I had good mechanic friend out to help me mount the ripper. It actually went pretty good. I borrowed 2 lifting slings and was able to make chokers and hook the loops on a couple bucket teeth on the track loader. We had to use a come-a-long and a jack a little to get everything lined up so the ripper frame could basically slide forward onto the grader frame. Had to take the torch and cut about 1/4" off the bottom corners of the side panels because they stuck out the back past the main frame. Didn't have enough length to put lock washers on the side bolts but we figured they'd be unlikely to ever come lose. I rented a 1" drive Milwaukee cordless impact to tighten the bolts. Had to use a swivel but they're pretty darn tight. What was really odd is the rear mounting brackets. Everything looks to measure the same but 1 side has a bigger gap between the mounting ears than the other side. It shouldn't make any difference, just looks odd.
Dave, I'm thinking you should have spacer plates or shims to take up those gaps.
I originally thought so too but when I was looking at other rippers to see if I got a good deal, I came across a very similar ripper that had a sticker with a diagram that said 1/2" gap typical. I'm really glad I happened to come across that. I asked about it on the Welding Web and 1 guy said the gap should normally be the width of the nut minimum. The side mountings have about a 4" gap. I think later graders the mounting ears were further back. I just got longer bolts. I think the gap insures the bolts are always under tension. I don't think there will be any problems though considering the bolts are huge. 1 1/4" grade 8 with about an 87,000lb. clamp force at 75% proof load. There's 4 at the back and 2 more on each side. It makes the rear of the grader squat a little. I have a couple pieces of 14" H beam I think I'll bolt on the front to counter the weight of the ripper. I'll still need some more weight though for front end. Driving home I was thinking I could take some of the pads off the old rails and and bolt them to the H beams. If I'm lucky they'd fit inside the H beams.
All those specs for the bolts are not shear strength but clamping force. When you have multiple shear planes, that stress is placed on the screws in an unnatural way. While 1¼ grade 8s are pretty stought, I don't know that they're up for that challenge. I'm with OzDozer on this. Either shim it to the center or offset with a solid spacer. I worry the screws on the gapped side will deform or break ruining your investment. Good luck in whichever you decide. Looking at your pics closer, I would say shimming is almost imperative. If not, your anchor points will be wallowed out in no time. Plus you'll tweak the scarifier frame when the fasteners loosen. Now if you had hard chrome pin stock across all 4 planes, that might be ok until you hit a buried stone with one side or the other. Then we're right back to damage or deformation. Just my opinion based on what I'm seeing
There are 2 more bolts on each side pulling the ripper up tight to the rear frame and the bolts at the back pull the ripper tight to the sides of the frame. The pulling force is more on the side bolts. The tensile strength of the bolts is about 99,000lbs. I think with the ripper the grader is still under 40,000lbs. There are also plates on the bottom of the ripper frame and blocks on top I think to stop any twisting during ripping. That's why the ripper had to slide on the back. It can't just be lowered in place. If I wouldn't have seen the tag on another ripper saying a 1/2" gap is typical I would either welded spacers in or moved the mounts and rewelded them. If the ripper is pulled tight to the frame and can't twist my gut feeling is the tires would spin way before the bolts came close to breaking. I guess I'll have to experiment a little and see if there are any obvious issues with the mounting.
I'm with the others about putting a shim on each side. A chunk of flat bar with a couple slots would probably work fine. Just slack off the bolts and slip the shim in.
Most of load when ripping is taken by the bolts on the side of the grader not the rear bolts in the pic. Looking at a basic shear strength calculator it showed 1 1/4" grade 8 to have a minimum shear strength of 56,000lbs. With the 4 addition bolts taking most of the load I can't see where shearing the rear bolts would be an issue. If the 4 bolts on the rear were taking most of the load then I think spacers to clamp everything tight would be imperative. I think the side bolts, and the way the ripper slides in place, takes away most if not all the concerns of shear force the rear bolts. The rear bolts help take away any shear force on the side bolts. It's hard for me to consider that 8 1 1/4" grade 8 bolts on a 40K grader would have any potential to fail. I am a little curious why they design a 1/2" typical gap on all 4 mounting points. It certainly makes the ripper clamped tight to the grader frame. Here's pic. of the tag on a similar ripper.
If anyone wants my unsolicited opinion, I agree with the shimming the gap comments. This arrangement isn't shear, it's, well, I'm not sure. Kind of a pulling-twisting-tearing setup. Certainly nothing any self respecting engineer would design. IMO, for all the good that joint is doing those bolts may as well not be there. NB. This isn't a personal criticism of WD.
The manufacturer likely made it that way for ease of installation and to compensate for mount irregularities. Doesn’t mean its right though. You would have been pissed if you had to modify something to get it to fit when it was supposed to ‘bolt right up’. This way the manufacturer covers his ass.
The bolts on the rear are odd in the first place in my opinion. They seem to be more for clamping the 2 sides of the uprights to the frame and help to resist twisting up and down. I think the reason for the 1/2" gap is so the welds on the mounts aren't in the way. If I put a spacer(s) in the wider gap could I use something like a couple pieces of heavy wall pipe or would a long thick piece be better?
If I'm understanding correctly, you have fasteners going into the side of the frame that are applying "clamping force, and the ones in the rear, with the gaps are more for supporting up and down but not really responsible for dragging the implement. If that is true and they "allowed" for the gap, perhaps it is for flex in the framework vs breaking a rigid platform. In my mind, play and slop lead to wear and breakage, but there are reasons engineers allow clearances when planning things. Maybe there is a legit reason. I think you should disregard everything any of us has mentioned and consult with the manufacturer. Get their take on this . If it's for universal fitment, I would opt to shim. If it's designed that way for a legit reason, I would defer to their guidance. The only thing I would change, no matter what, lose the lock washers and plain nuts for crown locks or nylocks.
Split lock washers are the devils own invention. Useless as a politician's promise 2 days before election. Bolts in such joints are made to clamp metal together, and the friction of the clamp load carries the forces. At the point where a bolt becomes a dowel pin the joint has already failed. I have significant reservations about Champion's engineering capabilities.
I have never heard of any bolts breaking or other issues with rippers on Champion graders. The mounts are also used for snow wings and likely window eliminators. Maybe the gaps cause a very slight deflection of the mounts to help keep the bolts from loosening?? I'm also wondering if 1 1/4" bolts are used to have a safety factor?? Looking at the set up more closely it appears the pulling force is going to try and pivot the top of the uprights back. The rear frame of the ripper is pushed tight against the grader frame. The 2" square blocks on the sides also stop the ripper frame from being able to pivot under pulling stress. It appears to me the bolts on the side would have to break as well as the bolts on the back. Some bolts would be under tension and even if the rear bolts were under shear it doesn't seem likely that both a side bolt and a rear bolt would both fail.
Dave, the thing you're missing here, is the installation instruction sheet that comes with the ripper. Despite the fact that real men never read the instructions, I'd be calling Champion and asking if such instructions exist, and whether you can acquire them. If you do manage to get them, they could be revealing - or they could be extremely deficient, as TH suspects. All Cat attachments that are to be fitted in the field, come with extensive and explicit instructions for installation.
I can check with Jade Equipment. The fact I found the label on another very similar Champion grader tells me the gaps were designed that way. The question is does a wider gap make a difference and is there a possibilty of the 1 1/4" bolts breaking?? The gap on the side is even more but I did weld two 1/2" plates together (1") on the grader frame for the big blocks on the ripper frame to to contact if the ripper tried to twist the uprights back at the top. Normally the mounting ears would serve that purpose. I'm guessing later models had the mounting ears further back. Being that the bolts are so big I couldn't envision them failing. You can see the block in the pic. below and the block I welded on the frame. On the far side you can see the plate that goes under the frame that the 4x4 post is sitting on. Those plate and the blocks on top is why the ripper had to slid forward on the frame to mount it. The 4x4 was just to hold it wide enough until we got it started on the frame. My welding is a little rough because I was burning too hot. I put a really hot 6010 downhand pass and then uphand 7018. Not my best but I wouldn't be afraid to jack the grader up the with them. The pic. makes the weld look a lot worse than it is.
Scouring the web I came across a military spec. Champion with a ripper. It definitely had (I'd guess) a 1/2" gap on both the rear mounts and looked to have just a slight gap on the side mounting bolts. What I really need to do is talk to an engineer or bolt expert to determine if the bolts being 1 1/4" grade 8 would be anywhere close to failing with larger gaps between the mounting ears. Maybe Jade has heard of issues with wider gaps or non issues because of the size of bolts?? I'd guess there could be other rippers mounted similar to way mine is mounted. I'm not saying it's not good to use spacers. I'm more questioning if the size of bolts are sufficient that the gaps would be a non issue.
The point is that bolts aren't designed to work like that. In an application involving shear, they are meant to provide clamping force and the resistance to movement is caused by the friction between the two clamped surfaces. If that joint were ever called on to take any shear loading then the mounting plates would bend before the bolt would fail. On the other hand, if you think they may be preventing sideways movement of the ripper then they may have some merit, although it's still not ideal.
It's just simply deficient engineering, as Terex Herder has alluded to with Champion. As Cmark says, bolts and nuts are designed to clamp components together firmly. It's not going to take much effort to fabricate some shims out of short lengths of flat bar of varying thickness, so the bolts can provide proper clamping effort.
There are plates on the sides that fit against the grader frame and the rear bolts pull the ripper frame very tight to the grader frame. There can't be any side movement. Maybe that's the reason for the gaps?? The blocks on the side and rear mounts that go over the mounting lugs prevent twisting and putting any shear force on the bolts. At least that appears to be the reason for them. I've read and seen it applied that longer bolts apparently are less likely to come loose than shorter bolts. I used short bolts on my wheel adapters but added Nord Lock lock washers. Looking at some JD tractors they had a 1 1/4-1 1/2" spacer on the wheel bolts. I'm not trying to argue with anyone. This is a rather interesting subject and I'm curious why the mounts were designed with gaps. If the design takes away putting shear on the bolts do the bolts then act similar to studs on bolted pipe flanges that always have a gap? Are the bolts sized such that even if they were subject to some shear force they would be sufficiently strong enough? Does the clamping force on the grader frame add significantly to preventing it twisting? 4 bolts with approx. 87,000lbs. clamping force each on an 11" surface seems pretty significant to me. It may not be ideal but I don't really question Champions engineering. They made 10's of thousands of graders and they generally last until they're completely worn out. They had to have had rippers on quite a few of them and you'd hear of issues with the rippers. I will look into it.
I think for tickling the clay on your race track its going to work out fine If you were doing ripping where you might hook a rock at full roll well I wouldn't want to do that For reference a cat ripper has 6 1 inch bolts coming from the bottom 4 in the tailboard and 2 4 inch or so pull bars going up by the transmission
I'd agree with that. If I was doing a lot of ripping in rocky soil with large rocks or maybe lot's of roots then I'd want to make absolutely sure the ripper was mounted as strong as possible. I'm almost certain the same ripper is used on all sizes of Champion graders up to the 780 and 6 wheel drive models. I'd guess there could be as much as 10,000lbs. additional drawbar pull than my machine. Others have commented that a 730A like mine will struggle pushing a full 16' moldboard and it has it's work cut out for it with a 14'. That's why I think it would spin the tires before it came close to putting too much stress on the bolts. I'm also going to go slow when ripping and try to pay close attention to see if there is any movement of the ripper frame. It would be interesting to know the reasoning behind the gaps. I'd suspect so there is maximum clamping force but maybe there's another reason we're missing? It's one of those things that makes you wonder why it was designed that way.
My guess for the gaps is that the manufacturing tolerances for either the machine or ripper are so poor that they want to be sure it will fit first time without any cutting or grinding.
Maybe the frames on different models are slightly different or it is for maximum clamping force. My biggest concern is if the bolts are in any danger of breaking.
Please can you just drill some pieces of flat bar to fill the gap, bolt it up tight and bring all this to a conclusion? Sincerely. xx.
I can do that. Would be interested in the reason for the gaps. Not something you come across very often. There a couple people that worked for Champion or Jade on the forum but they haven't been on for a while.
The wing on our old 730 mounted to those same mounts, and it came with shims. Check with a manufacturer like craig. https://www.agrimag.co.za/machinery...710a-grader-with-ripper-1997-id-6399551#pid=9 If you enlarge it there is a gap
Yeah I could see a gap before I enlarged it. I saw another machine with a gap too. It's weird but I wonder if the clamp force on the frame is considered for increasing the shear force on the bolts. I did discover the shear calculator I used was wrong. It was from Fastenal but for some reason I think the 1 1/4" grade 8 calculation was mixed up the grade 5. The shear force is about the same as clamp force at 87,000lbs.
I picked up the hoses today and mentioned it would be nice if there was a kit of different size hose and fitting caps you could buy. The guy said hold on and brought me out an assortment to fit 1/4"-1". There's at least 40 in the bag. He said they buy them 500 at time. That was pretty nice. The 3/8" to 1/2" jump fittings for the hose were about $7 more each than the standard size fittings. The 2 14' hoses were $125ea. It was a little more using the extra flexible 3/8" hose but it will be a neater installation.