My axle fell off on the way home!

[Danger Ranger]

John Deere is the only way. Hey Frog, you already got the beating, so I will focus on the tractors. First, nice A, Im guessing recent restoration of some sort, since your avatar is missing the pulley cover. I also converted from tractors to this, though I have no trucks yet an still love the tractors....green, and green, makes sense....

We have many Deeres, see pics. Nice collection by the way.
1937 A (down to every last nut and bolt)
1946 A (G-pa bought new)
1949 G
1951 R
1941 H (custom snowplow)
another H (orig to the opint of tires, paint, dealer sticker, and town)(recent aquisition)
1945 LI (dealer painted green)
19-somethin LA
1959 730
1954 70 (Grandpa bought new)
1952 B
194? M (yellow) (1 of 47 known to exist)
and some garden tractors and backhoes...

 

[nevadafreedomfighter]

thats funny look at the poor ford pickup. dont think it could pull that trailer unloaded.

 

[123mack]

Frog, here is the club we have here in Alabama. Check here for upcoming shows. Dixie Division Military Vehicles Club - MILITARY VEHICLE PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION - MVPA. As far as tractors, I have a diesel JD 1010 an uncle gave me. Its been sitting in a barn for the past about 15 years,and I'm just now really getting into finding and solving all the problems it has.

 

[Bolkbich]

Those are some sweet tractors I dont care what color they are i love all of them i dont have too many pics because ive owned them before i had internet. ive got a 56 jd 60 ,farmall b,c,m w/ 3 point and a new holland tc 55. gotta love those tractors

 

[spicergear]

'Frog, welcome to the world of seperated dog bones. Lucky for you it wasn't the upper link. They're real fun as they nod forward and start chewing on the driveshaft.

 

[trukhead]

Dog Gone Dog Bones

How about for the Duece dog bones pivot points at least:

Taking a 1/2 x 1/2 square stock 3 inches long and put a dip in it in the middle,

clean the center pivot point and wire weld the stock on the end of the pivot point at the 12 oclock-6 o'clock position.

The purpose of this is to cause a dogbone not to fall out of the rubber bushing if the bushing fails.

wire weld it quick and douse it with water wso aws not to dmage the rubber bushing.

opcorn:

 

[dburt]

Al-frog, I do like your green JD machines! I've been buying, restoring, selling and hunting for the old 2-cylinder JD's since 1980, I've lost count of all the JD tractors I've had. Some were quite rare too! I'd bleed green if you cut me! Altho- I have been known to have an occassional M-M, IH, Oliver and even a little Ford 9N. And my current chore tractor is (shudder) an orange Kubota. Yes, I am embarrassed!

 

[DeucesWild11]

Frog, with all the beating you got from the trailering I decided not to post.. Don't let any criticism get you down.. take it as a learning experience.. I got my deuce drove it home 40 miles+ without knowing much about it.. the rear brakes were locking up..etc.. Got a little "tough love" as a newbie.. Still consider myself one.. but this website is awesome and so are most of the people.. Learn your "lessons" and with the help of this website learn the lessons of others without having gone through their pain. Enjoy your new MV but enjoy it safely for you and others on the road.. Good luck!

 

[Recovry4x4]

How about for the Duece dog bones pivot points at least:

Taking a 1/2 x 1/2 square stock 3 inches long and put a dip in it in the middle,

clean the center pivot point and wire weld the stock on the end of the pivot point at the 12 oclock-6 o'clock position.

The purpose of this is to cause a dogbone not to fall out of the rubber bushing if the bushing fails.

wire weld it quick and douse it with water wso aws not to dmage the rubber bushing.

opcorn:

This works but it works much better with the stock welded at 3 and 9 oclock. Doing it horizontally allows articulation. There are many pics buried in the deuce sections showing bolts welded across in this fashion.

Frog, heres one for you to think about. You just bought 2 trucks from a company that has trillions of dollars and thousands of mechanics on the payroll and they deemed the truck too costly to maintain in their fleet. A different perspective to surplus buys.

 

[trukhead]

This works but it works much better with the stock welded at 3 and 9 oclock. Doing it horizontally allows articulation. There are many pics buried in the deuce sections showing bolts welded across in this fashion.

Thanks. I completely didn't think of articulation, I thought of how the axles shift as the truck makes a turn but that movement is not near as much flex as severe articulation over uneven obstacles.


Rebuilt 70 diesel with a pony motor
styled G
styled D from near the end of production

 

[rat4spd]

All comments aside about the retrieval, I give bonus points automatically for the Deere, seeing that most of my extended family is employed building the 8 and 9000 series.

 

[alabamafrog]

Well I sold the dump truck yesterday, and BTW, the nice fellow who came and got it loaded it on a goose neck trailer like mine and pulled it about 80 miles home with a Chevy dually.
So now all I have to worry about is getting my 925 to go into high range then fix all the other small issues with it.

 

[1 Patriot-of-many]

I had the same thing happen to my A3. Luckily I was in my backyard when it happened, I didn't notice until I was backing into my pole barn and a line of fluid was trailing me. My axle had flopped around enough to cut the brake line.(poor design IMO as to placement of the line) I won't comment on the design of torque rods as I took a beating once on that one....LOL
All my rubber looked pretty weathered so I bit the bullet and bought 6 brand new complete dogbones for around $700. Following the TM's I can't say it was easy to replace them, but not the hardest job in the world. Having to buy all the heavy duty tools, 600ftlb torque wrench, jacks ect probably costed more, but what's a pole barn without tons of tools??
Good luck.

 

[trukhead]

Dog Gone Dog Bones

Dog Gone Dog Bones How about for the Duece dog bones pivot points at least:

Taking a 1/2 x 1/2 square stock 3 inches long and put a dip in it in the middle,

clean the center pivot point and wire weld the stock on the end of the pivot point at the 9 oclock 3 o'clock position.

This works but it works much better with the stock welded at 3 and 9 oclock. Doing it horizontally allows articulation. There are many pics buried in the deuce sections showing bolts welded across in this fashion....

I think I'm going to do this on my A3. whaddya think?

 

[alabamafrog]

To “fix” the dog bone problem I welded a 13” long piece of 1” angle iron across the center joints and welded 6” pieces across the single end joints. The hardest part of it all was removing the rubber that covered the ball joints. Some of them had like 1/4” thick rubber over the ball and others had a thin layer. I tried various methods and settled on using a 4” side grinder to strip the rubber off, it was very messy, hot and painful but I got it done. I also disabled the automatic switch that locks in the front axle when the T-case is in low range, I feel this was part of the problem too.
Now if I could only get it in high range so I can drive it home!

 

[wdbtchr]

So whats the air shift noise you hear when shifting from high to low doing?



Guess I went into this blind to the ways of GL auctions but it looks to me like things like the T-case is broken and there is no high range or the batteries are unhooked and a gauge on the dash is fried, or the brakes are jacked open and an air line is broken off or the dogbones are rotted and the axles may fall off in 5 miles or so, or this thing is not safe to drive and must be hauled off, would be mentioned in the description of the item for sale. I have bought many many items including trucks and tractors and just about everything in online auctions over the years and have never seen such misleading or incomplete descriptions as these, this would not be tolerated very long in the real world, I find it hard to believe that with all the liability issues that this has not been a major issue for the GL folks. I thought that maybe I just got real unlucky with my trucks but from the sound of things it is more common for them to be a basket case than a good reliable vehicle. Can you imagine the negative feedback and canceled bids if these were eBay auctions. Not to mention the 10% buyers premium.
I know in the end its my fault, buyer beware and all that, but this was a hard lesson learned about government auctions and the sate of the equipment.
I appreciate all you folks to the point honesty, wish I had of gotten some of that up front.

The reason I didn't try anything like you did moving trucks is that I spent several years following SS and the MV list on Yahoo before I made the plunge. I actually had all my MVs hauled home on a tractor trailer. Expensive but safer when you don't know what you're doing, and I didn't.

I'm glad you made it through the gauntlet and didn't walk away. What they don't tell you about searching on here is the search engine sucks big time if you don't know how to use it and rarely does anyone tell you the tricks. The easy way is use Google to search the Steel Soldiers site. If you use the internal search, put a + between every word or you will only search the first word.

Hang in there and everything will work out for you.

 

[plowboy]

....Having to buy all the heavy duty tools, 600ftlb torque wrench, jacks ect probably costed more,....Good luck.

You realize that for a single use, something less then hyper critical application, you can determine torque by length of lever and weight of the guy hanging on lever, right? IE, use a 3' wrench and a 200 lb guy, and when he's off the ground the bolt is at 600 ft lbs. Just a helpful hint...I wouldn't use it to torque main bearings, but for simple attachments it works.

 

[1 Patriot-of-many]

I can always use the torque wrench on all my vehicles. It wasn't super expensive. Good to have when needed.

 

[03silverado]

Sounds like you could have gotten a school truck some truck they used for training purposes like young guys took it apart and attempted to put it back to get her good luck with it and as always enjoy

 

[Emmett]

Hey frog, I've been in the hobby for 20+ years and have done crazier things.
Ignore the wimps.
No doubt, you have a way to go and a lot to learn...Like all of us.
good luck on your new hobby.