iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

broke the tractor

Started by woodmills1, October 28, 2004, 04:47:02 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

woodmills1

  Was turning around over some ruts this morning in the Kioti LK3054, a move and a place that I have turned many times, when BANG.  Short inspection showed the sector shaft in the steering box had sheared clean off.  The pittman arm is just kinda hanging there with the stub of the broken shaft in it.  Seemed a kinda rare breakage to me, but must be common enough because payeur has the shaft in stock.  Seems easy to fix as the side of the box has an access plate.  Sure do miss the tractor as today was the day to put the ridge on the garage addition.  Will have to put it up in 4 pieces rather than nailing the 3  2x10x16  together first.
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

karl

Never realize how much ya depend on 'em til the're broke. Was without a tractor for about six weeks this spring- felt like I'd lost my right arm  :(

Hope ya git'ur healed quick, easy and cheap.

karl
"I ask for wisdom and strength, Not to be superior to my brothers, but to be able to fight my greatest enemy, myself"  - from Ojibwa Prayer.

DanG

Sounds like you turned around there one too many times. :-/  Tractors will tear themselves up if you don't watch them. They are made for farming, which mainly consists of straight ahead pulling. When we use them for logging, we put stresses on them that they weren't designed for.  That's how I got the loader to put on mine. The guy I bought it from was logging with his tractor. Got stuck, and tried to pull it out with a skidder. They hooked the cable to the loader frame, and didn't quite pull straight ahead. It broke his pore tractor half in two. :o
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

Furby

Was trying to lift a 11.5' double LVL into place today with the hoe to "save some time". Dropped the sucker not once, but twice!  :o Just grabbed the thing and tossed it up by hand.  :-/

woodmills1

Ended up putting the triple 2x10x16 ridge beam up by hand cause no tractor.  Took time but its up and strong.
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

Furby

Sometimes we gotta do what we gotta do! ;)

woodmills1

sure reminded me of when all I had was hand work lol.
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

woodmills1

got the part and fixed the tractor.  Easy fix as the steering box has a side access plate.  The shaft must have been cracked for a long time as almost half of the broken surface shows rusting.  When i got the tractor the drag link was bent, I took it off and straightened it never thinking that whatever bent it put enough stress on the pitman arm to crack the sector shaft.  Good thing it didn't break at speed going down hill with a load of logs on the trailer.
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

whitepe

back in the 70's  CAT first introduced their log skidders.
It was an articulated skidder. Unfortunately, for the very
first design the two pieces that were the articulated
joint were designed as castings rather than a forging.
Of course,   the skidders broke in the middle rendering
them pretty useless. At that time, the scuttlebutt
in the industry was,  "Don't buy a CAT skidder,
they will fall apart".   Eventually they redesigned
the part into a forging but by that time, due to the
many field failures, they had a huge quantity of parts
on hand at the parts distribution center to take care of
field failures.  It was another 5 years before they realized
the inventory build up was no longer necessary because
after the forgings were introduced, the part never failed again.
blue by day, orange by night and green in between

woodmills1

I don't think this failure was a design problem, thought the shaft was 328 dollars.  I worked for a company doing machine work on army articulated vehicles in the early 70's.  The boss would try to get around the govt inspectors to ship bad parts till i reminded him that GI's relied on those parts.
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

Thank You Sponsors!