You knew it couldn't last

[RickB]

Show me the underside of the front corners of the cutter that was attached when this parts failure occurred. Running the cutter nose-heavy and turning would trash the stabilizers (or something else) pretty quickly. Not being trained in metallurgy myself, I can tolerate someone not knowing the difference between cast iron and forged steel. But labelling what is most likely a forging 'pot metal' (we still haven't seen the failed part, tap, tap) is inexcusable. Some of us were born at night, but not last night.

 

[Superduper]

Cowboy said that one side broke and the other side got all twisted. My experience is that "pot-metal" lacks tensile strength and would simply break rather than twist. Since one side bent, it would suggest that it was not pot metal after all.

 

[AndyMA]

Somebody else asked about how any others of these have broken. I'm not sure anyone else has posted about these parts breaking for them. I also don't believe these parts are POT metal.

Andy

 

[shvl73]

Were these stabilizers on the same tractor that was attached to the Rhino cutter which repeatedly got a bent tail wheel and the cutter that needed the skids re-welded?
Things certainly do happen under hard use but, I suspect there's more to the story than bad design and defective products.

 

[Soundguy]

Thanks for the pic.

For the record.. i don't like 2-piece telescoping stabilizer arms. i wasn't aware that was what was being discussed... I was thinking of the older rigid style arms. in any case.. they look to be a stamped outer sheath over a formed bar stock with a cad coating.

Deffinately does not look like cast material to me.. and DOES look like steel.

Soundguy

Attached is a photo.

Of course, if they made this stronger, something else, something more expensive , would break. People would whine about that. They'd make that part stronger, then something else even more expensive would break. The same people would probably whine about that. Pretty soon, the tractor would be made of titanium, cost a bazillion dollars and people would whine about that.

 

[Soundguy]

I have to agree... deffinately a formed bar stock.. probably not mild steel.. and maybee some hardening??.. but they deffinately don't look cast.

Soundguy

Are they cast iron? No, not at all. Can they be damaged? Yes! Are they stronger than a similar sized Massey Ferguson? Don't know...maybe not. Do I love this design? You betcha'!

 

[Soundguy]

what many people forget is that farm tractors are not land clearing machines.. or bulldozers.

The 3pt geometry works great in 'pull' mode.. not gread in 'reverse mode'.

I work for a GC we use heavy equipment to do land clearing. It is -VERY- hard on equipment. next to mining, land clearing provides us with the highest maintenance and repair costs of all of the job costs types i track... and this is on equipment designed to do that kind of work... farm tractors are multi-purpose machines. great at alot of stuff.. but not designed for the heavy/high volume stuff.. etc... kinda like a jack of all-trades, master of none.. etc.

Soundguy

i have a box scraper on the back of my tc33d with the same stablizers and i beat the death out of it backing up and destumping and pushing stuff backwards and pulling stumps out and huge rocks and beat it to death and my stabilizers look like new. A person would have to do way more then tractor was designed for to break one UNLESS it was a defective part which may have happend to LC since he has such bad luck. I think they are plenty stong and i have yet to bend or break one and i am hard on equipment.

Mike

 

[MikePA]

(taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap)

 

[HickoryNut]

I use lift check chains on both my cutters and let them gently absorb the lateral sway leaving both my stabilizer arms completely un-pinned. This way if I side-swipe a tree with my deck it doesn't generate near as much shock on the equipment. Only when mowing across slopes will I pin my stabilizers. Keeps them tight and right for when I really need them with ground-engaging implements.

 

[Bob_Young]

While everyone's sitting around waiting for the pictures and tapping, maybe we could discuss how to use this type of stabilizer.

I've got the same type stabilizer on my Kub. L4300 and just realized that there could be a right way and a wrong way to use it. It seems that if the stabilizer link is in compression that it would be very prone to buckling under stress. On the other hand, if it is restricted to forces acting in tension, buckling would never be an issue and bolt or pin failure could conceivably protect the link. So the question becomes: Is it possible to restrict the links to tension forces only?

Looking at MikePA's picture and recalling my own stab. links, there's a slot in the outer sheath as well as a series of round holes. If a sheath hole is chosen that lines up with an inner member hole, then the link will be subject to both compression and tension forces as the sheath is rigid with respect to the inner member whichever direction the load force is applied.

If, on the other hand, the sheath's slot is selected on both links and the pin is inserted through the slot into an inner member hole that is at the tractor end of the slot (or very close) that link will act only in tension. If the implement is forced toward the link the slot will prevent compression forces from being applied while the opposite link acts in tension and stops implement swing...like a check chain. The only issue is whether a single link acting in tension is strong enough to resist the full load force....because it won't be getting any help from the opposite side. MikePA's photo suggests that the failure mode in tension could be that the tractor end of the sheath's slot gets pulled out by the pin.

Of course we haven't seen LC's photos yet. Maybe his links failed in tension. Still, his description of the failure sounded like buckling or bending under compression.

FWIW
Bob