whats the strangest thing you ever found welded to your tractor?

[sizzami]

maybe this should be in repair forum , but here goes,I have been going through old blue repairing and upgrading I finally got to the loader arms , when I bought the tractor I saw it had been repaired ,......kinda.
looking closer I believe that is a barn door track holder welded on in place of the pin keeper.
the other pic is what I finally decided to do about it, I am doing both sides.
so any one else find strange things welded to there tractor?

 

[MF1652]

Growing up, my father had a Massey Ferguson 135 that had a six inch machine bolt welded alongside the steering linkage. I figure it was put there to reinforce a crack in the linkage. Some old farmer before my father must have been short on steel rod and used the closest thing he had around to make the repair. Gotta love the ingenuity of the farmers. Nowadays people are quick to grab the parts manual and order a replacement.

 

[Zebu Fellenz]

Gotta love the ingenuity of the farmers. Nowadays people are quick to grab the parts manual and order a replacement.

I'm not sure I would go that far, when I'm working on a tractor or other piece of equipment the last thing I want to see is a cracked frame bolted back together with plow shins, or hydraulic systems that have been re-plumbed in a way that the FEL has to be dropped all the way to pick up the three point (both true stories by the way).

Now I am guilty of a few farmer fixes myself when we need to get back in the field quickly, but I always go back and fix things right in the off season, I guess that puts me in the group that respects the ingenuity of farmers, but also wishes they would go back and fix it right more often.

 

[Renze]

My brother once had to get a dumptrailer with a cracked frame, back to the workshop for a more definate fix, by O/A welding a tractor drawbar along the crack, so the trailer could be dumped and driven to the shop, a couple of miles away.

I use a lot of stuff which i may have around, but it usually gets chopped down to the standardised profile dimensions before re use.

Oh yes, we did build a firewood saw: the axle and drawbar are from a small foldable caravan (a crossover between a tent and a caravan: the mid section is tarp, so you can lower the polyester roof to go under the profile of the car: saves a lot of wind drag) as we wanted it to be car transportable, and the trailer springs isolate the saw vibrations from the tractor.
The table itself is from a pre-war fodder beet chopper: the chopping wheel is replaced by a 2 foot circular saw blade. My neighbour had it driven by an electrical motor, which had to be pinned down to the ground in order to keep it in place, as it was driven by one of these thresher belts. We converted it to PTO drive by cutting a rear wheel of an old Fiat 133 car, and putting the rolling circumference of the wheel, against the original belt pulley. Then we made a flange to fit between wheel rim and bolts, with a 6 spline PTO shaft welded to it. It works like a charm, the riveted beet cutter frame should be at least 60 years old, but maybe a lot older.

 

[o2batsea]

A Yugo

 

[Taylortractornut]

I hate trying to redo a shody fix, when I did alot of repair work for the public youd have this old timer brought in a cracked plow beam. He got made because I would weld an old Rail road tie plate t o the side of the beam. I told him Iwouldnt fix it unless I fixed it right. We argued agreat deal then I bet him 100bucks I could make it hold. I veed out the area and preated and welded it up. He wasnt happy about it and i told him go out and plow with it. He came back by and told me he was proud of it and That it looked alot better than what he planned.
I dont see why a person wants to do a quick patch on something that needs to be fixed right. I was looking for a loader for the 4000 Ford at work and saw a man had one in a farm bulletin For sale. I talked with him on the phone and he sent me some pictures. The loader looked great in the picture. I drove 150 miles to see it and got the story they sold a Ford tractor with a loader but the man buying the tractor didnt want the loader.
I was apalled they sold implemnts but I didnt see anything there that didnt have rebar scabbed to it. The old man hauled scrap for a rebar bending sompany and that was their repair material. They had about 50 pounds of it welded all over the loader. I declined the machine and left. I bet there was 500 spray paint cans all over the place and 10 000 pounds of rebar laying about.
I have done a patch job to get out of a field or get to the shop but it got fixed right away. My theory on old farm welds every farmer here had an infinite supply of Rebar, tie plates, Rail road spikes, 6011 rods, and stainless steel rods. I like having to cut off a tie plate then some rebars then have to grind through 5 pounds of stainless rod to get to bare metal to fix a 2 inch crack.

 

[sizzami]

finally got all the fab work done on loader frame and brush gaurd.

 

[sizzami]

also redid the grill heres a beforepic

 

[mmurphy]

Sizzami, looks like you did a very nice job.

 

[bobodu]