Project Trisickle, maybe...

This may work or not, I guess I'll find out here soon enough.

The idea is to put short frame sickle bar on a tricycle and make it work, we'll see lol.

This is another project to do and give me a break from time to time from all the general work for everyone else and cleaning. Not that I don't like that kind of stuff, but my fav place is in the machining area and doing something I've never done before. Plus, with all the room in the waiting area now I need a new conversation piece in there.

This is one that I did when Bethies was here to see how long it took to put one of our tricycle kits on a regular tractor from start to finish, it was 22 mins if I remember right, that's why the front is already off and ready for one.

The first pic is a pic of it back then, the 2nd pic is what it looked like when I bought it many years ago. It should make a nice one, there is pretty much no rust on any of it.

I started on it after lunch yesterday and was having so much fun I lost track of time and worked on it almost all afternoon.

Everything came off the hard way and for the first time I broke a pulley, it was the input shaft pulley but there are a few more around here... I had planned on a bad motor and was going to make it a 753 and put a Kohler 7HP on it but once apart I noticed that someone had put a complete new engine on it at some point, you can tell from the gray paint in the pic. It also has the new style charging system on it instead of the diodes usually to the right of the starter, and they did keep the original shroud so the numbers are correct for the model. I decided to see if it ran and it fired right up and purrs like a kitten, then I put a regulator on it and it does charge as well so now I may leave it on there, we'll see... If it wasn't electric start it would go for sure, me and pull starts don't get along lol.

I got the mill set up late yesterday and am going to make a few tricycle parts this morning. I have enough parts for 10 of them already made minus the 1" down and cross shafts, and the pieces for a pattern and jig was made when Bethies was built so it shouldn't be that big of a deal this time. I spent more time on the design and getting it all hooked to the factory steering shaft on Bethies than I did building the tractor...

Anyway,,, here are the progress pics from yesterday.

Now I know why I didn't make more down shafts when I made the rest of the pieces for the kit, not hard but very time consuming, and time is a luxury I didn't have a lot of at the time. Not that I do now either but I've changed a few things so now I make time lol...

Step1, Cut shaft rods on band saw, then in order of pics below are -
Step 2, Plunge cut rods 20k at a time with a 1" mill bit for the cross shaft.
Step 3, Check each one for fit.
Step 4, Set up mill, flush half moon end and cut top side so they are all the same exact length..
Step 5, Check to make sure they are all the same.
Step 6, Set up mill with pattern for steering square tubing cut.
Step 7, Every one has to be set up and the vise and parallel bars all cleaned in between each one, they are cut 10k at a time.
Step 8, Check to make sure they are all the same.

Every time a certain job is done before the next job is ready to be done they all go to the knotted wire wheel on the bench grinder to smooth the edges from the last job so they chuck and flush up in the vise correctly. You will see in the pics that when a new job is started the ends are finished and smooth. Only thing left to do on them is clean up the slots in the last pic, that will be tomorrow morning.

So far the hardest and most time consuming things are done, getting the pulleys, hubs, and slot hitch off the tractor, and making all the extra down shafts for the tricycle kit. It takes a lot longer to make 1 as I need one once you count setup time so it was the right thing to do...

Down shafts are cleaned up and cross shafts are cut, time for a little cross shaft bending.

I put the bending station on the iron worker and found out 1" won't quite fit in there. They prob didn't want anyone bending long pieces of 1" material lol.

Anyway,,, the bender I made for the press a few years ago that did them last time got set it up and they were done on that one instead. It didn't take long to bend them and check them, if they drop in the jig easily then they are perfect and good to go.

Now I found the last 2 parts I didn't finish all of from last time... At least they're easy ones.

First pic is the mounts and steering arms, they were all done already. 2nd pic is the last 2 other parts I missed. It didn't take long to make one of them (the steering arm) in the iron worker bending station. It looks a lot better and the bends are nice and clean and not so "lazy". The measuring and pattern tools say it's good but I'm gonna try it on this one first to make sure it's ok then it won't take 5 mins to make up the rest of them.

I always had peeps wanting these kits that came here and saw Bethies when it was up front. I'm finishing these kits so when this one goes up front in the waiting area when someone comes in they will be ready. It seems they always get small tweeks after they are on the tractor and I know what they are and how to do them easily so once these are ready they will only be sold to peeps that come here and they will include installation.

Only took a few mins to tack it up but then the bearing plate wouldn't line up with the factory holes. I checked the pattern welded plate with the bearing on it and it fit snug but it fit... But they look exactly the same...

Problem #1 was hot rolled flat stock is not always the same width and sometime has little high or low spots in it... The pattern was a little narrower than the one I tacked up so it was hitting the rolls in the front factory axle pieces welded into the frame, easy fix is to narrow it down a little between the black marker marks. The reason the pattern was so snug that was perfect on Bethies is they didn't get the frame rails welded in straight on this tractor and it kicked the factory holes up I'm using to mount the plate to. These are some of the little quirks you run into and the tweaks I mentioned in the last post. If no 2 tractors are exactly the same then it's hard to make a one size fits all kit without it being loose in a lot of places and the tolerance just isn't there considering the steering setup is in such a small place.