Testing out new shoe sizes

[Skipper 1,788]

So I finally got myself a day off from the family projects, and dove into a steering upgrade and test fitting of new shoes for my baby. Do not know if it has any interest, but thought I would share, so perhaps someone else could use the info. Ore just have a laugh at my fumbling around .

 

My current worker C195 goes as my test platform too, where I try out different ideas to make sure they work as intended. When all the ideas are testet thru, the no goes are discarded, and a restomod will start on a second C195 i have stored for that purpose. Hense, the pictures will show a C195 with less than pretty solutions here and there, and some unfinished mods.

 

This is baby

 

 

Steering is a bit loose, but it already has the gear reduced setup from a 520. So in order to fix some of the slop/play, and to make room for bigger front wheels, i dug out a very tight front end from a 520 that I had saved for this project. One of the major advantages to the steering was adapting the steering rods with zero play, compared to the "ball in a square hole" type, that was on it.

 

 

 

The front end on a C195 is a bit wider in the pivoting point than a 520 setup, so I had to shim it quite a bit.

 

 

 

Another advantage to the 520 setup is the threaded end of the 1" spindles. The C195 is also 1", but drilled and tapped type. The threaded type is as custom made for trailer hub upgrade. I went for 4 on 4 bolt pattern.

 

 

The rims are 7x8, with a 0 offset, and pretty much eats up the full 4 inches that the 520 front end is wider than the C195's.

 

 

 

But the steering arms on the spindles can not fit, so a little tweaking had to be made.

 

 

 

 

Nice and tight

 

 

I put new roller bearings and thrust washers in, and reused the old ones on top of the spindle. That took all play out of the spindles. 

 

 

Tire time. 20x10-8. Water filled to help keep the front down when something heavy is on the rear of it. Those things are heavy when full.  I tubed them and gave them a 100% fill, which adds 85 lbs per wheel. + the trailer spindle setup, then lets call that at least 90 lbs extra on each front wheel. Here's a few shots of a 520 wheel and the std 195 wheel in comparison.

 

 

 

 

Got it all aligned. A tip is to make sure the "triangle" is centered, and work from there. I measured the with of the rear end, which now was narrower than the front by two inches. Then used a peace of square tubing to put on the side of the front tire, and then adjust till there was 1 inch space to the rear tire. So now it tracks straight

 

Now all this would just look silly, if nothing was done to the rear, so on to the shelves, where I found these.

 

 

They are 14x15 rim shells, and centers. I pressed the centers in place to give me 1" clearing on the inside. Then mounted them on the tractor, and ran them to see any wobble. tapped them until they ran true, and welded them up.

 

 

 

 

 

So now is when you think: 14" wide???? WTF is that crazy dude mounting on those....................

 

 

31x15.5-15 on top of the standard 27" wheel. And no, they did not go on by hand and two screwdrivers like the fronts

 

 

 

These got a 100% water fill too. The new rims were heavier without tire, than the complete std wheel. The new wheel with tire is a hand full to lift without water, and I estimate they are at least 40 lbs heavier each than the std. The water fill adds 285 lbs to each wheel, so at least 325 lbs extra for each rear wheel. No more slipping I hope

 

Forgot to take pictures of it, but I put bolts in the rear hubs, and now it runs real lug nuts on the rear too.

 

This is how it turned out

 

 

 

It is now in use as my daily worker

 

 

How does it run and feel? Well, changed is a mild description. The steering is much tighter, and the added 900+ lbs to the wheels, and the bigger diameter certainly has put it's mark on how it reacts. The roughly 30 hp diesel has a lot more to log around, and I feel the hydro is working harder. Much harder. now it can pull rpm's down quite a bit in idle, just by accelerating. I am aware that I have to be more careful with the controls. Before I was hard on it. full speed ahead and fast stops etc. This is just too much weight to handle like that. But on the very positive side, it now pulls like the 1 ton tractor it sort of is. No slipping, and no discussion if it is the tractor, or the trailer or what ever implement that decides where we should go. The wider stance and weight has made it incredibly stable. I will be testing out a bit of tilling today too.

 

Why did I chose a 100% water fill? well that was simply to avoid the water moving around in the tires. Also to test out as much weight as possible. This is surely on the high side of what it should handle long term.

 

What can I say. On tractors I like big butts

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2020 by Skipper

[ebinmaine 67,619]

Fantastic thread.

Very impressive tractor.

Definitely appreciate you sharing this.

 

[bottjernat1 2,190]

She sure is perdy!

[Retired Wrencher 5,465]

That changes your foot print. 

[SylvanLakeWH 25,600]

[953 nut 55,320]

@Skipper, you are a mad-man and I love it.   C-195 is a beast to begin with but yours is sooooo cooooool ! ! !                 

[Tractorhead 9,064]

Impressive Work you did, thanks for Sharing even the Pics.

 

I like the Buttview ! 👍

Edited March 27, 2020 by Tractorhead

[Pullstart 62,912]

@PeacemakerJack did you see this?  

 

I think I’m in love again!  

 

Such an awesome transformation Skipper!  Makes me think I need to find a junk 520 one of these days for front end parts!

[WVHillbilly520H 10,373]

30 minutes ago, pullstart said:

  Makes me think I need to find a junk 520 one of these days for front end parts!

Blasphemy Kevin... There are NO junk 520s that's all folk lure... You're a fabricator you can make a front axle assembly completely new and better...

[Sparky-(Admin) 21,330]

Very impressive! Looks awesome 

  Did you have to raise the rear fender for tire clearance? 

[R. L. Addison 299]

Now, you will find the weaknesses in the rest of the design.

[ebinmaine 67,619]

1 hour ago, R. L. Addison said:

Now, you will find the weaknesses in the rest of the design.

I'd be curious to see what they might be on a c195.

 

On my current build I'm going to be using 30" AGs rear and 22 on the front.

I've reinforced the frame plate where it goes to the transmission and I'll be running parallel 2" square tubing as extra framework.

Then, fix what breaks first.

[Skipper 1,788]

OK, so a little update.

 

I did 3 hours of no mercy tilling today, and it handled it like a champ. There is the weight to overcome on start stop, but other than that, it is a rock solid beast. The D series tiller in old grass had no say. It couldn't move the tractor, push it or anything else. I ended up tilling some really soggy soil, where I on the second pass sunk about 6 inches into ....well....mud. It just pulled straight thru and out of if........... Had that been on the old setup, it would have been stranded deep.

 

Before it had a tendency to lift the nose a bit. Quite a bit in fact. That's all gone now too.

 

Besides all the hard facts. I always thought that tiller looked a bit wide for it. This is much better 

 

[Skipper 1,788]

7 hours ago, Sparky said:

Very impressive! Looks awesome 

  Did you have to raise the rear fender for tire clearance? 

 

Thanks. It's still a work in progress, but it is getting there step by step.

 

Not a bit. It has a 1/4" clearing. I put that on careful planning   or something.

 

6 hours ago, R. L. Addison said:

Now, you will find the weaknesses in the rest of the design.

 

Yep, and that is kind of also part of the plan. The end goal is to find a combination that will be a massive upgrade, and also be able to last. I welcome the troubles, so solutions can be found.

 

One problem this has almost solved it the need for a diff lock. It bites so hard that when the tires spin in loose soil etc, it has so much bite that it kind of locks up on it's own somehow. I noticed this in the mud today. Both bad boys kept spinning at the same time.

 

Another problem has already risen though.  It is no longer a mower machine. Simply too heavy. Well good thing I got two of them. One could be a "light weight" mower version

[Pullstart 62,912]

I bet if there was no fluid and no tiller, those rears could nearly float it across that water out back!

[Skipper 1,788]

 It wouldn't float nicely, but it wouldn't sink either. The tires would have a buoyancy of somewhere around 700 lbs

[Skipper 1,788]

Thanks to everyone ! Only nice comments, not even a single one pointing out the pure insanity 

[SylvanLakeWH 25,600]

3 hours ago, Skipper said:

Only nice comments, not even a single one pointing out the pure insanity 

 

That’s because the inmates are running this  asylum...!

 

[ebinmaine 67,619]

Just now, SylvanLakeWH said:

 

That’s because the inmates are running this  asylum...!

 

Well said Sir

[dells68 7,498]

Hey @Skipper, you are nuts for trying this build!  It looks completely ridiculous.…

 

 

 

 

and AWESOME!  This nut case loves it!!!  Keep up the good work!!!!

[Skipper 1,788]

So I found a weak spot...of sorts....or well I guess it is more a statement to how much torque and HP you can put thru the Eaton 1100 unit....and the tranny for that matter. Eaton specs state not to feed it more than about 10 hp or so, if memory serves me right. 

 

Today I mounted the wacko hat and went out to just test the crap out of it. Go hard or go home. So i drove it out onto a previously tilled peace of land, so wet the water came out around the tires when driving onto it. Completely soggy wet. I did the first pass no problem, backed right into it and stranded it completely. It dug into it so much that mud in the same fluidity as cow poo stood 2 inches high in the rear rims. Take a look at the pics. That's about 10 inches of thick goo. Front end about 6 inches deep. Completely stranded on the belly and sunk in.  Let it sit for a while, and then tried to drive it out again, well aware that now the soil had settled on the wheels and locked them inn. Tiller on the back, so it wouldn't lift up too much. 

 

The engine makes about 28-30 hp at the point where brown smoke starts to appear. I let it rip at full go, about 4000 rpm on the hydro input, considering the upgraded pulley setup. 3750 on the engine. I had not foreseen this, but i got a lot of resistance in the go lever, a bunch of black smoke up the poo shute, and it just pulled the engine down to a near halt, before i eased off. At the pitch black smoke level, we are way past 30 hp on this engine, and the hydro whined some about it, but repeatedly brought the engine to its knees. I could not break free from the soil before I started reversing and going forward again some times, and then just spinning and digging further. 

 

Point of this was not to see if I could get free. I knew that was not going to happen. It was more a test to see if the tranny part would take some serious abuse. In my book it was a statement to toughness, albeit it did try to tell me not to do that every day.

 

Telescopic Load All got it out, and a pressure wash made it look fine again.

 

Why do this? Well the point was to test out something that I have never before been able to test. How much can you put thru a hydro, and will it hold up? I'm telling you this: had I been able to strain the hydraulics too from the charge pump, it could have soaked up 40 hp all in all too. no doubt at all. Healthy for the unit...nooooway, but neither is putting that thru a manual.

 

Was it foolish, sure! did we get wiser....yes! Hope this helps to answer some of the questions, that we often see about how much engine you can actually use on a hydro machine. The simple answer is.... a LOT. The hydro is to me no longer a limiting factor compared to a gear drive. It took all I could throw at it.

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Skipper

[Wildhorse 298]

Very impressive work! Looks like a beast!

[Goofey 89]

THAT is so coooooool!

How does it compare to a D or Xi?

This is super cool. Give us more of this please.

Edited April 6, 2020 by Goofey

[Bow_Extreme 544]

I’m new to this thread and I have a question.  With all the tire and rim size changes, did you have to make any adjustments to clear the 60” deck?  IE,  move brackets or deck wheels to offset the  tire size and positions.

[Skipper 1,788]

On 4/6/2020 at 4:28 PM, Goofey said:

THAT is so coooooool!

How does it compare to a D or Xi?

This is super cool. Give us more of this please.

 

Sorry I didn't see this question before. 

 

Well it's not less pretty than a D serie in my eyes, and from my experience and point of view, it will also do things now that a D can't. However, there are things still to address, before I can say it's way better in all aspects. 

 

Xi is no match what so ever. I love the Xi's, but this is way out of that league.

 

More to come later