Wrestling a forty year old brushhog!

   / Wrestling a forty year old brushhog! #1  

RSKY

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2003
Messages
2,442
Location
Kentucky, West of the Lakes, South of Possum Trot.
Tractor
Kioti CK20S
I tore the slip clutch plates out of our forty year old Ford 910 brush mower about a month ago. Had to order the parts and while waiting for them I somehow came down with 'walking pneumonia'! So even though I had the parts the 'ENFORCER' (sorry about all the quotation marks but.....) threatened body parts every time I mentioned leaving to house to work on anything. Something about not wanting me sick enough that she had to wait on me hand and foot. Medical office told me to stay in and away from everybody and everything for eight to ten days and she doubled that.

Today I attempted to repair the clutch. Simple job, I've done it at least a half dozen times before. Twice in one day as a matter of fact. Usually in the middle of a field on a hot day. So I had a pretty good idea how to fix it even though it has been fifteen to twenty years since I've done the job.

I couldn't get it apart. Had to get a hub off a splined shaft to install the new clutch plates. I beat on it with a hand sledge. Used a six foot long pry bar. Used an eight pound sledge hammer. Looked at a parts diagram and beat on it some more. FOUR HOURS I worked on the stupid thing. All this time with my 94-year old mother looking over my shoulder and telling me what I was doing wrong. I am sixty five years old and my mother was chewing me out for cussing the mower.

Finally about 12:30 this afternoon she told me to, "spray the whole **** thing with that stuff in the blue can (WD-40) and let's go eat Chinese".

Her solution to most problems starts with a visit to a Chinese buffet. Took me about thirty minutes to get most of the grease and dirt off and we hop in her new car (she wrecked the old one in May, dealer said she was the oldest person he had ever sold a new car to) and she drove to the buffet. She didn't even get a plate, said all my bad language had spoiled her appetite. THAT made my mood better.

Came back home and beat on the stupid thing again. Still no luck. Then I gently tapped the hub in the wrong direction just to see if it would move in any direction and it did. And when I tapped it in the right direction it slid off into my hand. Twenty minutes later the new clutch plates were in, the hub was on the spline shaft to the gearbox, and I had the four and a half foot long pipe wrench tightening the stupid thing up.

What a day. A thirty to forty five minute job took more than six hours, counting the lunch break.

So the moral to the story is if you have a mechanical problem that is hard to fix just spray it with something and go eat Chinese. When you come back try to put on what you are actually trying to take off and all your problems will be solved.

The joys of using forty+ year old equipment.

RSKY
 
   / Wrestling a forty year old brushhog! #2  
Yes - but I don't have a 94 year old mother to give me advice. It's OK RSKY - you can admit that you finally took her advice and it came apart easily.:laughing: :dance1:
 
   / Wrestling a forty year old brushhog! #3  
That's more work than the potato picker work my brother and I did yesterday... he has an old Oliver single row digger, someone at some point put a transmission in the input but backward to speed up the belt for whatever reason, He grows older versions of stuff (you know, things that taste good...) so they're more fragile so we flipped the transmission yesterday. Went pretty smooth, whoever did the job before did pretty good on the transmission mount as the whole assembly mostly just flipped around, we had to cut one shaft, get some black iron pipe to make a sleeve for shear bolts and drill a few holes in the shaft for shear bolts and pins. On the transmission was a shift knob that said "Ford Rotunda" which is apparently from a 1934 Ford, 3 speed manual. We even tried to be nice to the transmission and add some oil, once the level got to the 1/2" by 2" hole in the side of the case it ran out of course (that's how we found out there was a hole, didn't see it before) so we drained most of it out... that's a project for another day. I imagine having the PTO input out of a Farmall 130 that is at idle is around 150rpm then the trans in second gear so maybe 2:1, I'm sure the trans has an easy life...
 
   / Wrestling a forty year old brushhog! #4  
That's more work than the potato picker work my brother and I did yesterday... he has an old Oliver single row digger, someone at some point put a transmission in the input but backward to speed up the belt for whatever reason, He grows older versions of stuff (you know, things that taste good...) so they're more fragile so we flipped the transmission yesterday. Went pretty smooth, whoever did the job before did pretty good on the transmission mount as the whole assembly mostly just flipped around, we had to cut one shaft, get some black iron pipe to make a sleeve for shear bolts and drill a few holes in the shaft for shear bolts and pins. On the transmission was a shift knob that said "Ford Rotunda" which is apparently from a 1934 Ford, 3 speed manual. We even tried to be nice to the transmission and add some oil, once the level got to the 1/2" by 2" hole in the side of the case it ran out of course (that's how we found out there was a hole, didn't see it before) so we drained most of it out... that's a project for another day. I imagine having the PTO input out of a Farmall 130 that is at idle is around 150rpm then the trans in second gear so maybe 2:1, I'm sure the trans has an easy life...
It's usually the opposite from my experience. It's most often that I end up following up near shear incompetence and have to completely re-do everything. You got lucky.
 
   / Wrestling a forty year old brushhog! #5  
That's why I keep my trusty can of Never-Seize at hand, when reassembling just about anything. That, and by trusty bottle of penetrate made of a 50/50/ mix of acetone, and ATF I got the recipe for, from Soundguy on this forum. Beats anything I've bought off the shelf, bar none.
 
   / Wrestling a forty year old brushhog! #6  
RSKY, I have a Woods rotary cutter that I can't get the slip clutch off. It moves a little in each direction. Bring your hammers, wd40 and Mother. I buy the Chinese!
 
   / Wrestling a forty year old brushhog! #7  
Must have been a weak moment. To leave yourself so open...........
 
   / Wrestling a forty year old brushhog! #8  
Regrettably, if we had listened to our moms more often we would likely have had better outcomes on many issues....LOL.
 
   / Wrestling a forty year old brushhog! #9  
I've noticed that on some splines, especially older ones is that they start to wear. If there is a grove in the splines for a bolt to hold the parts together the spines wear evenly all along except in the grove. When you try to remove the parts the unworn part of the spline is stuck in the grove. So you need to rotate the hub in the opposite direction of normal rotation to get the unworn part of the spline out of the grove. Then it's easy to remove as RSKY discovered.
 
   / Wrestling a forty year old brushhog! #10  
Great story. Made me laugh. Thanks for posting.
 
 
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