The winch on my Deere 650G has a set of mounting eyes on top were the arch/fairlead attaches. At some point in the past, both of these eyes were broken. This is a repair that I have been putting off for too long, and I am not sure how best to fix this. Any suggestions? Thanks -Ben
Do a spark test with a grinder to make sure. But I would think that would be cast steel. Machine a boss and cut it in half and weld 1 half on each side and that should take care of it.
Yup, spark test dull red and short - cast iron. Longer, yellow -cast steel. Hard to think. Cast iron would be used for something like that. Too brittle. Proboably should preheat to around 150F ( looks about 1-1/2 thick?). Good welld prep, multi pass 7018 or ER70s. Clean between passes but keep warm. Slow cool, maybe slight post heat if real cold.
Is this a common breaking point? If this is cast steel ,I would cut the ears down farther to give yourself more weld area. Make a piece to fit (I would make where it broke thicker for strength) and weld it in. If what’s left of the hole is to big for your needs you could cut out below the hole and make a whole new piece . Agree with preheat.
Looks like cast iron , someone caught the hook on it and pulled the bar off of it, your running a arch I would not worry about it, heating and welding on it may damage seals. I have seen many that are bent or broken or missing .
If it is cast you could cut the ears down make new pieces ,drill and tap holes in winch and bolt them down.
Thanks for the replies. Cast steel makes much more sense. I won't be back to the machine until Monday to investigate. I will report what I find out. -Ben
Another way to tell if it's cast iron or cast steel is to take a cutting torch and see if it will cut. You'd only have to make a very small cut. If it is cast iron, maybe you could make up a steel bushing to replace the broken pieces and have plates on each side side extending down so you can put bolts through the remaining part of the ears. Cast iron can be repaired but I think you'd almost have to completely disassemble the winch so you could do a proper repair without damaging seals or something else. Cast steel I'd preheat to about 250 deg's and use 8018C3 for extra toughness. Then I'd wrap the piece to slow cool.
Drilling works to if you get chips it’s steel . If you get grainy material it’s iron.
Try your welder on it , see if it does the job . If I was doing it I would not try to rebuild the profiles but cut two more enough to fit the base against the body of the winch and use the broken profiles to give more area of weld to the new ones mounted on the outside of those broken ones , placing an extra length bar through the broken and the new profiles to guide your fitting . I'm sure it won't be cast iron and the job is a simple one . Another thing it would be best that there are no sharp corners left to damage wire rope . I added extra profiles across a Komatsu winch a year ago and found the size of the winch reduced the risk to over heating , duty cycle on my motordriven welder helped with the heating risk , more's the pity .