Woods 9180RD Batwing came apart

[alldodge]

Pull the my Woods Batwing Turf mower in the fields behind my vacation rental. I keep an eye on maintenance checking gear box oil level, belts, blades, all that kind of stuff. Finished cutting the back side hills and was in the home stretch on the front side which is mostly flat. Hear a loud couple bangs, stopped the tractor and disengaged the PTO.

Then see this, took pic at my house


Note the gear box, it's not bolted down
One by one over time the bolts loosened and fell out through the bottom. There was only one of the holes in the lower gear box that had a slight nick, meaning the box didn't come loose until the last thread of the bolt broke.

It busted the quick connects on each wing and one yoke. I spent today getting new bolts, unbending the braces and other stuff. It didn't hurt the gear box so reinstalled with new grade 8 bolts using red loctite. Will be looking for 2 wing PTO shafts Monday, of parts to fix the ones I have.

The shafts use quick connects on both ends which means they cost more. One is square shaft and other was replaced at one time and used the 3 side round. They are series 4 and 26x41, so should be able to use a 30x40 which is regular size, or will cut to fit

 

[Scott Danforth]

That sucks

Look into prevailing torque locknuts

 

[alldodge]

No nuts, 1/2 bolts go in thru bottom
Finding nyloc bolts would be nice but none in grade 8

 

[alldodge]

Looking for 2 PTO shafts in the 30 inch compressed with Quick Disconnects on each end. Found 3 different vendors and like Sutter Bros in OH the best. Going to look local tomorrow to see what I find. Can always get a longer one and cut it down

 

[alldodge]

Looked a bit further and found one of the belts broke, so no big deal. But ..... also found one of the pivot points has a broke weld, that's going to take a bit more work, bummer.

Have 2 welders but I'm not that good, but the question now is do I try and hope it works out, or take it to a "real" welder and let them fix it?

 

[Scott Danforth]

I say practice a minute or two before hand. You have this

 

[dingbat]

You got to love working on farm equipment.

Bush hogged the back pasture Sunday morning. Got back to the barn… the tail wheel assembly only made it half way.

Weld breaks on equipment are typically vibration related. Prep, not welding skill is the key here. Anything short of 100% penetration will crack/break again. Grind to base metal on both parts and start from scratch. Run hot…use the arc “gap” to control puddle temp. Once the root pass is done you can back off the temp a bit to make it look pretty.