RCLivingston
Member
So, yesterday (Saturday) I began the process of removing the mower deck and mule drive in order to mount my 42" snow blade onto my '67 102. I had cleaned and painted and straightened the undercarriage and blade as a lot of bent parts were in evidence, a couple of months back. (I paid $75.00 for the blade and undercarriage.) I was expecting things not to be perfect. So, when I slid the blade and undercarriage under to mount it, I noticed issues. The rear arms slotted onto the rear foot plate bars, with a little persuasion. But then, when I began the process of raising the front half of the undercarriage to bolt the ears up, I noticed that both ears were off, that is, they were too close together and too far forward and would miss their holes in the tractor frame by about an inch. One ear was also bent forward on an angle relative to its mate so was even further forward than it should be, yet the ear itself wasn't warped at all. I was working alone to try and get the thing mounted...but then, I decided to take the blade off to make things a bit easier to maneuver. That was when I noticed that the cross bar the Blade pivots on when being raised/lowered, had been welded to the blade. The first bad words were said. I then grabbed the angle grinder and smote the welds and drove the shaft out. A new piece of 3/4" steel round bar is on order. Blade off, I resumed combat with the undercarriage, deciding to commence more grinding to remove the two mounting ears so I could bolt them in place and c-clamp the undercarriage to them in order to weld them back on all nice and straight-like. I then found that for some reason the ears were too short. They would not allow the undercarriage to bolt to the tractor, as the front arms would hit the bottom of the front axle before the holes could line up. More bad words were uttered. Now I have the ears bolted them place, and the undercarriage raised in front with about a quarter inch of overlap in order to re weld the ears to it. (Oh, did I mention the front arms of the undercarriage were also out of shape and thus were an inch narrower than the frame of the tractor? More bad words.... Spread them with a reversed pistol clamp and hydraulic bottle jack. After two days I can now tack weld everything and get it professionally welded. So much FUN! No, really, it was a rather enjoyable exercise, since if all goes well and nothing warps at the welding shop, I will be hopefully pushing snow this winter...if we get any.
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