: Belly mower

Awright Mike!!!... That's very fortunate. I have a cousin who is a welder in a machine shop who also hunts on my farm. I will have to keep that in mind if I have a similar problem.

 

[rockyridgefarm]

Re: Belly mower

I will try to post a drawing/photo of what we do, as this could be useful to others.

We are probably going to do pretty simple fabrication, I was considering have a whole new plate cut out by my plasma cutter friend. But the odd placement of the bolts would be pretty hard to get accurately, compared to setting up right next to the tractor and having at it.

Basically, we will attach a plate to the front of the two descending plates where the top link attaches. This will have three holes for the top bolts which attach the rear panel of the transmission, (replaced with longer bolts to accomodate the increased thickness) On the top side a plate (with a cutout for the transmission fluid fill opening) will be welded under the present adapter. This will extend up to the front edge and will pick up about 6 bolts with minimal adjustments for their heights required.

I have an aftermarket seat that will be easy to mount to the new plate (actually will also be an improvement...

 

[normde2001]

Re: Belly mower

Mike, I missed your pics. before for some reason. it looks like the problem was caused by too short blolts. If you can find the broken pieces, I would "JB Weld" them back in place, if only for looks. You might even be able to use both top holes with longer bolts.

 

[Soundguy]

Re: Belly mower

Lets see.. a 186.. what's that 15hp pto? Just wondering.. what were you lifting that broke that bracket.... I'm surprised the relief just wouldn't all to lift to lift the load.. or the tractor flip up.

SOundguy

 

[rockyridgefarm]

Re: Belly mower

I was scooping manure/dirt in reverse, and was not lifting at the time....

 

[rockyridgefarm]

My friend cut out two plates with his CNC plasma cutter. a small 3"x5" covers the back, while a larger one covers the top, with the cutout for hytran filler. I will drill the holes on a drill press, to make sure they line up. We used 3/8" plate.

The back holes cannot be redrilled closer together because of the design of the adapter plate.

 

[Robf]

Mike,
The top link casting on my 186 was also broken at some point in time. The areas where the bolts go were not there. The previous owner had two studs welded on the top where they should be and the steel bracket was modified to cover a larger area and to include more bolts from the rear pto cover. Two more tabs were welded to the steel bracket on top just in front of the lift arm casting to give the bracket a hook type of feature. I've since made a stronger bracket using the same idea, and it seems much stronger than the previous one. I've tried sending pics but said the file was too large so I'll e-mail them to you. Tell me what you think and if you can please share them on the forum.

 

[Soundguy]

Re: Belly mower

Wow.. not even lifting and it broke.. I'm surprised.

Soundguy

 

[rockyridgefarm]

Re: Belly mower

I wasn't in gear, either.

 

[Soundguy]

Re: Belly mower

Static load?

Soundguy