[AT] 1970's farm equipment

[John Hall]

  Seems a lot of you guys really like talking manufacturing farm 
equipment, so here is one for you. Be it working on our stuff, which 
everything we have now is OLD, or working on equipment for other folks 
(which we have pretty much stopped doing in recent years), It is my 
opinion that some of the worst engineering and manufacturing took place 
in the 1970's. I've ran into a couple different things that were hard to 
find parts for, even the old guys at the dealership could not find it in 
the parts books, or  the books were wrong. Then there is the wrench 
turning where I just think what a bunch of idiots designed this.

  Here is my latest adventure. I had one of the dual tail wheels on a 
Mohawk rotary  mower to literally rust apart while using it last week. 
It made it a long time, so no complaints there. My complaint is how it 
was put on. Picture a typical fork arrangement with a segmented mower 
wheel. Not this wheel is mounted on a 1" axle with a coarse thread 
locking nut (not the kind with nylon either). Wheel has tapered bearings 
and grease seals. Sounds quality so far. First issue is they used 2 
locking collars to set the tension on the wheel bearings. Second, there 
is no spacer between the collar and the inside of the fork. Now the axle 
is an axle, not a bolt--but it is only threaded on one end. The other 
end is a fabricated head from a piece of 1/4" plate with a hole punched 
in it, then welded to the axle. Too thin to hold on the head with a 
wrench, the answer was to run a bead of weld on the outside of the fork 
to provide a stop to rotation--this was factory. The head is not welded 
to the fork. I could not get the cleat/bead of weld to hold the head so 
I could remove the nut, nor could I get a wrench of any sort to hold it. 
So I welded it to the fork. Then when I finally got the nut to turn, it 
literally ripped the factory weld right out of the head. Anyway, I got 
the repair done but all the while thinking what a waste of design.

This one particular machine has had a multitude of other issues, bent 
tail wheel supports, 3pt hitch literally breaking, superstructure for 
gearboxes cracking, splined couplers on gearboxes wearing out, mounting 
bolts falling out of gearboxes---these are not from abuse either, just 
poor design, had a neighbor with the same mower and the same issues.  I 
told my father that afternoon that crap like this was why the US was 
owned by Japan in the 7-'s and 80's.  My opinion is based not only on 
farm experience, but 30 years in a machine shop.

John Hall