Drawbar dramas

[GT]

I seem to have broken the large long pin that holds the draw bar under the tractor. It was all loose and the pin had gone? I have removed the whole assembly and have a couple of questions.
1) Are the two arms meant to have a slight bend in them?
2) There are four "rivets" holding the arms to the rest of the hitch. They are very loose. Is this correct.
3) Does anyone have a parts list?
Hope pics work.
Regards
GT

[/url]

[Brian]

1. No you have been overloading it

2. No, you will need new rivets. possibly need to drill the holes out next size up and hot rivet them.

Over here we tend to wear out the linkage while you wear the drawbars. Good basis for an exchange scheme if things were not so heavy.

[GT]

Would high tensile grade 8.8 bolts do the job? I can straighten the arms in the hydraulic press. This is a "working" tractor so it is not that important to maintain originality. I must admit I was giving it a bit of a hiding towing a seeder over some very rough plough furros. Is the long pin underneath made from anything special?
Regards
GT

[Brian]

The pin itself is a fairly high grade steel. Think I would prefer rivets to bolts as a rivet will swell and be a tighter fit in the hole. But a bolt could work for a short time. There will be a shearing action on the bolt and a rivet will cope with that better.

[Aussie Frank]

Hi GT,

It looks like your tractor earns it's keep every day. The pin at the front should be as strong and hard as possible, but the wear at the back needs to be taken care of too. The bars should be straight. If you were to use high tensile bolts I would make sure that they were a very tight fit. Personally I would sleeve or weld the holes and fit the tightest bolts or rivets I could find to make sure that things could not move. From the looks of the photos you do not have too much time before things break free. Only my two cents worth, from a man who's tractor has nearly 4 inches of play at the draw bar and should not be taken too seriously.

Regards, Frank.

[Roadless63]

Would high tensile grade 8.8 bolts do the job? I can straighten the arms in the hydraulic press. This is a "working" tractor so it is not that important to maintain originality. I must admit I was giving it a bit of a hiding towing a seeder over some very rough plough furros. Is the long pin underneath made from anything special?
Regards
GT

8.8 Bolts are not regarded as high tensile over here 10.9 or 12.9 are what should be used in high load areas such as prop shafts etc.

[Brian]

Its not the tensile strenght so much as the need to get it tight and the "toughness". We used to heat the rivets red hot then give them a good thump with a domed headed punch. That swelled them in the hole and locked the sideways shearing movement.

If you are going with bolts, 8.8 would be a little low. I would also coat them with Loctite.

[van Son]

Hot rivetting is considered stronger than welding, and if you were to use bolts 10.9 grade is best, 12.9 is stronger but they break sooner under varying loads because they don't stretch, be sure to use quality nuts as well, they are also graded, never use stainless bolts and nuts. i would drill the holes for example 24 mm, and then use M24 bolts whit a solid shaft, if you were to weld them do it whit cast iron stick electrodes and make sure both surfaces are heated whit a flame torch, other wise the welds will not hold, the surfaces should be deep red before you can weld and after welding you need to stretch out the weld by hitting it gently whit a small hammer and pin driver otherwise the weld will shrink too much and crack.

good luck whit it, hope these sugestions might help you

[Oscar]

Hot rivetting is considered stronger than welding, and if you were to use bolts 10.9 grade is best, 12.9 is stronger but they break sooner under varying loads because they don't stretch, be sure to use quality nuts as well, they are also graded, never use stainless bolts and nuts. i would drill the holes for example 24 mm, and then use M24 bolts whit a solid shaft, if you were to weld them do it whit cast iron stick electrodes and make sure both surfaces are heated whit a flame torch, other wise the welds will not hold, the surfaces should be deep red before you can weld and after welding you need to stretch out the weld by hitting it gently whit a small hammer and pin driver otherwise the weld will shrink too much and crack.

good luck whit it, hope these sugestions might help you

Wow! That's an impressive first post! Welcome to the forum! You seem to know a thing or two about tractors, welding, etc. That's great. Can you yell us a bit about your background perhaps?

Regards,
Oscar

[van Son]

well i'm from the Netherlands, 25 years old and I have a '62 Super Major for 8 years now.

I converted it whit a Ford 826F 6 cylinder engine from a Ford Cargo 813 and built a new oil sump for it to fit the front axle. at this moment I'm adding two hydraulic rams to the linkage system to have another 2 tons of lifting capacity and building a removable hitch for trailers.

next I'm going to built a steel replacement pressure plate for the double action clutch, because I already broke one aluminum pressure plate, but its still in development stage.

besides that I also have until recently had a '58 Power Major wich was also coverted to a 6 cylinder 826F engine.

besides that I also have a '66 Ford Mustang Fastback GT and a '68 Mustang 428 Cobra Jet GT, both are in rebuild status.
at this point I'm building a independant rear axle for these cars

and there are various other projects wich are currently on hold.

I have to thank my father for all the help whit everything.

I'll post some pictures soon.

[Oscar]

Looking forward to see your pictures!

[van Son]

I forgot to mention that if you're going to weld it don't use acethyleen gas to heat up the metal but use propane.

acethyleen influences the carbon level in the cast iron drawbar piece, after heating it with acethyleen the cast iron becomes brittle

hope I'm not late whit this info

[JC]

You know quite a bit about welding, van Son. Is that what you do for a living?

JC

[van Son]

uhh no, I work at a car shop specialized in 4 wheel drives and US cars, which in the Netherlands are not very common cars.

I learned all the welding at home from my dad, and whenever he had to do something special he took me with him trying to learn me something and I was happy to come along, so that's where I picked up some welding tricks which come in handy from time to time, it's actually not something I really like to do.

Rebuilding engines and manual and automatic transmissions is what I do most often at work, which is also what I like to do best. my hobby is restoring anything Ford from the 50's to 70's.