I went up to Tennessee today to look at a 400 with a Johnson 12 on it with a 48 inch rear PTO driven tiller. It came with a 60-inch deck that has not been on the tractor in many years and is in great shape. It has a new Honda 26 hp engine in it with 1 1/2 year warranty left on it. Everything works although it is a little rough. There are a couple of lousy welds on the loader which I will grind and reweld. Over half of the hoses have been replaced and the tires are all mismatched but serviceable. It has a new seat! I paid $2800 for the whole thing and can see a lot of things that need replacing or reworking. Oh well, it looks like I have a Winter project after all! I promised my self after the 420 that I would never do this again but you know how that goes! The outside hydraulic lever works fine but it is in that weird position. Anybody know the reason? That weld is about as bad a weld as I have ever seen but it is the only one.
I need therapy! I bought a 400 with a FEL on it!
inspectorudy
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I'm beginning to see that heat is unpredictable and will probably go with a small cut on the out of alignment arm. I have done that before when things that I bought didn't fit as planned. The good news is that the arms are too wide so pulling them inward is a lot easier than pushing them apart. It also means that the small cut will be on the inside of the arm instead of the outside.
If you've never done it, it isn't the easiest method to use heat. But it's actually very accurate. The key is bringing the heat up a little at a time until you get where you want to be. An easy way to do that is to count (1 Mississippi etc.) while you heat. Start at 1, then 2 then 3 etc. checking position after cooling every time. I've straightened precision shafts to within a few thousandths of an inch using a torch. Jacking between the uprights with a hydraulic ram would be way more unpredictable since your push is affecting both sides at once. Whichever is weaker will move more. If you want to use a jack you should go from the bottom corner of one side to the unsupported upright on the other side. Weld a couple blocks at the top to push against if you have no holes or anything to lock into. Do one side then the other.
If you're going to do the cut/notch/reweld method, make sure to weld in a brace when you have the uprights where you want them before rewelding the notch.
If you're going to do the cut/notch/reweld method, make sure to weld in a brace when you have the uprights where you want them before rewelding the notch.
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I am planning on boring a couple of holes to slide a metal piece inside the arm to weld it through the holes to the arm and them weld the cut. I am going to go slow on this so I don't mess it up. I've used the brace method on a car I did a lot of welding on to keep it from changing shape.
You have a hydraulic system. Put it to work.
Clamp both ends of the straight arm to a beam and tie one or both lift cylinders to the beam and the bent arm. A few deft touches on the valve lever at engine idle will sort it out quite easily.
It will spread the arms as easily if you overcorrect.
Clamp both ends of the straight arm to a beam and tie one or both lift cylinders to the beam and the bent arm. A few deft touches on the valve lever at engine idle will sort it out quite easily.
It will spread the arms as easily if you overcorrect.
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Tudor, you make it sound so easy but the entire system is lying on the floor and the arms are not on the tractor. I am not sure at this point which way I will proceed but I am in no hurry. Today I am going to determine which arm, or if both are out of alignment and then decide from there. I think I created the problem after I repaired all of the old bad welds when I welded some of the seams that Johnson never welded in the first place. I had finished the repair and noticed that two small out of sight seams had never been welded and proceded to weld them. They were less than two inches each but that was the culprit. Unfortunately, they are on the underside of the joint walled in by the two gussets.
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I made some progress today on the one arm that is the culprit. It was the one with the abstract art welding job on it. I used my driveway ice melter and the loading strap to get it within 1/4 inch of the required measurement. I'll work on the last bit later. Today I upgraded the support for the vertical posts with new two 3/16-inch plates on top and bottom of the support beam. I also added a 1/4 x 2-inch strap on top of the support bolted to the frame. I weigh 225 and jumped on the support plate and the only thing that moved was the entire tractor. Here are a couple of shots of the left-hand post and support plate. I also used the plasma cutter today to cut the plates and what a pleasure. It went through the 3/16-inch plate like a knife through butter and almost as fast! I also painted the rear fender and was able to save the OEM decal on the tranny hump.
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The assumption was that the arms were off the tractor and stripped of all components, but that the pump and valve set were still available for use.
The suggested beam will tell the tale for which arm is bent.
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Man, what a day! I think it is easier to build a FEL than to repair one "Fixed" by a person who had no skill in anything except imagination. Today I finally got the two vertical posts mounted and then hooked up the lift arms to them. What a mess! First, the holes that the PO had used to mount the verticals were an inch off on both sides. So after undoing those holes and make a new plate for the new holes I finally got the posts mounted. Then I found that one of the two horizontal braces was off about 3-inches from the unmolested one. They normally slant in towards the front of the hood but on one of them, it went straight ahead. This meant that it was scratching the metal tubes that ran alongside the lift arm. I had to gut two bad ugly welds and correct the slant that was missing. Finally, The tops of the posts were the same height. They were the correct distance apart, (The same as the lift arms), and the distance from the floor on the bucket end of the arms was the same height. I thought man, things are really looking up! So to be sure I decided to mount the two lift rams and see how they fit. The first went on with no problem. and then over the much-corrected side. I hooked the post end up and then swung the arm end up and it was not goi9ng to be even close. I grab the loose lift arm and pulled out as I pushed the pin through and it went through! What I found is that until you have the front posts welded on and the horizontal braces tied to them, the whole thing is a little mushy. I also figured that the front verticals need to have a little preload on them in the upward direction to keep it all tight.
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I'm getting closer to the home stretch with this FEL. Today I finished the front mount for the horizontal braces for the FEL. The hardest part is to get the 5/8-inch bar that goes from one side of the frame to the other to fit perfectly into the groove so that the weight rests on the bar and not just the spring pins. It is really easy to get one hole perfect but to then get the second one to fit exactly is a slow process. I got both sides to fit and then welded it all up and now I am ready to mount the horizontal support on to it for the front vertical brace supports. I went to snap a few pictures of it but the @#$)&% battery went dead after the first shot! I'll take some tonight. I have also decided to use 2 1/2x 2 1/2 square 1/4-inch tubing for the cross piece and 2 x2 x 1/4-inch tubing for the vertical braces. I found that with a little filing on the inner weld bead in the 2 1/2 tubes will let the 2 x 2 tube slide right in like a glove! I am going to make two 6-inch short pieces of vertical mounts then the 2 x 2 tube will fit into them and I can then move the two up and down and get the perfect height on them without guessing. One thing about an FEL is that there are no two things exactly alike on them. This way each brace can be slid up into the correct position without having to be cut precisely because the lower part allows the inner tube to move freely up and down. I'm dirty as a pig and have grinding dust all over me but I'm a happy guy!
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Here are the pics of the front bracket. It fits into the big slot on the front of the 400 and then pivots up and the spring pins snap into the two holes in the frame. I am going to weld a 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 square tube across the two slabs and then run the two verticals up from there. In the one pic you can see how nicely the 2x2 tube fits into the 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 tube. Once I get the angle of the ends to match the angle of the horizontal braces I will cut the big tube and weld the 6-inch pieces onto it. From there the smaller tube can be raised or lowered to fit the FEL brace exactly without a bunch of cutting and filing. These spring pins are 1 and 1/2 inches long extended so there is plenty of meat in the frame. They also almost take two hands to pull them out they are so strong.
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I finished cutting and fitting the front FEL bracket today and it fits really nicely. I might have built it a little overkill but better that than like the PO who underbuilt everything. I still have some welding to do on it but I am taking it slowly so that it won't warp out of shape. It fits into the big slot at the bottom of the frame and then tilts onto the upper arms and then the spring pins slam home. Using the bigger tubes at the base of the verticals really worked out well. All I had to do was jack up the horizontal tube, with the bases and long tubes in them, to about where I wanted it to be and then I could slide the long tubes up into the horizontal arms. Then it was a matter of checking level and spot welding the arms into the bases. Up until all was welded, the whole FEL was sort of mushy and could be moved around a bit, but after the front brace was in place it is rock solid.
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I feel like the PO and use what is at hand! However, I will NEVER use finishing nails as split pins!
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HALLELUJAH! Today I was the dog! I found out that all but two of the hoses on the FEL were newer but two but since most of them had green overspray on them I thought they were OEM. And guess what? I had two new 18-inch hoses from Surplus Center that I never used so I have all the hoses! Then I got the first of the rear axle braces installed and it went in perfectly with the exhaust clamps. I also got the front brace painted and put back on the tractor. Things are working in my favor for a change! I still need to paint some of the parts but it is good to know things are moving ahead. On the rear brace, it was very simple to measure and fit. I welded the two ears on the post base and then drilled a hole in the 48-inch bar. I put the bolt through the ears and the bar and then mounted the clamp on the rear axle. I swung the bar up to the axle and used the flat side of the clamp as my straight edge for the exact length cut. After I welded it to the bar I tried it out and it is a perfect fit with no play what so ever except up and down slightly on the bolt end. That way it is not rigid in the up/down direction in the event of a little body flex but is solid in the compression direction. I think I see a faint glow at the end of the tunnel! I hope it's not the train!
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Man, today I am the hydrant! I started putting the pieces back together and decided to add a couple of flat washers to the tops of the vertical lift arm posts since they had become egg-shaped. I centered the pins and then welded the big washers onto the post with the pins pushed back to the rear of the holes since all of the egg-shape was in the front of the hole. All went well until I started to put the pieces together that I had already put together with no issues before. What I didn't realize was that I was tightening up the entire loader and now the tolerances were really tight! I any of you are working on an older Johnson loader then make sure that you put the washers on the posts BEFORE you assemble it. The washers brought it back to factory specs but also made my earlier measurements off by a little. I'm correcting it but it would have been easier if I had done it first. Also, I recommend that when the original measurements and locations are made, after the new washers are put on, that the entire loader be put on as a unit, without the bucket, to get the distances from the front of the tractor and the other measurements with no wiggle room. It is very easy to focus on one side at a time but when all of the pieces are joined any little error will make the whole thing off off by that much.
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I finished painting the loader today and will assemble it as soon as the paint cures. Like I said before, undoing what the PO had done made it harder than just building one from scratch in some ways. It was sort of like twice the work to remove a bad modification and then make a new one. I tried to save the decals on the two arms of the loader, Johnson Workhorse, but couldn't. They had been painted over and even though I wet sanded the green paint off the decal just wasn't going to make it. I could read them but could not save them. I really hate to lose the old decals when there is any chance at all of saving them. Pics tomorrow!
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I used Maple a long time ago for an old Cub Cadet. You are right. They have almost anything except JD! I'll look into ordering a set for the loader. Thanks for the reminder.
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