Replacing balls on lower lift arms of three point hitch.

This is nothing new to the vast majority of YT members, but no one has brought up the subject in years so it was new to me. I feel like giving out a Homer Simpson "doh".

I noticed one of the lower lift arm balls was missing on my new previously owned Ford 4000. I had looked up about replacing them on other tractors and thought it might involve tack welding or peening a washer on the side to retain the new ball.

After studying the geometries I found that the ball could be slipped in by rotating it so that the cat 2 ball hole axis was vertical. I have seen lower lift balls on other tractors, but had not seen this feature before. I will have to replace the spring retainers as they are gone, but this sure saved time and effort.

Have other manufacturers gone to this method of ball retention and replacement? I just never noticed this before because the other old tractors I had previously worked with had not needed the lift balls replaced.

My 1989 White has that design. I forgot to roll them out when the neighbor borrowed my tractor and by the time I remembered they were gone.

Always remove the balls when you are not using them. Cat 1 and cat 2 balls are available. I also bought retainer springs, I think I
got them here at YT.

I would remove them, but then I would forget where I put them. I would have to make a necklace and hang them on my neck.

Put them in the tool box or wire them to place. My remote outlets each have a handle that sticks up about 3 inches. I put 2 of them
there along with some lynch pins and the other 2 in the tool box.

They are installed by rotating and the hole facing up, or down depending on how you look at it LOL! The retainer springs are not the easiest to install but having all the hardware in place, they were designed is important to have them work correctly.

The previous owner of my low hour 4630 had one of the lift arm ends with a rube goldberg arrangement that did not work so well. One of those things you might do if it was late on a sunday or holiday, to get through the job. Retainer spring bent up a little, missing or failed flat spring on the bottom, causing the the extension part of the arrangement to ride on the mild steel strap that is bent like a fork on the bottom, wearing it excessively. I was able to replace the flat spring, fastening it with a small bolt which looks impossible to get to one side to hold it with a wrench, it's not and you can tighten it correctly. New retainer spring, which is not easy to install, there must be a trick or tool for this, and is probably why they don't get replaced. There is another pin that goes a across, I used a small multi hole pin on that with a hair type pin to retain that. Once said and done, they worked correctly, the lever had spring to it. Well worth doing and if you leave the ball(s) in, they won't fall out. You can get both Cat 1 & Cat 2 ball(s) at TSC. I have cat 1 and cat 2 implements and its easy to set up for each. Only thing left to do is build up that worn strap and grind flat. I have not done that because even with a good ground, I will not take a chance on arcing the bearings on this nice tractor, only up to 1280 or so hours now. One warning, if backing into heavy, thick brush and vines with a rotary cutter, that multi hole cross pin will lose the hair pin, seems to catch on things.

call me at link_disallowed I have the balls and springs ask for larry