Last year I managed to rescue an old Howard 60" Selectatilth rotovator that was destined for the scrap heap. It was seized solid and wouldn't turn, so when I took the end casing off I found that the top bearing on the chain drive side had welded itself solid due to lack of oil in the chain casing - there was a big hole in the bottom of the casing that had been worn through. I eventually managed to cajole the old bearing off the gearbox output shaft and the with great difficulty managed to get the cup out of the drive shaft casing (I have since read the article about running a bead of weld round it to make it pop out - hindsight is a great thing !! ).
The replacement bearing was very expensive, but is a big and robust bearing, I have the part numbers if anyone needs them, also fitted new oil seals and checked over the gearbox which has very minor damage to a gear tooth but still works fine. I put it all back together and connected up to the Dexta and all seemed to work fine so I could now justify the expense of a new set of blades from a local agricultural dealer.
With everything assembled it was time for a field trial, so at the weekend I was in the tattie patch which was ploughed earlier. Our soil here has a mixture of clay through it which makes it heavy to work, it made the Dexta groan a bit on the first pass, so I had to go over it a few times using the lowest ratio in the selectatilth gearbox and gradually letting the rotovator deeper into the ground. I went over it 4 times and eventually got a decent tilth so I'm very happy with the result.
The rotovator is very much on the limits of the what the Dexta is capable of, certainly in this ground, but it got the job done and I'm very pleased with my "rescue" rotovator.
Some photos of it in action
Dandy Dave!