[AT] Adventures with shear pins

[Will Powell]

When we first bought our 8n, 1978? We got it with the brush hog for our camp property in upstate NY. The property  had more rocks than dirt. Our ancestors gave up on the stone wall and had huge piles of rocks about every 100 yards. I don't know how they could survive.. 



 I was shearing so many pins that I started saving the pieces and  taping them into the hole to get more use out of them. We cleared the field but at great cost to  the bush hog... Really not made to mow rock piles. 



Then, we got our WD. My father thought he would take advantage of the greater horse power and put a harder pin in the line... Snapped a tooth off of the PTO gear up in the transmission. 



I try to keep my bush hog at home out of the thick brush. If it breaks a pin its sending me a message . 



----- Original Message -----


From: "Dean VP" <deanvp at att.net> 
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com> 
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2014 11:05:57 PM 
Subject: Re: [AT] Adventures with shear pins 

Dean, 

But I'm not powering the brush cutter with a JD 620 with nearly 50HP either. My little JD 750 at best 
puts out 20HP to the PTO.  The JD 620 might be a little more tractor than what the brush cutter was 
designed to handle. 

Dean VP 
Snohomish, WA 

They say necessity is the mother of invention. 
Don't know who the father is, probably remorse. 
Red Green 

-----Original Message----- 
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of 
Dean VP 
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2014 7:43 PM 
To: 'Antique tractor email discussion group' 
Subject: Re: [AT] Adventures with shear pins 

Dean, 

Doesn't the brush hog have a slip clutch?  If it does it isn't doing its job. May be frozen due to age 
and the elements.  A shear pin isn't necessarily just a grade 5 bolt.  May require something harder. 
Check the Owner's Manual of the Brush Hog for the right pin. You probably have already done that. 
Don't want the wrong pin in there and then not do the job it is supposed to.  I've owned a Brush 
cutter for over 10 years and have never sheared a pin and I've gotten into some really nasty stuff 
with it.   But I won't mention the name of manufacturer of it!  :-) 

Dean VP 
Snohomish, WA 

They say necessity is the mother of invention. 
Don't know who the father is, probably remorse. 
Red Green 

-----Original Message----- 
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of 
Dean Vinson 
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2014 7:20 PM 
To: 'Antique tractor email discussion group' 
Subject: [AT] Adventures with shear pins 

I've given up brush hogging the scruffier areas of my new place until the 
summer growth dies down and I can do more effective walk-throughs.   Lots of 
hard old osage orange branches laying low in the grass, along with 
occasional bits of nasty junk like cinder blocks and old rusty tangles of 
woven-wire fence sections.   I've replaced the shear bolt on the mower quite 
a few times, and had to have somebody out to fix a flat rear tire on the 620 
after a heavy piece of wire--possibly from that mass of old fence 
wire--punctured it.   Time to stop beating up the equipment and wait until I 
can really clear all the obstructions out. 

But the weather was spectacularly nice this evening, so after finishing up 
another chore I hooked the 620 back up to the mower and went out to the 
meadow by the orchard.   It had all been mowed last fall when I first 
visited this place and I walked around it several times back then, all very 
nice and trimmed, almost yard-like, so I was confident I wouldn't hit 
anything.    Spun up the brush hog, eased the clutch forward, and off I 
went...and then not two minutes later heard the mower suddenly hit 
something, followed by the "pop" of the shear bolt breaking and the sound of 
the mower coasting down, no longer being driven by the PTO.   #*^@! it, what 
the heck was down there?     

Turned out to be about 150 feet of very nice rubber garden hose, loosely 
coiled up in big easy ovals and spread over an area about four feet wide and 
eight feet long.   Still had water in it, or at least it did before that 
mower chopped it into about 20 pieces.   I hope the previous owner doesn't 
want it back... 

Dean Vinson 
Saint Paris, Ohio 

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