Gallery, Projects and General > Project Logs
Mounting a Tractor Hedge Flail
awemawson:
I dismounted the roller 'up in the air' - the controls are removed at the moment so I couldn't manipulate the head :ddb:
So easy up a ladder with seized bolts ! Anyway off it came crashing down. The roller is basically a tube,with bearings at each end with an axle through it, pinned at one end to the mounting flange, and screwed into the other mounting flange. In the drawing below 'P' are the bearings, 'Q' is the flange with a thread for the axle, and 'U' are spring washers - I assume belleville type.
Needless to say 'Q' wasn't for unscrewing. I had to heat it to red heat and thump it very heavily with a small sledge hammer to un-thread it. More bruises in the iron work to smooth away later :ddb:
All now far too hot to carry on dismantling, so I've packed up for the evening.
vtsteam:
Wow, there sure is a lot to do on this one! You're steadily chipping away at the problems. :dremel: Looking forward to seeing it trim!
awemawson:
Steve, as you well know, farm machinery left outside in all weathers and unused deteriorates rapidly :(
I wasn't looking forward to driving the axle out of the roller through it's bearings as everything was rather rusty. I left the end where I unscrewed the bracket soaking in a bucket of diesel overnight to try and penetrate, and certainly that bearing came out nicely.
Firstly I screwed the bracket back on, and with a bit of wood packing in between, gave it a few thumps with a 14 lb sledge hammer. To my relief it started moving and that end's bearing fell out! This left enough room at the other end to thump the remaining bracket with the sledge hammer and slowly pull the 25 mm shaft through it's other bearing. I am amazed that the roll pin that retains this bracket to the shaft didn't shear - it got a lot of nasty thumps from the sledge - enough to bend it (you can just see this in the picture with the bucket of diesel. I need to detach that bracket to straighten it and also to aid re-assembly so the bearing doesn't have to slide the full shaft length.
So at last I have a bearing in my hand and can measure it. (25 mm bore, 52 mm o/d, and 15 mm thick)
I put the end that still has the bearing in the bucket to soak - the outer of this bearing must be very tight as all that hammering would have been trying to push it out. May end up having to cut it out.
I've just checked the main flail head bearings - can't detect any play so hopefully they'll be ok with just a normal lubrication - silly thing is there is no provision for greasing the roller's bearings, and I can't see any way to incorporate it.
So now to order the bearings, then I'll start putting the controls back together
awemawson:
OK bearings on order and should be here in a couple of days. I started re-fitting the controls - it works out that they would be too low by a couple of inches to comfortably pass through the lower section of the rear window, even when the cranked bar is at it's extreme adjustment, What to do, well I could extend the cranked bar - not easy - it's actually 1 1/4" diam not 1" as I said earlier. Or I could make a 'fish plate' to extend the thing that clamps the cranked bar. Or I could weld some tabs onto 'the thing that holds the cranked bar'. It's this later option that I chose.
It's 10 mm thick and I had no 10 mm bar stock of suitable width, but I did have some 75 mm angle that is 10 mm left over from making the spars. I bit was sliced up with the angle grinder and slotted on the Bridgeport.
awemawson:
So to glue it together :ddb:
A bit of weld preparation to get decent penetration, then went at it with the oil filled arc welder, as I haven't fixed the gas valve on my big mig yet
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