Hi guys I have a customer of mine that has a Pettibone super lift, i'm not sure of the model and cant seem to find a serial number plate anywhere. I'm in need of a front axle or parts for the front drive axle, owner ran it out of oil and the front axle locked up. I was able to locate the front differential tag but cant seem to find anything related on my searches, contacted a tractor junk yard in south eastern oregon- Nyssa tractor but they don't have anything. Owner said the guy he bought it from converted it into a bale loader.
If the tag is still there it should be on the dash. I'll bet everything on that machine is obsolete. Finding parts will be near impossible. Be ready to fabricate and machine what you need. It's called a Cary-Lift
Thanks, its been proving difficult to source anything. pulling the drain plug of front diff revealed chunks of steel and gears falling out
If it is just axle parts you need, contact Meritor. They bought up the Rockwell line of axles way back. While Pettibone will help you if you could find a tag, they won’t be much help with parts that they just bought off the shelf. Pettibone pretty much was only making the fabricated parts and cylinders on those machines. Everything else was just purchased and made to fit. If it’s just the ring and pinion and a few bearings you may be ok. Planetary parts for that older style hub may be a bit tougher to find.
Have you tried contacting Axletech? They bought out Rockwell's axle division years ago. It would be worth a try but I'm not very optimistic.
Also, Pettibone used to stamp their machine serial numbers in the mainframe. It may be covered with a heavy dose of paint, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's there.
If it's a super 6, then they're not that rare, could be easiest to find another one for parts. I've seen a couple in the $1,500 range. Not everyday though. If it's a super 8 and the axles are different, that could be more trouble.
Im going to try and contact cummins-meritor today as now they are the same, Ill have to do more digging for that serial number on the frame to try and get a hold of Pettibone, didnt see anything on the frame other day. I havent tried to contact axletech yet but anything is worth a shot at this point. best thing I found was an old thread on here about 10 years ago showing a complete axle. thank you all for leading me in a direction. I already broke it to my customer that we may need to transplant a set of F/R axles from something else with steerable axles like the old case agri king tractors or something like it.
got in contact with Cummins-Meritor, not looking very promising, apparently the Rockwell-Standard name is out of Australia. Doing a quick google search of Rockwell-Standard yielded this axle may be even older than I previously thought, closer to mid 60's, so... waiting on phone calls back. The carrier ID tag doesn't return any hits to their reference list. Playing the waiting game, according to Meritor since 1998 the rockwell name has been taken over about 6 times, Axletech took them over in 2019 then Cummins-Meritor in 2022
If you can find a serial number for the machine, I can look up the log records from when it was built...........providing Pettibone still has them back that far. It would be interesting to see who originally bought that machine new and where it went in the world.
Have you torn this down yet to see the extent of the damage?
I have not torn down yet, i was wanting to get as much info or availability of parts before I dug into it. Cummins-Meritor just tracked down a partial parts list for the build, it is indeed 1965 build date on axle. I will be in the area of that machine tomorow and i'll hunt for that serial # as its currently snowing at the moment, research day today. I agree totally on the machine history, I bet its seen its fare share of situations
Those are pretty specialized machines, designed for stacking bundles of lumber with the forward reach and the carry feature to move around the yard without "shocking" the hydraulics. I'd think it's a fairly safe bet that in 1965 most of them were first sold to the lumber industry.
Hey all, found another tag, this time on the actual housing
crawled all over the frame of that machine today, and am still unable to locate a frame serial number, I have an odd suspicion that it was on a piece of this machine that is no longer intact. Owner said that a guy built around 3 of these machines out of old Pettibones, and looking at what possible was modified i cant find anything... did find that this machine was painted blue at one point...
How did this ever work out?