Archive through July 09, 2010

[mgonitzke]

Dennis-

I've heard of at least 3 other people splitting them along the mold seam.

I'll have to see how these clamps work out. I think they'll be fine...I saw a picture of an OEM 82 series loader subframe, and the clamps it had were similar to what I'm doing. CI axle tubes would be better, but then I'd be out the cost of the axle tubes, 2 seals, bearings, and gaskets, 2 gallons of Hytran, a filter, and a rear cover gasket. For as little as I will probably need to use this in the near future, it probably isn't going to make a difference.

 

[pbell]

Matt,
In the late 60's and early to mid 70's I worked in an aluminum diecast area, and then operated plastic injection presss, both at GE's Appliance Park here in Louisville. Both area used similar 600 ton injection presses (diecast used hydraulic rams to inject the molten metal into the mold, the plastic presses used a hydraulic screw ram to inject molten plastic into the molds). Since the steering boxes are/were made by injection presses where the hot metal is injected into the mold by pressure rather than pouring metal into a mold, the area of the mold line should be no weaker than any other area of the box. That is not to say you haven't seen them break there, but because of the way the metal is forced into the mold, the parting line on the casting where the two half's of the mold come together should be no weaker than any other part of the casting, unless the casting is thinner in that area. If so, then that is a mold design problem that would make it weaker in that area, and not weaker because of the mold line. Just as an observation, the only steering boxes I have seen broken have been because of "hard water", that is, from being left out in the weather and water getting them and freezing. Your idea of using the clamps may or may not help prevent the casting from breaking, but they sure can't hurt anything either.

 

[mgonitzke]

Paul-

My theory is that the seam is more susceptible to breaking because it isn't smooth, providing many stress concentration areas for fatigue cracks to start. You wouldn't happen to know what alloy of aluminum is typically used for these things, would you?

 

[wlundgren]

I'm brand new here and am a proud owner of a CC 149 w/ a Danco RD2149 FEL. The tractor has been restored and is in A1 condition as is the loader. But, The loader is very very slow up & down any suggestions?

 

[pbell]

Matt,
Could be, but the rough surface at the mold line comes from removing any flash from that area. Flash is the deposit of excess metal such as happens in areas of mold wear, or where mold halves come together, etc. The part would have had risers, runners, and sprue(s) attached that are removed after the casting is removed from the mold. The risers are pockets/spaces in the mold outside of the main part being cast, that fill with metal after the main part to ensure the part is complete and without voids. Sprues, and any runners are channels in the mold the molten metal is forced thru to fill the mold. The sprues, risers, runners are usually removed by breaking them off by hand, or by cutting/trimming them off by machine, it just depends on the part.

As for the alloy used, that would be determined by manufacturer of the part, based in part on the end use of the part. The metal would come from the smelter to the diecaster in pigs/bars (we used bars about 3' long and 6" square) in the alloy specified, ready to add to the furnace. Normally a sample of the bars would be tested to ensure it met specs. It has been too long since I had anything to do with it and I do not remember what all was in the alloy we used, but to my knowledge there is not a "standard" alloy mix for a diecast part.

The later Cub Cadet transaxles are diecast parts, but I have never seen anything that told what the alloy mix is, and I doubt that information is something that would ever be released. A diecast part would normally not have as much, if any, porosity as a sand cast or poured part would have

 

[dtanner]

Will Lundgren

You will have to post a picture of the tractor and loader so we can see what you have. With out more info we can`t answer your question.(can`t see it from here). welcome to the best site around

 

[kide]

Will:
Welcome to the forum!
I don't have a FEL, but I do know basic hydraulics...
1: Fluid topped off? (and looks OK..)
2: FEL pump belt tight?
3: Have you changed the inline filter on the FEL?
4: Control valve has full range of travel in both direction?

If you don't have a manual, there are a couple of different ones here, courtesy of our forum owner, Charlie..

 

[dfrisk]

MATT, PAUL - I've been the Casting Buyer at three of my five former employers, and bought some castings from IH Memphis back when I was at Farmall for a short time. Also worked for a steel foundry in the late 80's located in Bettendorf, IA which had Shell molding, BIG automated molding and loose pattern molding capability. I'm VERY familiar with sand, Investment, and Centrifugal castings, also permanent mold castings, (Similar to diecasting minus the pressurized metal feeding the molds), as well as all manner, material, & sizes of both open & closed die forgings. I've seen about every type of casting defect imaginable.

PAUL - Your descrption of the discasting process is "SPOT-ON". I don't doubt Matt has seen those steering gearboxes split on the mold parting line but I'd sure love to inspect one to see if there was something else going on. The tops of the steering tube is in no way sealed, I'm not surprised you've seen them freeze and split. The one I saw fail had the left front wheel of the CC #70 get "Wedged" under a filled 1000 gallon LP gas tank because I was trying to mow too close to get some taller weeds (this was L-O-N-G before Weed-eaters had been invented!) I turned the steering wheel just a bit harder than I should have. Looking back at that almost 50 yrs later I'm really surprised Dad didn't "Insert" that broken gearbox into somplace I'd always remember the error of my ways. It did hang broken in a very prominent place in the shop for many many years.

NED S. - Gerry forgot to mention the PTO to run that horse-drawn sickle mower was an "OPTION" on all draft horses back then! Having several books in my personal library on all manner of old farm equipment, sickle mowers were made in pull-behind ground driven for pulling with horses, PTO driven for pulling with tractors, semi-mounted and fully-mounted off the back of tractors, and fully mounted hanging off the side of tractors. Plus there were some attempts to make "Push-type mowers" where the mower went ahead of the team of horses. JD even put a "Special 1000 rpm PTO" on the front of the rearends of their 3010/4010/3020/4020's with the intent of running the side mounted mowers and maybe other things like sprayer pumps. Kinda like the rear PTO on a GD CC, I've NEVER seen anything ever hooked to that PTO except a few pic's in JD brochures in all the thousands of JD tractors of those models I've seen. Not sure when that feature was dropped, but suspect it was in the early 1970's with the 4030/4230/4430/4630 & newer.

 

[mgonitzke]

Denny/Paul-

I'd like to see one too so we can figure out what happens, I just hope it won't be one of mine

 

[dfrisk]

MATT - The one thing I've learned about ALL "Static" castings, not centrifugal, or pressure molded castings like die castings, that voids or porosity exist in ALL of them to some degree. You can modify it by moving risers, gates, changing the size of the pouring sprue, but some casting configurations inherently have porosity or voids. Sand inclusions in sand castings are almost always caused by poor fitting cores, corebox or pattern wear, and mishandling of molds, pouring the metal in too fast. But with porosity and shrinkage, You have to bend the laws of nature and physics in your favor to get a good casting.

When I run my old FARMALLs around, do heavy loader work, etc. I always wonder if and more correctly WHEN an area of porosity, shrinkage, etc. will cause something to break.

Without being too specific, but kinda off-topic, there's a company here close to Me that runs both an invenstment foundry AND centrifugal foundry. They created a process to centrifugally pour castings using investment type molds inside the spinning centrifugal tube to make centrifugal castings. It was a fantasticly ingenous idea!

When I was buying castings from both those foundries, the General Mgr. of the investment fdy made the comment to me one afternoon about all the food & chemical processing equip. castings I was getting from them. NO porosity was allowed, at all, even voids as small as a pin prick. They had in-house ability to x-ray thru 14 inches of solid metal, mostly 300-series stainless. The Gen'l Mgr. said "I'd rather make aero-space castings for the space shuttle than make YOUR parts!". A void We had to weld repair and polish out would never be visible on his x-ray. We routinely did a L-O-T of this: