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Chris, the short version is that Bolens rock but they don't roll The longer version, Bolens rear ends have a worm gear shaft and worm wheel which is the reason the tractor will not roll unless the transaxle input shaft is turning. That plate on the back of the axle is to allow the removal of the worm gear shaft, often people mistake it for a PTO output. Apparently the worm drive is what makes them great tractors for pushing and pulling heavy loads. When you pull the pin on the o/s rear hub the tractor can be pushed, with the pin in it should not be possible to push the tractor unless the transaxle is badly worn. It should not be possible to drive the tractor with the pin out as the drive hub will turn but the hub (which has the wheel attached) will not. As you can drive it with the pin out this means one of two things. Firstly it is possible due to lack of use the drive hub has rusted onto the hub and as soon as you load the tractor it will free off, then you will have to use the pin as normal. The second reason (and most likely) is that the play in the axle has been incorrectly adjusted. The hub on this model has a single narrow bronze bush inside (6 speed transaxles have two bronze bushes) and it does not take long before the single bush develops a crown and the O/S wheel develops lateral movement. It does not take much wear on the bush for the moment to appear and it looks worse than it is. The way to resolve this problem is to replace the bush but many people over adjust the axle end play instead, which is clearly a very bad idea and the first outcome is that you can drive the tractor with the pin out, the second is that you shorten the life of the diff. Here is the instructions for adjusting the axle end play. Bolens Rear-Axle End-Play Adjustment.pdf If you adjust the rear axle and find the bush is badly worn I think I may have a spare new one which I can hunt out. Alternatively, you can wait until I retire as one of my many retirement projects is to develop a solution to overcome this problem. Probably a very bad explanation so let me know where it does not make sense. Iain

I've not made the hole in the cogs cover yet, but I did find a way to mount it that didn't involve having to undo any bolts/screws.. Three of these trim clip thingys were welded inside the cover and just clip over the lip.. Will it vibrate like a mad vibrating thing? We shall see Time to think about the flood coolant system, so I dug out the P100 washer bottle and pump which had been doing the cooling duties for many a year. Peeling off bit's of masking tape made it look like it had been sunbathing behind a railing fence It didn't scrub up to bad though.. Quite how the pump had remained working when the bottle was full of this gunk I'm not sure, but still working it was.. This is the rubber thingy the seals the pump into the hole.. And this is a small filter thingy I found in a jar of odd's n sod's I found a couple of weeks ago.. Hhhmmmm interesting, it fits the hole in the bottle quite well, not fully pushed in yet.. It also fit's the pump quite well, not fully pushed on yet.. No photo's but when the pump was fully fitted with the new rubber/anti carp thingy, it held it's water very well.. That will do for me So, how to get the coolant from the catch tray into the washer coolant bottle? You make a funnel of course from an old bench foot and a bit of pipe.. A bit of trimming to the coolant bottle to make it fit. Bottle fitted. The funnel fit's a treat and should catch anything that pours out the drain hole in the tray. While I had my head under the bench I gave the belt tensioning thingy a few tweaks to get the rod angles much better. I did another raid on the scrap pile yesterday, and after a lot of spannering I came away with this rather large electric motor that was on a compost mixing machine. Let's have a look at the specs tag shall we.. I'm not that "up" on electic motors but I'm told this is rather a good make... 2.2 kW which is 2.95hp.. Hhhmm... Powerful The rev/min speed is only 15rpm faster than the small original motor that came with the lathe. That's close enough for me. The only problem is the motor spins the wrong way for my needs... While thinking on that I took a cover off only to find wiring instruction wedged between the capacitors, including how to wire it to spin the other way So do I install this new motor on the lathe or not... 3hp is way more than I need for the size of lathe, but the spin speed is right, the triple pulley is the right size, and the capacitors will make starting it a lot less of a strain on the somewhat er.. shoddy wiring in the building.. Some thinking is needed me thinks

Chris, an extract from GTT from Brian's article on Tube Frame Bolens. The Bolens Husky 600 did not come with a locking differential. A good way to tell if you have a true original transmission in your 1962 Bolens 600 is look at the hitch on the back. It will be a cast iron hitch molded right into the transmission. 62' was the only year they did this. Another important thing to know is that in order to be able to push the tractor in "free wheel", you must pull out the cotter pin and slide out the free wheeling pin. You can see the pin in the area circled in the picture above.

Thanks for all that information, i think i need some more seat time with it and give it something to do then i can play with the pin in and out and see what it does

I didn't get much done last Thursday as I wasn't feeling that good. I did manage to mark out of the cogs cover where to drill a large-ish hole so I can get longer things on the lathe through the chuck.. To mark the hole I had to extend the pen a little bit Hole marked through the chuck.. And the size hole I need to drill out. I do have a bit of pipe the very same size cut to length ready to be welded in. I also cleaned off all the paint/coating off the cogs guard, the idea being rather than paint it just let nature take it's course.. A bit of surface rust and some oils splashed from the lathe will soon age it A bit of a slow day Tuesday, these double bank holidays always throw my body clock off.. Is it Monday or Friday today? My body clock say's it's Wednesday!! Anyway, I needed to recover the shelf under the lathe, so the last of that big blue panel was sliced up, with the bendy bit being cut off and welded underneath to add some extra strength.. Shelf done I thought I would take a quick look inside the new on/off switch box to work out how to wire it in.. Compare the inside of the new one.. To the inside of the old one!!! I think changing switches was a good move! That's not to say the old switch doesn't have some charm And while were being silly

Managed to get another hour or so on this project today. The air filter was refitted, followed by the exhaust and the injector. Next the radiator and fan was properly plumbed in and I loosely refitted the fuel lines. The fuel lines could really do with replacing, can anyone recommend a good source please? The final job today saw the under belly tray get a skim of filler as after blasting it came up just way too rough to paint.