Tractor loader rebuild

[TomG]

You are a master of thinking outside the box, Pete. I always enjoy seeing what you come up with next. 

Tom

[f350ca]

Thats quite a torque wrench Pete !!!
Any reason you didn't heat the arms. I warm them up with a propane weed burner to about 5 or 600 F to expand them then the bushings slip in, once cooled they're permanent.

[Pete O]

(04-08-2020, 09:07 PM)f350ca Wrote: Thats quite a torque wrench Pete !!!
Any reason you didn't heat the arms. I warm them up with a propane weed burner to about 5 or 600 F to expand them then the bushings slip in, once cooled they're permanent.

I guess the main reason would be that I don't have the means to apply that much heat. I had oxy-acetylene gear on hand for a while but not any more and the only form of blow torch I have now is one of those little hand-held torches that screw onto the top of a throw-away canister, not much better than a cigarette lighter for this job. The barrel was warm from the angle grinder work on the ends when i started inserting the bush but that didn't last long. HOWEVER...you have got me thinking again, there must be a way to use the burner out of my furnace....or fire up the furnace and suspend the loader frame over the top of it. Hmmm. Thanks for the tip, you're talking much more heat than I would have thought, nice to get the benefit of your experience Greg.

[Pete O]

I added a combustion chamber to the tip of the burner from my furnace, turning it into a fairly large blowtorch. Applied some heat to the barrel to insert the next bush.
   

I got the barrel warm enough to give it a nice shade of blue, but still only managed to get the bush a little more than half-way home using the puller by hand. I think the diesel-powered puller is going to be required again. I'll use some heat as well to make it easier on the tractor- and the puller. I'm still amazed my threads held up the first time.
   
I'm hoping to get enough time on this tomorrow to get the rest of the bushes in so I can make a start on the linkages.

[TomG]

That sucks Pete. Do you have a hydraulic puller?

Tom

[f350ca]

I'll second Tom's feelings.
Blue should have been about 600 f. That will give about .0015 expansion from room temp on a 2 inch bore.

[Pete O]

(04-15-2020, 07:32 AM)TomG Wrote: That sucks Pete. Do you have a hydraulic puller?

Tom

Don't worry, it's still kinda fun at this stage. No hydraulic puller; I was trying to nut out a way to use the limited hydraulic resources at my disposal to accomplish this task but I came up kinda blank. I don't think my 20-ton shop press would be quite equal to the task.

(04-15-2020, 07:41 AM)f350ca Wrote: I'll second Tom's feelings.
Blue should have been about 600 f. That will give about .0015 expansion from room temp on a 2 inch bore.

I guess that quantifies my problem Greg; I've machined .0025" interference into these parts on a nominal 1.75" bore. I say 'nominal' in that the bores were as close as I could manage with my not-very-precise line-boring arrangement, then the bushes were individually matched to each bore plus .0025".

I'm reasonably confident that I can get them home using the tractor-driven puller arrangement and some heat; the first one went within a poofteenth while cold, so a bit of barbecue gas will surely help matters. Just a little time-consuming is all, but I have to work with what I have.

[Pete O]

I wasted several more hours on this thing yesterday trying to get these bushes inserted. I made an improvement to the end of the shaft I was using to apply drive from the tractor wheel to the puller
   
I needed to drive that bush another 1.24" so I made a chalk mark on the tractor wheel and got ready to drive it 24 turns. I got 7 turns in before the threads failed.

I had another think about how this was going, decided to give my hydraulic log splitter a chance at it. I was trying to nut out how I might make a scissor arrangement to multiply the force available from the log splitter, decided to give it a try just pushing directly and see what happened. This is what happened.
   
The chicom log splitter just pushed the damn thing all the way in. Within another half hour I had all four bushes all the way in, without even applying heat.          
Didn't take any pics of the arrangement with the splitter, but essentially I suspended the end of the loader arm between the ram  and end plate, used a few chunks of steel plate as spacers and the stripped nut from my threaded puller as an arbor. The splitter has a label that says '25 ton' but it must surely be producing far more force than that. Very frustrated to have wasted so much time on this but now I just need to do a bit more chamfering of the outer part of the barrels with the angle grinder and I can move on to the linkage arrangement.
   

[f350ca]

I tried using the wood splitter as a press ONCE. Lets just say it wasn't pretty.

[TomG]

(04-16-2020, 08:24 PM)f350ca Wrote: I tried using the wood splitter as a press ONCE. Lets just say it wasn't pretty.

No way you are going to leave us hanging on that one, Greg. Come on, cough up the details. 

Tom