Super Front for a C161A

[Fiddlestix 0]

Hello All.

New member here with a first post. I'm new here but not new to Wheel Horse by no means. Have several about along with 4 or so Jacobsen Chiefs.

About 25 years ago I found a derilect 1978 C161A. Poor thing was pretty sad. But the hydro was solid and the tired abused Kohler was sound enough to overhaul. I did all the engine work and rebuilt the tractor. The mower deck (48") was an absolute mess. I am a machinist by trade and have all the machinery at my disposal so I turned out new spindles and straightened out the deck and the whole unit became my every day mower. I still use it regularily.

Well, as I get older I am having increasing difficulty steering that machine. I reshimmed the fan gear and that helped a good deal. A couple years ago I threw away that blasted tiny "cute" steering wheel and put a real 15" one ( a red one from a boat) like Jacobsens have. That helps even more. I plan to possibly build a proportionate loader for this tractor and retire it from mowing duty. But loads imparted on the front end concern me about the ability to steer it at all.

So I decided to see what can be done. I began to get curious as to how much load those tire could handle and see some people step up to 1" spindles and trailer tires. That's a good idea. Well, having all sorts of junk on hand I dug up an old set of tires and wheels I had and machined up a set of spindles and mocked up the installation for building a set of knuckles. Behold...

Super Front!

Now... Who can guess where the wheels and tires come from? They do look kind of neato eh? The original is ahead of the SuperFront wheel/tire.

If desired, I can continue this thread with lots o' pics and "how I did this" dribble.

Oh yeah, I am from W Ohio and SuperFront is a nod to the great Marion Shovels of yore made in Marion Ohio.

If you'd like to hear more of my SuperFront modification, post the desire and I'll post updates as we progress.

[rickv1957 72]

:omg: Show us some more!!,Rick

[Roger from southern Iowa 1]

Great mods for improving a .

Not sure about the tire/wheel combo. They look like 6" rims. That's throwing me off.

I'm all for a step by step on your modification.

I'm using boat trailer hubs,tires and wheels on the front of my loader with 1" spindles.

With 50 PSI in the front tires, the tractor steers much easier.

I may have gotten kind of , sorry.

[KeithB 6]

:omg: and nice WH

[Sparky-(Admin) 21,510]

Hmmm....are they the little tires/wheels used on small Cessna type airplanes?

Keep the pics coming and welcome to Redsquare!!

Mike.......

[Duff 206]

I'm with Sparky on this one - look like aircraft wheels/tires of some sort.

And yes, please do keep us posted on your progress along with pictures. These threads are among our most favorite!

Duff :omg:

[GlenPettit 1,717]

Hearing and seeing how others solved problems is Great, because I have and will have those same problems soon. Please do keep these threads going, and the pictures really help, like the details too.

[Operator 7]

Hmmm....are they the little tires/wheels used on small Cessna type airplanes?

Keep the pics coming and welcome to Redsquare!!

Mike.......

That's what I thought too, little airplanes!

Keep the pictures coming!

Randy

[wheel horse 1045 2]

welcome and im looking forward to future updates

[Fiddlestix 0]

Great mods for improving a .

Not sure about the tire/wheel combo. They look like 6" rims. That's throwing me off.

I'm all for a step by step on your modification.

I'm using boat trailer hubs,tires and wheels on the front of my loader with 1" spindles.

With 50 PSI in the front tires, the tractor steers much easier.

I may have gotten kind of , sorry.

Hmmm....are they the little tires/wheels used on small Cessna type airplanes?

Thanks folks.

Trailer tires like yours are a good set up. No issue nor criticism from me. It was simply easier for me to locate these aircraft set ups. I was staring at this Wheel Horse contemplating new front wheels. Not only because I anticipate needing increased load capacity, but also lower steering effort, AND for the third time in 20 years or so, the front bearings have completely failed and the inner wheel snouts have wallowed out and split. I am done with those original style wheels! Well, while looking at this tractor, I glanced over at an airplane I have in the barn... hmmm..."what about those tires?"

Yes, they are light aircraft tires/wheels. I mess around with airplanes so have access to the associated scrap piles. These were all free. The wheels are 6.00X6 Goodyears from likely a Beech Musketeer. The tires are probably some 60 or 70 years old. They are 6.00 X 6 and made by Atlas. In fact, they are so old, the sidewall claims Rayon belts! That predates Nylon which pretty much took over tire construction in the early 50's. But they hold air and the price was right. The wheels came with bearings and are a mag alloy. The nice thing about using airplane wheels is they split... no more levering those wretched little tires. I'm too old to be chasing those blasted wheels all over the barn floor! The wheel tire combo should be good to at least 1500# each dynamic and oh.. perhaps 120 MPH

The installed tires/tubes/wheels are the exact same height as the turf savers shown so there won't be any change in tractor stance. The roundish tread face should also help in turning effort even with stout load yet only need carry 30 -35lbs air.

Here are a couple pics to show how this madness gets out of hand...

Well, that changes nothing as far as the tractor's stance. Looks good to me! It appears to have a negative camber but that is because the brearings are loose and the inner one slide in and the wheel cocked. I haven't added the inner bearing stop.

I haven't welded the mess together yet. We'll break that down here in a bit after hosting some pics. I also haven't got the steering arm cobbled up yet. There's another secret addition to ease the steering effort you cannot see in these pics that I'll show in a future post.

How 'bout a close up...

Oh my! That's HEAVY DUTY! Well, I don't draw anything out... it sort of developes. One thing leads to another. I decided to place the king pin in double shear so I founr some scrap 1/4" thick bent tank baffles and sawed out two nice angles to tie the axle to the upper end of king pin. I wanted to add some way of carrying all the vertical load on a true face. That's why the little 5/8" thick round spacer. This also keeps the tractor's front axle at the original height since this would have been done by the original steering arm. Without this donut, the front of tractor would sit low by 5/8" or so.

I will "box" in the top brace and axle after determining what a steering arm should look like. I am keeping options open in case I want to somehow add power (or at least hydraulic) steering.

The spindles you see are MASSIVE! They are 1.5" CRS that I drilled with 1" to 3/4 the way thru from the thread end. It all rides on 1.5" Tyson tapered rollers with neat little seals.

We'll get to details as we go. Holler if you would like to see a different angle.

Now here's a parting thought: With these wheels... I could add hydraulic front disk brakes! Independant or coupled. Madness!

Is this tractor worth it? No. I can buy another tired Horse and carry on. But I like THIS tractor... we kind of have an understanding. I am going to see who will give out first: It or me.

[Roger from southern Iowa 1]

Great modification.

Please keep this thread alive. Very interesting. :omg:

[MikesRJ 552]

Nice mods and .

Keep the pictures coming.

[kpinnc 12,766]

Many aviation tires have a speed rating. If they have something like "do not exceed 180 MPH" on them, it would certainly make for some interesting discussions.

There is a local tree service here that uses recapped Lockheed C130 tires on their bush hogs. They now have a ag-style tread pattern with the same warning. Sure gets a good laugh when you point them out.

[Fiddlestix 0]

Here's a breakdown of the players so far. As mentioned the axle is 1.5" 1018CRS and came from the scrapyard as bar ends... N/C.

The 1.5" tapered roller cones are basic items, they came with the freebie non-airworthy (read that as scrap) wheels.

King pin is 3/4" 1018 CRS, again bar ends from a screw machine shop's scrap hopper.

The brace is 1/4" cold finish plate. It was a baflle in a scrap hydraulic resivoir. It looked like it would work so out comes the torch!

The slotted nut came from some big scrap machine. It was a single nut that I split and then turned the castle and slotted. Laborious, but cheap.

Now a little item I am employing in an attempt to ease the steering effort is shown...

The purple arrow points to a needle roller thrust bearing. It will ride somewhat protected in a counterbore in the 5/8" thick "donut" spacer (red arrows) and the upper face will bear against a hardened race and then the axle casting face that the original spindle labored upon. While not water proof (I can't say when I last immersed this thing) , by submerging them in the spacer and piling on gobs of grease... they should have a reasonable life. Besides, they cost $2.42ea. At that rate buy 3 sets and change them out every 4 years.

The original spilnde has been churned down by the bad bearings (green circle) and would not be worth repairing. I could buy servicable used units. But that's for those with a lack of intestinal fortitude! :omg:

[Fiddlestix 0]

After a bit of test fitting we have the whole knuckle/spindle assembly welded...

The steering arm is still being tweaked at this point. You can see the thrust bearing toward the bottom of the king pin resting in the counterbore of the "donut". It is hoped this will ease greatly the steering effort. The old steering arms/spindles carry this load and showed heavy galling as did the mating face of the cast axle. I dressed the cast axle so we have a clean face to bear against.

The thing does look qualified for the name SuperFront!

We temporarily pinned the knuckle and wheel assembly on, adjusted alignment, and took it out for a test ride. Here's a frontal view...

and a side view...

As cane be seen the stance and ride height as well as the ride has not been affected. It is as original with the original spindles and wheels.

It is idling here... I do loooove that big K-series single just chugging away in that Dynafocal mount. Neat design.

Here's a shot of the knuckle pinned on...

Ummmm...nice bead of weld there! As can be seen the rod end is at its limit of angularity. I will heat and throw a twist in the arm to ease this condition. I added these rod ends and the link some 20+ years ago. They are greasable and have never given a moment's trouble. I had these on the original spindles and they had to have this same twist thrown in them as well.

Here she is thrown hard to port...

Cool old Atlas tires with the "winged A" logo. Ready for 120 MPH!! Go Dog Go!

The top strap that the king pin passes thru could be shortened inboard of the king pin. But I am leaving that for now in case I want to add some options. We'll see. It is bothering nothing at the moment so it will stay. We need to add a king pin retaining method that also prevents rotation. Perhaps a welded on tab like the one Wheel Horse uses on the center pivot pin.

So far this one helped steering effort immensly. Adding the right side should do wonders.

I think these little roundish donuts look really neat and they should carry about 3000 pounds between them. Next we'll weld up the other and fine tune the steering arms. Stay tuned. :omg:

[Operator 7]

:D Nice job!!

Would it make any kind of a difference under the axle if you were to have a flat washer [brass?] for the roller bearing to turn on?

I can think of an option on that top king pin tab , but i'll see what you come up with.

Any production plans ?

Randy

[Wheelbearing 49]

Nice welding!!

[Fiddlestix 0]

Little progress note...

Oh dear. This is turning into a can o' worms! A bit of "might as wells". The knuckles have been completed and painted some sort of red...

They really aren't THAT bright! So while that paint was drying I thought about the axle. I re-examined the faces under the pivots that my little roller thrust bearings are to bear against (And yes Operator, there is a hardened "washer" or race that goes between the rollers and the axle pivot face as well as the counterbore in knuckle). It has been worn and galled into a conical shape. This may coin and crack the roller "washers" in short order. The axle was removed and is being prepped for truing these faces perpendicular to the pin centerline. We'll show that a bit later.

After removing the axle pivot pin to drop the axle, it was clear that this pin also has seen better days. The following shows what happens when you spend rainy Sundays in a machine shop!

Buy a new part? A servicable used part? Why that costs money!! And time. So it's over to the scrap box and what do you know... there's a dandy 3/4" pre-hardened slug of TG&P (Turned, Ground, and Polished). The original appears dead soft low carbon of sorts... likely 1018 and not leaded as 12L14 doesn't weld well. But Wheel Horse's welding (like most all MIG welding in factory settings including Deere) isn't that impressive anyway so it is possible it was a screw stock. Who cares? Let's fix this one.

First chuck up the old pin so we can re-use that anti-rotation tab...

Now peel off that cheesy blobby worm of weld (me dad would call it "chicken %$#^@" )...

The tab is now juuust flush with pin. We'll remove the assembly and insert in the front axle pivot holes and rap it with a 10oz hammer...

The axle supports the tab to prevent distortion and the wee little weld that is remaining fractures easily (arrows show the circular fracture). The pin can be tapped on thru the tab and the two pieces are seperated after 32 years of being joined at the hip...

See how minimal the penetration (arrow points to all that was left of weld, light grey area) into base metal the weld is? Perhaps .015" worth. This is a side benefit... it makes salvage as this easy. They relied on the massive amount of surface contact area of the weld versus careful application and penetration/travel speed.

So now we dress the tab a bit and weld in our new pin...

That ought to last until either that tractor or I am long dead! I know I know... "Hey stoopid, you can buy one of those for 22 cents at XYZ Lawnmower paradise". Like I mentioned earlier, the lathe is right there, the scrap box over there, the Hobart Cybertig here... and it's raining outside... so in 15 minutes I have a new, BETTER pin than can be had.

Another "might as well" is the forward flange self-aligning bearing on the fan gear lay shaft. This is like all other bazillion WH models... a sintered metal ball with a flimsy pressed housing. This tractors high steering effort and years of use (abuse?) have wallowed out the sheetmetal housing. The result is the ball shifts whenever a steering input is made. Makes my little ship slow to answer the helm! I don't like it. There is nothing wrong with this. Rather, I can do something about it. So I've ordered a self aligning bearing ($4.72) that will be here Monday and will then machine a new heftier steel housing. This should reduce effort further by having a reduce friction factor... we can all use less friction! Stay tuned if interested!

Nice welding!!

Thank you. Welds when proper needn't be ground off like these bikers to look pretty. If you do it right, you WANT them to show. It is kind of funny about welders... they are like these old tractors. I WANT people to go buy the new cheap stuff and leave the "junk" for guys like us. I have used all the new square wave and inverter welders that everybody is running out and buying and then they're dumping these perfectly capable welders...like the 1976 Hobart CT-300 Cyber-tig I use with great regularity. I even bought a second one with a 120 tray for $75. That sweet old sinusoidal wave machine will weld anything the new garbage will... and at an 80%+ duty cycle.

Oh well...I ramble off topic! We'll post next week with the spindles on! :D

[bo dawg 516]

Great looking job there keep it coming! And :D

[barns1 57]

:omg: We need guys with good ideas on here.

[Fiddlestix 0]

Thanks folks.

As mentioned we found the underside face of the cast axle which the original steering arms bore against ( carrying all front vertical weight) were badly galled and coined.. that is, crowned or a conical shape. I wanted to add these little roller thrust bearings and these ride against finely finished hardened races that for all the World look like thin washers. Being that they are hard, I feared that they may crack if the cast axle faces were not reasonably flat due to high spots concentrating excess bending and pressure "hot spots" on the race. So we needed to true these up a bit so it was off to the Bridgeport! In the right hands, with the proper attachments, you can do ANYTHING with a Bridgy!

Here is the axle set up reay to mill one face...

The axle is located by a 3/4" pin (purple arrow) gripped in a vee block that is in turn gripped by the vise. The free end of axle is supported by a screw jack and the whole mess is clamped down with a saddle strap. The face is them milled flat and repeated for the opposite end. That does that.

On to that spherical bearing that the steering layshaft rides in toward the forward end. We got a new spherical ball with an outer race. A 3" diameter slug from the scrap box and off to the lathe to plow out a housing. After turning the housing in a lathe, we added tapped holes for mounting, flats so it would have the same footprint as original (not a whole bucnh of room up in that area), and then a Zerk just for funsies!

I had to tap the holes since the bearing and subsequent housing were so large, they interfered with using nuts in the back side adjacent to the bearing spigot.

I know the shaft will likely turn in ball and no grease will get there but perhaps we can Loctite the shaft to the ball and HOPE the ball turns in housing (thus grease)... we'll see.

Next we press in the bearing and screw in the Zerk. Then it's off for a coat of Rustoleum...

Saaayyy.... that looks like some sort of "factory part"! someday somebody is going to tear this tractor apart and try to find out where that goofy flange bearing came from!!

Anyway, it will stop any sideways shifting of the layshaft during rough terrain traverse and steering inputs will be just a bit more precise. I am eliminating the play bit by bit and at the same time easing effort one little piece at a time. So far, it appears this machine has lighter steering that my 520H with the reduction gearing. No need to spend that $200 for those eBay 520 reduction steering parts! So far we have about $15 in this collection of misfit parts and pregnant ideas!

Next we'll bolt it all together and see what it looks like. :D

[Fiddlestix 0]

We pretty much wrapped up this SuperFront modification and took it for a test spin...

I added some new rod ends at the steering arms to improve the angularity issues. These have a pre-riveted in stud that raises the rod end a bit and the stud is necked enough to allow a slight bit more angularity without binding. Plenty adequate for this installation and it also raises the link so as to be fully protected from obstructions striking it by the front axle. This is a consideration for the future if I get around to welding up a loader for it. We'll see.

This modification changed nothing with the stance of the tractor. Turning radius is slightly better. Steering effort truly is as easy as a 520H with reduction steering. The airplane tires are a stout rubber with a 4 ply rating. I read about folks curious about whether to use 2 or 4 ply tractor tires on front. Here is an interesting characteristic about using this installation:

As shown in these pics, the tractor is without any burden... No deck or ballast of any kind. I have attached my 48" deck and drove it about doing some mowing. As already mentioned, the steering is terrific and light as well as waaaay quicker than that 520H. Simply whip it around trees without slowing down. But here's the interesting part, I did this all WITHOUT ANY air in the tires! These pics are without air in the tires. Needless to say, the ride is nice. If load carrying capacity is needed... simply add 35PSIG and you can carry somewhere beyond a ton on that front set of tires and spindles.

For you purists, no Wheel Horse parts have been harmed in this modification. It is all strictly bolt on. Not a single hole was drilled or grind or weld to a Wheel Horse part. All the junky old worn out stuff is right there on the shelf and can be bolted right back on and no one be any the wiser!

EZ :omg:

[Duff 206]

Dang, EZ, that is some fine work you've done there!

Thanks for sharing!

Duff :D

[rickv1957 72]

Very nice machine work there! Rick

[sgtsampay 117]

Wow, very nice. I have an older nieghbor, who has a larger 520H and complains about the steering, all of the time. He really hate it when the large snowblower is on the front. I will tell him about your idea and see if he wants to copy it. Anyway, very nice job and thanks for sharing.