Introducing the Stig Special

[Stigian 1,234]

Right chap's, let's get this thread up to date with today's fun and games.

First on the hit list was to sort out the wrongly welded up drop link, so out came the hack saw for some careful slicing and I didn't want to use the grinder and risk cutting through the bar inside.

A last check I had got it right this time before welding it up again.

Time to get the top arms welded on, this long bit of box is the shortest bit of straight steel I have!

Despite only using two clamps it was all held very firmly in place.

A quick check it's square.. Not the best of photo's, but yep it's square on

One top arm welded on..

And the second.. The lower arms are at their lowest height..

And up... I'm rather happy with how these have turned out.

On a bit of a roll now, the rams were dug out and plumbed up... Ah...... the rams are a tad to far apart to fit quite where I wanted them to and the hit the lower arms!! As shortening hydraulic pipes is a it beyond my skills another way to make the rams fit had to be found..

As I can't go narrower, let's try up.. With a bit of box bunged under the ram..

The ram can sit where it want's too and there is enough space underneath for the lower arms to go fully up without hitting anything..

As an added bonus I noticed the tops of the rams sit in a very convenient place.. I didn't want to connect the rams directly to the top arms just in case somehow they get bent and bend the rams at the same time.... But I'm sure with some suitable bracing between the top arms they shouldn't move at all..

But that's a job for another day.

[zieg72 209]

Very nice Ian!!!

[Staub'sLawnmower 10]

Look'en good!! Like the placement of the Hyd. rams. That should prove to be vary strong.

-will

[Stigian 1,234]

Very nice Ian!!!

Look'en good!! Like the placement of the Hyd. rams. That should prove to be vary strong.

-will

Thanks Guy's, yep it should be very strong when it's done.

The lower hydraulic ram mounts needed a couple spacers made to stop the ram trying to go sideways. you can see the gaps here.

As the pins are trimmed down KT-17 gudgeon pins I started looking for something the same diameter.. Whilst leaning on the bench vice I happened to glance down and spotted a KT-17 piston ash tray..

So I started cutting the piston up.. You might say it got a bit hot, it's smoking!!

By the time I had got this far I noticed what a pain a couple of spacers would be to cut from this... Then I measured how big the spacers would need to be.. Only 1.5mm each!!!

So some 1.5mm ally plate was dug out and some spacers (more like washers) were cut.

Fitted... It will be much easier to replace some worn ally spacers/washers than have to deal with wear grooves on the mounts of worse still the rams.

But before I fit the rams to the chassis I have a question for you chaps..

How do I stop these two T-pieces from turning so much in the rams. When tightened up they point in the wrong direction, I need them to go straight to the right..

What's the best way of sorting it, packing the T-bits out with copper washers? Would I get away with making ally washers, making sure there would be no stray swarf to get in the system of course?

Moving on to the three point top arm, a little something was needed to hold it up, so this length of box was slotted inside inside a bit of box that was welded to the chassis a long time a go for just this very job.. Hhhmmm... Might need to trim it down a bit.

To act as a stopper an off cut was thrown in the vice to be sliced along the manufacturing line inside.

Sliced and clamped..

I don't think it will move now

A pin for the top link was soon found..

But for some strange reason when I made the mount for the top link (A long long time ago I might add) I made the pin holes too big!!

Rather then making a new top mount I cheated a bit and just welded on a couple of spacers that were the right bore... It will look ok once cleaned up.

A bit of research was needed as to quite how high up to mount the top link... Thanks Andy for your D-200 thread... How's it going by the way?

From looking at Andy's three point it looks like an equilateral triangle sort of set up, so a quick measure..

Does this look about right? It's only clamped on and can be moved if I've not got it right.

To make sure the top link won't move a bolt on bracket is needed... Que a few silly photos..

"Please please don't drill my eye out"!!!

After drill surgery the happy face was happy no longer... Because he had turned into a spider!!

Once the chain drilled bit had been cut out an extra bit of plate was welded inside to add strength.. My welds look so much better in a blurry photo

The bolt on flange bit.

This is how it fits together.

Once it was tacked together off it came for some serious welding.

Woo Hoo, it still fits after loads of heat.

The lifting arms were braced and fully welded up.

These pins will connect the lifting arms to the drop links..

The last job for today was to fully weld up the plates on the ends of the bearing blocks..

That's all for now folks.

[meadowfield 2,570]

wow! busy busy busy

looking betterer than ever

really need to pop down and see you before the weather turns!

[zieg72 209]

:bow-blue:

[bowtiebutler956 650]

I like the way you design Ian! I think you must operate with the motto "when in doubt, add more steel"! Love it!

Matt :flags-texas:

[312Hydro 474]

Making progress as usual Ian! :handgestures-thumbupright:

[Stigian 1,234]

wow! busy busy busy

looking betterer than ever

really need to pop down and see you before the weather turns!

Thanks Mark. Just give me a shout when you want to pop down. Winters not here quite yet, but looking at the forecast it might well start to arrive next with temps in the minuses overnight.. We shall see

Ta muchly Sir.

I like the way you design Ian! I think you must operate with the motto "when in doubt, add more steel"! Love it!

Matt

That sounds about right to me Matt

Not that much steel left to add now, well other than a bit of bodywork and a rather heavy dozer blade!

Making progress as usual Ian!

Thanks Rich, the progress has been slower than I would of liked of late, but there are signs of it speeding up again :handgestures-thumbup:

[Stigian 1,234]

Morning all, welcome to a rather confusing update.. Well, confusing for me as I somehow managed to make a mess of my photo numbering order so now I'm confused as to which order the action happened!!

I thought I'd (mostly) have a beak from sorting the 3 point and have a look at the drive belt cover.

The small square-ish hole needs to be made a bit bigger to give clearance for a belt tensioner pulley.

It fit's..

But a closer look shows how much of a mess I made of it.. A bad cutting holes day me thinks!

As I have mentioned in one of the updates (at least I think I did) the 2 inches higher than standard foot plates needed lowering to stop me getting cramp in both legs!

With the foot plate carefully removed from the belt cover, the cover was bolted back on to measure how much foot space I did have..

A bit hard to see from this photo, but with my boot's being just over 4 1/4 inches wide there would not be enough space to fit my foot in between the belt cover and the chassis rail !!

Which only leaves me with one option.... Raise the seat.. Not something I wanted to have to do but when needs must..

It was at this point that I also noticed the drive belt had been hitting the side of the cover at times!!

Oh well... At least now I don't have to worry about foot space that side I could space the belt cover out a bit..

It also means that I didn't have to badly cut out a hole for a pulley!! It was one of those days.

A calming coffee later it was time to turn all these mistakes around and make the belt cover look much better..

I was never really happy with the foot plate being welded to the outside of the belt cover.. Not only did it look bad but it would also of meant I would have to take the cover off to get access to a space under a foot!.

So out came the cutter to slice the flange off.

A bit of a bad photo, the flange was welded to the inside of the cover. The new removable foot plate will be bolted to this.

A nice thick bit of steel was clamped to the belt cover to keep it straight so the other bit of flange could be removed and welded to the inside.

Lot's of clamping action!

That looks and fit's better..

It looks even better now the badly cut hole was er... cut out and filled back in.

A closer look, the patch had only been tacked in at this point.

While this was going on Pete made a start on making a couple of axe heads from 8mm thick plate..

[Stigian 1,234]

Sooo... Back to the 3 point.. And time to work out where and how to fit the hydraulic rams.

A bit of bar which happened to be just the right size to fit in the tops of the rams was cut to be a tight fit in between the lifting arms and the rams hung from that..

It soon became clear that something a bit more accurate was needed to get the rams right..

Not being a chap for lot's of measuring and who is that good at maths, a simpler way was soon found.

The top of the tube is the height of the center of the ram top mount when the ram is fully down, you can guess where the top of the bit of rod comes to

Lot's of moving bits up and down later I soon had the right place to drill marked on the top arms..

A luck would have it I could fit the top arms under the drill, if the hole had of been 1/2" closer to the bar then I'm not sure how I would of drilled the holes out!

As the drilling would take quite a while going up through drill sizes I'd do a bit of drilling then move onto something else for a little while.

So in between drilling I cut four strips from Pete's axe head off cut.. The first strip is on top of the vice..

Drilling done now the moment of truth.. Did I get the hole measurements right and will this (longer) bit of bar fit through both holes????

Yep

And a final photo from Thursday, a visitor... The master of perfection and amazing detail, Richard otherwise known as Anglo Traction..

It was good to catch up again dude

Friday started with turning four strips of 8mm thick steel into two strips of 16mm steel..

Tacked together and chain drilled.

While grinding out the chain drillings one of my new grinders which had been making odd noises for a few days, locked up and started billowing out smoke!!!

It was very quickly un-plugged then left to cool down..

Let's crack it open and see what went wrong..

Eeerr... That bit next to the slightly chewed up fan is what's left of a bearing!!!!

I won't name names, but I will say the old adage of "you get what you pay for" is certainly true in this case!!

Let's hope my second identical grinder lasts a bit longer than the 6 weeks the knackered did!

[Stigian 1,234]

Only one thing left to do.. Hang the rams, clamp them to the chassis and see if it goes up and down as I hoped..

Down..

Up.

And up again..

With the arms fully up there is just enough clearance between the arm and the ram mounts

Happy now that all is working as it should more clamps were added just to make sure nothing moved during welding.

A short while of zapping later... I need to take it all apart to be fully welded up, but nothing will move from where it should be.

As I can't leave anything alone I had to add some extra steel for extra strength

Only one problem now... The bit that holds the top link up won't fit due to the hydraulic pipes getting in the way!!

Nowt a bit of chopping and adding more steel won't fix

So there you go chap's.. Despite the cutting cock-ups and a smoking grinder I'm very happy with how the build is going.. The 3 point arms have an inch ground clearance when down and 21 inches when fully up.. That should be more than enough.

Once it's fully welded up and given a quick coat of paint to keep the surface rust at bay (it is getting to that time of the year) it can all be bolted back on, plumbed up and played with a lot

To finish off this update here's Part 40 of the build videos. It contains some more test driving and me waffling on about the 3 point..

Enjoy.

[Lars 526]

Wooow you have done a lot of work on it again Stig.. nice work keep it coming.... and i can agree whit you on the new tool you buy to day.. even if u put alot of money to get good stuff it's crap..

i have started to buy pro series tool.. cost way to much money.. but ill hate when tools ¤#"¤#" when ill need it most....

[JimD 3,345]

Once again Ian, you are an inspiration. Your mechanical and fabricating skills, while astounding, are far surpassed by your perseverance. It was a pleasure seeing the "Wheel Monster" driving so well and turning so nicely. Hat's off to you again Mr. Wizard! :thumbs:

[bowtiebutler956 650]

Very nice work Ian! Its good your getting those surfaces primed. As much steel as that beast has on it, its an all you can eat buffet for rust!

Matt :flags-texas:

[Stigian 1,234]

Wooow you have done a lot of work on it again Stig.. nice work keep it coming.... and i can agree whit you on the new tool you buy to day.. even if u put alot of money to get good stuff it's crap..

i have started to buy pro series tool.. cost way to much money.. but ill hate when tools ¤#"¤#" when ill need it most....

Thank you Lars, it's getting there slowly... The strange thing is my second grinder which is identical to the burnt out one is going great guns and saving me a fortune in cutting discs.. Being more powerful I don't have to put loads of pressure on it to get things cut.

Once again Ian, you are an inspiration. Your mechanical and fabricating skills, while astounding, are far surpassed by your perseverance. It was a pleasure seeing the "Wheel Monster" driving so well and turning so nicely. Hat's off to you again Mr. Wizard! :thumbs:

Thanks Jim, it would be nice to think I have inspired people into just getting out in their back yard/garage/barn etc and give fabrication work a go.. Go on chap's, you know you want too

Very nice work Ian! Its good your getting those surfaces primed. As much steel as that beast has on it, its an all you can eat buffet for rust!

Matt

Ta muchly Matt, the rust would have to have a large appetite, there's a lot of steel there to much through

A lot more progress has been made with the 3 point, and I'm very happy with how it has turned out.

Quite a lot had to be taken off the chassis so the lower ram mounts could be fully welded up. The back end looks quite light now!

The start of the seam welding on the top lifting arms.

All welding done, the lifting arms and the back of the chassis got a lick of paint (no dinner for you here rust ) , and the back end was reassembled..

Those with sharp eyes may of noticed that the silver bit which holds the top link up has gained a new mounting place a little bit further back than it was. The hydraulic pipes won't hit it now.

While this was going on Pete was busy making more progress with his axe heads..

The spool valve (is that the right name for it?) was bolted back in and plumbed in..

And the rams also plumbed up.

Yep, it's testing time

Click on the below pic to see what happened.

The spot I live is is normally very quiet being almost in the middle of nowhere, the past few days however has been rather louder as the farmer decided to have a mad couple of days and get the fields ploughed, harrowed and seeded..

It was great watching these two beasts in action, one with a six furrow and the other with a five furrow plough.

The final part of the 3 point puzzle, the finished (apart from needing tidying) top link mount thingy.

So there you go chap's a finished 3 point... Ok the top link is a bit wonky (I didn't notice until it was bolted on) and the lower ram mounts could do with a bit of extra strength, but I can't do that without stripping the entire rear of the chassis right down, so that can wait until I Do need to strip the chassis bare.

To stop the lower arms flapping about on the move a little something was needed to keep them steady..

A little bit more welding to go then it can be painted..

[Ole MN 11]

Thanks again Ian for a great way to start the day with a cup of joe and a Stig fix.

Brad

[HorseFixer 2,012]

Looking Good Ian! we will hafta have a Snow Chucking Contest when yer finished With It! Glad My 520 moves faster cause I will Run like hell after that comment! :eusa-whistle:

[bowtiebutler956 650]

Love the way your 3 point works Ian! Very nice piece of engineering!

Matt :flags-texas:

[meadowfield 2,570]

oh the fun that can be had standing on the 3 point links ! :D

[WH Raider10 17]

Very nice 3 point hitch you made Ian!

P-J

[kpinnc 12,139]

Very nice Ian! As useful and as fun as 3-points are, ALL of these tractors should have came standard with them!

[roscoemi 245]

Hey Stig, my boy Kyle wants to know if after you get a box blade on the back and a dozer blade on the front, will the tires hold up to all that weight? I told him you have an accent because you drink garlic beer! :ychain:

[Stigian 1,234]

Thanks again Ian for a great way to start the day with a cup of joe and a Stig fix.

Brad

Your welcome Brad.

Looking Good Ian! we will hafta have a Snow Chucking Contest when yer finished With It! Glad My 520 moves faster cause I will Run like hell after that comment!

Ta muchly Duke, the 6X6 will be more of a snow shove-er than a blower... Just don't get your 520 sideways in front of it

Love the way your 3 point works Ian! Very nice piece of engineering!

Matt

Thanks Matt, I'm quite chuffed with how it turned out, my first dabble in 3 points and hydraulics.

oh the fun that can be had standing on the 3 point links !

Your right there Mark, a few people have experienced "the fun of the lift" I must find time to try it myself!

Very nice 3 point hitch you made Ian!

P-J

Ta muchly P-J

Very nice Ian! As useful and as fun as 3-points are, ALL of these tractors should have came standard with them!

I agree, all tractors should have them...... Even if they are only used once in a while to stand on

Hey Stig, my boy Kyle wants to know if after you get a box blade on the back and a dozer blade on the front, will the tires hold up to all that weight? I told him you have an accent because you drink garlic beer!

Hey dude, tell Kyle that the tires should have no problem holding all the weight, they only have to hold it at the bottom of the tires

Ah yes, the dreaded garlic beer.. Two things that shouldn't ever be mixed!!

For those that still want to try it, the photo below should show you the "effects"!! Any excuse to post this pic again

[Stigian 1,234]

With the three point working the time had come again to get the ol girl out the shack and give her a run.. Partly to stretch the chains a bit more, but mostly just for the fun of it

Wishful thinking

Back in the shack with lot's of mud adding extra ballast!

These quickly cobbled up bracket thingys stop the chain guide/tensioners from moving.. Which was getting a bit of a pain... I'm hoping that when the chains have finished stretching I won't need any tensioners to guide things... We shall see.

The next day after brushing loads of dried up mud off the beast, I tackled one of "those" sort of jobs.. But it had to be done!!

Yep, I tidied the bench again!

The reason for the bench tidy (besides not having any space left on it and not being able to find any tools buried in the mess) is I needed a big clear space for working out a bit of bodywork..

I started by looking at the foot board/tread plate, it will need a little trim to narrow it a bit... But the rear bit that slopes up needs lengthening and the angle changed to something a bit more laid back.. To work that out meant taking a look at how the the fenders are going to work..

The start of lot's of careful measuring and marking..

Chopped!!

Also chopped..

So lets have a look..

I quite like the widened look, it sort of gives it a "next size up" kinda feel.. It also puts the edge of the fenders where they should be.. About half way over the tire.

And with a seat.

The problem I have now which is quite a challenge is working out how to stretch the fenders so they cover all three wheels on each side without loosing that "Wheel Horse feel"!!

For your viewing pleasure here's part 41 of the build videos.. No building going on, just lot's of driving