Carl's 416-8

In 30 mins this morning it was all back apart and on the main welding bench to get some cracks welded up.  Sure is nice to take something like that apart that quick, I'm used to taking apart this stuff for the 1st time in many years and it's never easy...  The cracks are welded up and a place where the far left spindle cut through the shell to the rear wheel mount bracket.   Only fixing the easier to do stuff as far as the shell goes, there's a lot of patching that could be done but it doesn't make sense to invest the time and money on a deck with this much rust and pitting.  It will be real easy to disassemble this one and move all the nice and or new parts to a better shell so we will be looking out for a nice shell that needs other work in the future to do that with.  It won't get used much for mowing anyway and it's mostly a cosmetic thing, it's good and solid where it counts.

The pulleys and underside of the deck are painted with a rust preventative satin black and are drying so it can go back together tomorrow. 

Just an update and some pics from what was done yesterday afternoon + today.  The most extensive deck work I've ever done at once, there's a whole lot of new on this one... 

 

Monday's are always wild especially in the Spring and today was no exception so didn't make as much progress as expected.  There's very little left to do on the deck so I moved to the custom weight bracket to hold Carl's JD weights that will work in the slot hitch.  He already has 2, and looking around they are only around $60 each from a dealer and we already intended make a setup for 4 instead of 2 so that's gonna work out nicely.  We may need to paint them red in the future Carl lol.

The main thing is with the weights on he can't pull anything on the JD because there's a slot between the weights for the hitch but it's so deep and narrow with the JD bracket on you can't turn.  This design will have the 5/8 x 2" steel for the slot extend past the weights.  I'm adding the first pic below of one he sent me to show what is going on.  

I started on it last Sat and sheared a 14" wide piece of 4 x 4 x 1/4" angle iron but didn't like the way they hung plus there would be a lot of notching for the weights and it made the bracket get closer to the tires (2nd pic).

This morning I cut a piece of 6 x 6 x 3/8" thick angle iron and it turned out even better than I thought.  With that everything sits great, and you can see in the pic there's now enough room to run the slot hitch steel under the angle iron and shrink the width of the bracket quite a bit.  Carl's gonna pic up 2 more weights this week and I think this thing will pull anything about anywhere when it's done.  

The last pic shows the part # the best Carl.

I know there's a lot of info in here and the entire topic but there's a reason for that.  All the work done on the tractor, deck, even the custom hitch may help someone somewhere.  Thousands of people do searches and end up here every day, so some of it is to help others in these situations, and some is for Carl and his family following along.      

 

The pieces are all cut, smoothed, blasted, and ready to be welded tomorrow morning.  I could have done it faster but I swore after the bloody mess last week that I would not use the punching station again until it was modified.  It is done and better than ever, I'll put the mods up in the tool section tomorrow.

I did manage to shorten the main bracket 2 inches with the new layout and that gives a little more space from the tires.  It's pretty simple really, but it has a lot of heavy metal parts in it that made it so.  The tongue is 2 x 5/8" thick of course, the angle is 6 x 6 x 3/8" thick angle iron, and the spacers are 3/4 x 1/8" thick square tubing.  According to my metal calculator the pieces total a weight of 27lbs so when finished the bracket will weigh around 30 lbs.  With 4 weights on it there will be a total of 190lbs set behind the wheels, counting the leverage it will be far far more than that on the rear tires.  Of course wheel weights can still be added as well... Next thing may be keeping the front end on the ground and needless to say it will be easy to pop a wheelie if you want lol.  

Progress and layout are below.  Last pic is where the tongue will actually be.



  

Several updates today.  Let's finish up the weight bracket first, all is fitted and done minus painting.

 

More weight pics.

On to the deck, it is finished as well.

 

On to a moment after all this work I've been dreaming about lol.     Deck is on and setup and ready for a little mowing.

 

First pic is the only before pic I really have so there's a before and after below. 

Grass is a little wet but figured I might as well try it out.  I haven't cleaned up after the storms or mowed anything here this year yet, pretty sad I know lol.  I picked the 2 spots that were tallest and it does great.  It did get a little dirty but I blew it all off before bringing it back in the shop. 

 

It's officially a tree climbing monster...   You can use 1, 2, 3, or 4 weights wherever you want them.  It sure did lighten the front end though, even with the deck on it and pulled up.