Saturday's a long day, on 5 acres of hay... (pics)

when the durned dealership closes at 12:00 & your mower's drive belt stretched 3" - 4" at 12:15!! Drove around for 2 hours trying to find a belt. Tried NAPA, nope. Tru-Value, not even close. I woulda broken down & gone to Mama Deere, if she had a store open. Nope. Sheesh. I came back home & thought & thought & thought. Well, if I had starving livestock, I'd have to do something. I tried different size idler pulleys & the only one big enough had a bad bearing. Ah, if I loosen the idler arm & slide it over, I can take up all sorts of slack. Something didin't feel right about this idea, though. I had a good inch of deflection on the belt & it worked. That's all I needed to know at the time. It worked beautiful! Got the field cut clean & couldn't be happier! I headed for the shop to clean off the hay rig & relax. Got everything blown off nice & clean. The H & mower will be sitting out overnight. So, I sprayed the cutter bar down with WD40. Got on the tractor to start it & run the PTO to work the WD40 into the knife & under the clips. Ran it for a few minutes when I noticed a dry spot , on the cutter bar by the inner shoe. I bent over to pick up the spray can off of the platform when I heard an awful crash & much banging. Before I could depress the kill switch all the way, it stopped. I hesitantly turned to find no PTO shaft to the mower. Darned shaft came off from both ends! The push button on the tractor side was cracked & everything, including the PTO extension, was off the mower & tractor. Both halves of the shaft seperated, as well.

The account my girlfriend gives is, the PTO shaft on the mower end worked it's was toward the tractor, first. Propellered almost 360 dgs. before coming to a rest in the dirt & seperated form the front half of the shaft. The front half of the shaft came off after banging against the mounting plate a few times & came to a rest on the drawbar.

After a few minutes (& an inspection of the shorts) I thought back on the scenario & came to this conclusion:

The break-a-way on the mower may have caused the belt to run over the wobble box pulley, thus stretching it. What caused it to trip is still a mystery. There simply is nothing there. No rock, no depression, no bump, nuthin' & the hay was a bit more sparse in that area. Must have been that gremlin again.

Moving the idler closer to the drive pulley caused undue stress, friction & heating in the drive shaft housing. The grease heated up & thinned out. It passed the front seal & oozed out onto the shaft the PTO adapter is connected to. It got into the hole with the spirol pin & the pin worked free. The adapter finally got the lubrication it needed & left the shaft (I've been trying to get it off since last spring!). The rest is noisy history.

Thank God no one was hurt & I'm glad I leaned over to grab the WD40. Had I already turned to spray the cutter bar from the tractor seat, well, I might not be typing with this hand or the other one for that matter. Shoot, that shaft could have cleaned my clock permanently. Set all the bats free, too!

Thw two things I learned today are:

1.) DON'T even think of leaving the seat with the PTO running (I coulda lost my life, much less mangle the "cookies" while dismounting the tractor!).

2.) There's no sense in hurrying to your grave. If you've had a few near misse in your lifetime, that dosen't give you any "senority". You only get closer to that fatal blow.

Yep, that's been my Saturday. Heaven forbid I should be bored with nothing to do. Hopefully someone had a BBQ, a few beers 'r pop & enjoyed the day. It was too nice around here not to. So nice, I couldn't talk myself out of makin' hay. With a 84 dg. daytime temp, 32% humidity, 48 dg. dewpoint, a 10 - 15 mph. wind out of the south & a 3 day drying period ahead with temps at about 90 who wouldn't? ME! I shoulda gone with the brats & pop. Maybe an afternoon nap. Jeez!

Mike

P.S. The "new" hay conditioner I dragged home 180 mi. worked flawlessly. A little elbow grease & touch-up paint will do wonders. The camera does no justice to the red on that machines.

P.P.S. The yellow spots in the pictures are sulfer butterflies.

What's hanging off the front of your tractor? It's late Saturday night and I've had a few pints, but I just can't figure it out.

Glad your OK and the job got done. Grant

Sometimes we get a second chance to learn our lessons. Glad you're ok.

Sharp looking rig, that conditioner looks like new...

cbbc i think thats the cylinder for a caswell loader. good luck and thank god you were not hurt. Bob

(quoted from post at 23:11:22 08/28/10) What's hanging off the front of your tractor? It's late Saturday night and I've had a few pints, but I just can't figure it out.

Glad your OK and the job got done. Grant

Click to expand...

thats a great looking crimper. we used to have the same 1, only ours was no comparison to yours looks wise.

It's half of my Caswell loader. There's no down pressure with this outfit, but it will lift enough to cause the rear tires to slip. The bucket, that came with it, has the removable plate to expose the manure forks. The snowplow was made by my Grandpa when he worked at A.O. Smith in Milwaukee. I'd sure be lost without that loader!

Mike

P.S. I thought I had a good photo of the loader with the bucket. However, the tractor dosen't sit for too long when the bucket's on. I used to leave it on all the time. Nowadays I'll take it off when it's not in use. It feels like I have power steering without the extra 500 - 600 lbs. on the front tires!

It sure acts like a spring chicken. Not a squeak out of the belts, no warm bearings & crimps beautifully! Since my last one died, I was thinking about getting one of those new-fangled combined mower-conditioner thingies. It's a thought that passed yesterday with the advent of a great conditioner. Now, to hunt down that illusive decal kit. Someone, somewhere has to have one on a shelf.

Mike

Thank you & everyone else for the concern. I just hope this post causes someone to think before they leave the seat.

Mike

Howdy Bob, it's definatly a Caswell. Sure is a great loader. It has it's share of bends & twists, yet performs without hesitition. I can get the tips of the fork up to 9' if I have the hydraulic reservoir topped off. Plenty of reach to trim trees & not quite enough to load tall objects onto a truck or trailer. If I need an extra 4 or 5', I'll use the retaining wall behind the barn. And, yes, I'm still thanking God this morning. Man, that looked painful!

Mike

Nice pics and description as always Crazy-

Is that your farmstead in the background? Sad to see dairy barns fall to non use. Bet that soil right around that barn is fertile though.

Looks just like the oddly shaped, small central MN fields I used to mow. Just substitue a MM "R" and a New Idea semi mount, and I pulled the JD crimper with the other "R" as I never got around to hooking them together.

Luckily for you, the stuff broke majorly AFTER the job was done.

I have a friend in MN with an identical loader with a home built blade on an H.

Thanks, Eric, EYE alwaz new mi skoolin wud hep mi sumday! Mi potatografy clas heped two. ;v) Ma always did accuse me of drinking away the last of my senses. I concur. I injured my back, quit drinking & started small-time farming in my spare time. Sometimes, I just don't learn! LOL! Seriously, though, I would truely go crazy if it weren't for the hobby farming & model train layout in the basement. I won't take a desk job & I'm not going to sit around all day "livin' off o-ther peoples taxes". I would start scratchin' at the wallpaper & talkin' to the lights. No thanks!

The farm in the background is the family farm. My Mother's side of the family originated about a 1/4 mile down the road. My Grandparents married in '40 & lived in Milwaukee until '42. My Great-grandfather already owned the farm & let them move in to settle down into a farm life. While living in Milwaukee, my Grandpa picked up the A.O. Smith job. Before that, he poured silos for an outfit out of Beaver Dam(?). I also recall hearing a tale about a certain someone, hanging on for dear life under a 'shine truck. Back in the "other" Great Depression, Mr. Capone had quite a few stills & barrels hiding in the neighborhood.

My grandparents started with cows, pigs, horses & chickens. They got rid of the horses in the '50s & the cows in the mid '60s (not sure about the chickens), shortly before my Great-grandfather passed. If I remember, milk wasnt paying enough to keep 15 - 20 head at the time & Grandpa was sick & tired of getting bit by one of the ornery horses. They stuck with the pigs until the mid '70s. They got a mean case of distemper in the barn & lost all 82 pigs & a bunch of piglets in under two weeks. Whatever it was, it killed off all but two cats & the dog didn't last the summer. After that, Grandpa bought the 560, a mower-conditioner setup identical to mine (minus the fast hitch) & a slightly used 400 Cyclo-Air planter. He used the planter to put in sweet corn, on one-half the farm, for the cannery. The mower-conditioner was used to make cash hay on the other half.

1986 was a sad year for me. The world had just lost IH & Allis Chalmers & my Grandpa rented out the entire farm to a neighbor. The 560 & planter were the first to go. The rest of the machines followed suit until my Grandparents passed in '94. By then, all that was left was the H & a few unsaleable machines. I got the H on behalf of my Mother. She used one of her "picks", when they divvied up the farm, to secure the H for me. The remnant machinery was mine to do what I want with. My youngest Aunt currently lives there.

I would like to interject a moment of my youth at this point. I spent any & every minute, that I could spare in my childhood, enjoying time with my Grandparents & roaming through-out the barn & shed. I was always up to something. Endless hours of sitting on the 8N, "driving" all over creation. The H at that time was a big tractor to me & couldn't wait to be big enough to handle such a beast. I remember I got scolded once, at the ripe old age of 7, for taking the manure spreader apart. I managed to get the front wheels off by the time my Grandma found out what I was up to. "You put those back before Dad catches you!!", I can hear it like it was yesterday. I put them back. Then I proceeded to start taking the rear beaters off (they weren't out front where I could be seen). Uh-oh! Someone told Grandpa I was up to no good.

"I thought you took the wheels off", he grumped.

"I did & put them back", I quipped.

"Well, what are you doing to the beaters, then?".

"Uh, putting them back together?".

"Hmph, I thought so & don't let me catch you doing it again".

"OK!"

I don't think I've turned a wrench that fast in a long time. I even cleaned he pig "eggs' off of the beaters. All in time to wash up & eat dinner. Quietly.

sonny beach red power that would hurt if you were in the wrong place. my granny used to say god watchs out for us dummies.

I forgot to mention, I currently use the outbuildings on the farm for machinery storage. I'm slowly rehab'ing the buildings as I go. I hope to get some paint on the shed this year, yet. A portion of the shed's block foundation was rebuilt with fieldstone, to match the rest of the foundation, last year. I got a portion of the roof re-done, too. I really don't ever plan to have any form of livestock, but the buildings shall eventually be ready if I do decide to get a few hogs or beefers. I would like to restore the dairy area in the barn to it's former glory. The stanchions are in great shape & a portion of the old IHC milking system is still in place. Everything should clean up good & finding a McCormick vacuum pump & pails shouldn't be too dificult.

The ground around the barn is still very dark & rich. I would like to add the back hog lot (the patch of tall weeds by the barn) to my little hay field. It was my Grandma's "back garden" for a few years. After they passed, the manure pile behind the barn was dragged over the garden & left to grow over. It's currently the site for two burn piles. Hopefully, I'll get the use of that area when it's cleaned up & I can move the ratty little garden shed.

The septic mound that gives my field an odd shape is the reason I'm operating there. It's too much of a pain for the renter to drive around everything. There's also a spring that keeps a quarter of my field wet. Somewhere there's a picture of his Ford articulated, burried up past the axles, in the wet spot. Tisk, Tisk! The H just tip-toes right through there.

A MM "R", New Idea mower & Deere crimper would have been one heck of a sharp color combination.

I honestly couldn't be happier the shaft let loose when it did. I don't think I'll need the mower until next spring, anyhow. If I do, the repairs are minor.

If you ever get a few pictures of your friends H & loader, please post them. I always like to see another one. I've only seen 4 other Caswell loaders & one of which was on person.

Thanks,
Mike

Thanks Jim, I couldn't get over how much paint was left. Just look at those shoes! 90% of the decals are complete. The one for the height gague is almost gone & that's one I can't find. I'll post a few more pics when I clean 'er off.

Mike

"god watchs out for us dummies" - 730 virgil's granny

For that, my dumb donkey is forever greatful. Your granny is/was a smart lady.

Thank God & your Granny!

Mike

i forgot to add my grandpa had a loader that looked like yours hung on a h when i was in high school he passed away between my junior and senior of high shool that was 40 + years ago. he also had a case sc.
i have no idea where any of his stuff got to.

Nice story about the farm, and nice to hear you are preserving the buildings. Now, do you own part of the farm and the rest is rented as I understand it?

The ten or so acres of home place I plied with the old Molines and Case is long gone, sold off as my grandmother"s estate. Mom and dad have the 40 across the road where there home is in the woods (earth sheltered home they built in "87) and that is in a living trust between myself and two sibs, great hunting land.

I will see if my pal Swede has a pic of his setup, but I swear his snowblade is very similar as it was made from a drainage pipe! My SC Case has a Case 101 trip bucket loader on it, stone age but yet so handy.