I went to replace the bushings and pin in the end of the stick today. When I took it apart, the bushings were loose in the bore and just fell out. There is about 1mm of wear in the bore. I assume that the proper way to fix this would be to have the bore welded and line bored? Does anybody have an idea of what this would cost? Alternatively, could the bushings just be tack welded in place? The machine just gets occasional use around our farm. Thanks!
What the dollar amount is I can't say for certain, I can only say bushing bore welding and line boring ain't cheap, even if you take the machine to them. Like all machinist work, much of the cost is in set up, it's a time consuming process, hardly worth the cost for occasional farm use. Tack welding rarely works. Load stress on a concentrated point like that typically fails. For occasional farm use, clean all components well, coat the bushing bore and bushing with JB Weld, slip the bushing in the bore and let it sit for days to cure out. For occasional use, you'll prolly go a couple of years until you have to repeat the process. There's also some metal laden epoxy materials out there that are more durable than JB Weld if you choose to go that route. Of course they are a bit more costly, but not near as much as weld/line boring if you want a more durable repair than JB Weld.
Thanks for that tip. If I did use a metal based epoxy, how hard is it to remove if it needed to be welded and bored in the future?
Another option if you have a good local machinist: take the stick off, bring it in, he'll probably bore it out and push in a bushing to hold the bushings. Kind of halfway between lineboring and JBweld.
Won't be hard at all to remove if there's any left once it gets loose again. They machine out the bore before welding, so a little epoxy isn't going to hurt anything.
I agree. Although I've never had to remove them after a metal epoxy repair, I imagine over time it will eventually get loose again. Like I said, I'd only recommend this for a "use it once in a while" machine, I wouldn't do it to a daily driver. I do know there's some good metal based epoxy out there. Several years ago I worked on a Deere straight mast forklift (tractor turned around backwards type) and the main steering arm was a spline connection to the kingpost at the steer tires. Spline connection got really loose. Customer didn't want to drop the coin to replace the worn parts so I cleaned every thing real good and used some form of metal based epoxy. I continued to do service on that old forklift for a couple of more years and that kingpost connection was still tight.
Thanks for the advice on the epoxy. I have a call in to a place that does line boring. I'll see what they have to say and go from there. My preference would be to repair it properly, but my use may not justify the cost. The machine has just under 2200 hours and is in very good shape except for this one thing. I'm not sure how long I will keep it. If I do an epoxy repair, I don't want it to create a problem down the road either for myself or the next owner.
Just thought I would update this post. I called a company that does on-site line boring. There was not too much wear in the bore, so they were able to bore it out to the next size bushing. The cost wasn't that bad. At least now I won't have to worry about it again.