Leaderboard

Added its big brother to the collection on Sunday

Today I made a bush up to take the place of the lifting handle for the cutter bar. I'll maybe make a handle at a later date. I wanted to work out belt lengths, mule pulley positions, adjustment etc. I found a belt in my belt collection that fitted mule drive to cutter bar gearbox nicely. Fitted nicely is a bit of an understatement. Bit of a pain the rigmarole fitting it. But it went on. I'll be getting one slightly shorter as the one on leaves little for adjustment. For the drive from PTO to mule drive shaft, I found one of those emergency universal fan belts. Cut down a bit that fitted and gives me an idea of belt required. I've to yet workout a tensioner for that. With belts fitted, pulleys lined up and taper locks tightened, I tried turning everything by hand. Was a bit stiff at first then freed up. Most likely because the bar hadn't moved for some time. So the moment of truth had arrived. Will it work? Started up the tractor and running on just above idle slowly engaged the PTO. Bar was flat on the floor BTW. Happy to say, actually very happy, all went well and fine. As soon as I get new belts I'll give it a try on the overgrown bridleway up past my home. If all goes well, it'll be to remove for painting the mule drive. I just hope it will go up the ramps onto the trailer ok. It's definitely not something you can or want to remove in a hurry.

Got a bit more done today. Getting the lift right was a bit of a problem. When down, the downward curve of the lift arm fouled the guard and top pulley. Eventually I decided to disconnect the lift chain and cable tie the arm up as far as I could. I could have cut the downward curve off, but I don't want to alter things if I can help it. With the arm up I fastened the lift chain to the guard/frame. Next I had to have someway of holding the cutter bar in the vertical position. Had a root round and came up with this. Finally a couple of shots of it down and up. Next thing to do is make a handle to lift the cutter bar. Again I don't want to alter the original handle. Get that done and I can work out a belt length.