Restoring Cultivator Set - Need Input

[AL Farmall Boy]

As many of you are well aware, there are many Cub Cultivator sets (not just Cub really) out there are are in functioning order but are well worn at the joints. With a worn cultivator set, you have a lot of movement and slack in all of the joints causing them to not be very accurate when cultivating through soil and possibly digging up your plants. A good, tight cultivator set is getting harder to find having that 98% of the cultivator sets out there are used and no new ones being made.

I am looking for some suggestions and ideas on how you all have restored them or have seen done. I realize that alot of the joints can be tightened up using the bolts on the brackets, and I will be replacing all bolts on the cultivator with the original style and tightening them that way to see if that helps; but what about the slack from wear when the bolts are tightened all way up? What would you do in that case? Shim? Weld and grind? Sleeve? Has anyone restored a worn set to make them tight again?

[tmays]

I'm putting a set together also, so I'll be watching this thread. Timely post

[Jim Becker]

I've never done a fix for the problem you are describing, but I am certainly familiar with it. I would like to hear whatever you (or anyone else) try to deal with it. My thought is to use a bushing. I doubt that it will be easy to find any ready-make bushing that will do the job. I think it will generally need to be quite thin, as it doesn't really take much slack at the pivot to allow a lot of motion at the feet. I would probably look at a section of electrical conduit or exhaust pipe that is near the right size. It would need to be split lengthwise to allow it to fit the diameter of the tool bar. Put the split down so it can easily collapse as the bolts are tightened.

I see 2 problems with this approach:
1) If the wear is mostly on one side of the clamping area of the bearing, this approach will not improve any mis-alignment due to wear. The only fix for that may be welding/grinding the bearing area, a part I would rather avoid welding. Maybe brazing some filler into the bearing would be a better choice.

2) The materials I suggested were not intended as wear parts. They may rapidly wear, making the fix rather temporary. As many of these tractors are used now, "temporary" may be more than adequate.

[AL Farmall Boy]

Thanks for the interest in this thread guys. I feel like if we work together then we will figure something out that does the job, and like you said Jim....alot of these tractors are only used a few times a year in a personal garden, so it doesn't have to be a perfect fix but needs to be a good one. I would, too, like to avoid welding anything and grinding down (bearing or toolbar). I had noticed the following on the McMaster-Carr website and thought maybe a product from this page might work?

http://www.mcmaster.com/#shim-stock/=rc126u

What do you all think? Any other ideas guys, or anything that you've seen done to fix this issue?

[AL Farmall Boy]

after looking into that shim stock and thinking about it, maybe that stuff is just too thin. Think so?

[Super A]

It will be costly but why not take the gang beams, and the front "bearings" where the arms pivot to a machine shop, have them bored "true, and then make bushings to take out the slop? The beams and bearings are not solid all the way through but I don't see why it won't work.

Al

[Jim Becker]

after looking into that shim stock and thinking about it, maybe that stuff is just too thin. Think so?

That is what I was thinking. If a single wrap of .031 is enough to be happy with the result, it probably wasn't that loose to begin with.

By the way, this isn't just a matter of better accuracy in use. A loose joint is much more likely to break when the cultivator hits a hard obstruction. So tightening them up helps avoid breakdowns.

[twotone]

My 144 cults have some play in them, but I never had any problem cultivating. My rows were at 36" spacing, and I never wiped out a plant. It could be that wonderful Illinois soil I had. In 21 years of having that garden I never found a rock bigger than a golf ball, and only a couple of them. I used sweeps front and back, and they slid under the soil beautifully.

[Boss Hog]

You can set the shanks to compensate for the wear. But most can be tightened up. If the can not be tightened up they are worn very badly and may have a crack or 2 in them.
Boss

[DieselDennis]

What about drilling the worn hole 1/8" oversize and installing an actual sleeve ?

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-sleeve-bearings/=rc99xv

[AL Farmall Boy]

You can set the shanks to compensate for the wear. But most can be tightened up. If the can not be tightened up they are worn very badly and may have a crack or 2 in them.
Boss

Are you saying that most can be tightened up just by tightening the bolts at the adjustments? Mine do have some adjustment room left, but I am wondering how much it will help....I've never had to tighten any up that were bad enough to need it, so do you think 1/2 inch gap enough adjustment to tighten them up a bit? Hopefully I will be able to work on them on Sunday to find out what happens. I've got to put my order in at McMaster-Carr for the new bolts.

I would like to say that there have been some good sounding ideas that some of you have brought forth.

[dmacarthur]

As I understand it, if ther is still room betwen the "ears" on the casting which is tightened by the bolts then there is still adjustment in the 144 without further bushings. Is there any reason not to keep squezzing with the pinch bolts till the ears are touching?

[AL Farmall Boy]

Yeah, I understood it that way as well, I was just wondering how much (say 1/2 inch) of that room would it take to adjust a worn set. I didn't know if someone on here has tightened up those bolts and didn't know if it took tightening them up all the way or just a little. I would like to find a different alternative (as well as using it with tightening the adjustments) so the "adjustable part" doesn't have to be the last resort and thus shortening the life of them by another 50 years.

[AL Farmall Boy]

So......just spoke with my local Fasteners Supply House (similar to Fastenal but local). The owner said he can't get a 7/16 square head bolt because it is an odd one to find as it is "obsolete" for that size (his words). I found some on McMaster-Carr but noticed that these are a little pricey for a pack of only (5), and noticed it says LOW GRADE. I don't like the sound of that. It seems to be the only 7/16 bolt in 2 1/4 length. Fastenal doesn't even have one....in that length at least.

[tmays]

If your bolts are still intact, I would reuse First cults I did I reused the bolts. Those old square head bolts and nuts hold up really well and I usually have success in removing them. They can look really bad to start with and clean up rather well. With that said I will have to buy bolts for this set I'm doing now. It was disassembled when I got it and the bolts were nowhere to be found