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Yesterday while widening the driveway the scraper bar on the blade got loose. It turns out the nuts holding the bar on were ground away.
This other bar will have to do for now, the one that I took off is too far gone. Today while continuing with the project all of a sudden the lift handle turned funky on me. Started taking a look, good that I had a spare on hand. Whoops. First time I ever saw this, the fact that it got loose sure did not help the cause that's for sure.

I’ve seen many plows with the holes for the cutting edge worn off. I have yet to see the “ratchet” brake like that!

I have an AR 400 cutter bar. Doubt I will ever have to replace it.

3/16" hot rolled steel and button head cap screws will have to do. Some time back I replicated skid shoes for a single stage thrower. I used air hardening tool steel. After machining they were heat treated to a high level of hardness and toughness. Time be told those replacement shoes did not really wear all that much better than the stock ones.
This blade is 50% thicker than stock and the bolts are 50% stronger, let's see how it does.

That edge looks good! Do those bolts have any kind of plating? Maybe a nice coat of grease on the threads and in the cap. I guess this will be the same as last year...I'm mowing and your still "claiming"your messing around with the white stuff.

dag1450 wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:20 pm

That edge looks good! Do those bolts have any kind of plating? Maybe a nice coat of grease on the threads and in the cap. I guess this will be the same as last year...I'm mowing and your still "claiming"your messing around with the white stuff.

We have the white stuff forecast tomorrow... Flurries

Dusting here this morning, turned to rain and it all washed away. I’m sure ken will be pushing some !

Regarding the rachet detent on this series of machines, has anyone ever noticed that the uppermost detent is never possible to engage? It will just miss at the upper most point by about half the diameter of the pin. This is up as far as it will go, look at all the stroke that remains. But that transfers into over a half inch lift travel overall. Am I missing something here?
Another shot. The uppermost detent will not engage. I believe from what I have seen this to be a universal problem with all the narrow frame series.

Blanking out a new ratchet arm. I am going to place the detents at locations of my choice rather than the factory locations. I'm thinking that about a 1/4" timing offset from arc center line is to be expected but a mocking up first will best determine that. I have very irregular terrain here and are tired of the blade clipping the ground when turning or backing up. I want all the lift that I can possibly get without having to manually pull back up on the lift arm.

Lol. This should be interesting. I guess your thinking your 1/4" will equate to 1.25" of lift? Sounds good.

Dave, you are close. I am measuring 1 1/2" in lift to be gained. Offsetting the timing of the detents the roughly five degrees or so off from center line will however create a part that is no longer reverseable, there would then be a front and rear to the part. I still need to get around to blanking the thing out. Probably will do some work on it this Evening.
That said reaching full immunization tomorrow will mean moving garden tractors down near the bottom of my to do list for a while, there are many other matters that require my catching up on first.

I did manage to blank the thing out this Evening. But I'm going to hit the hold button on this little project until I can gather up some extra time.

It worked. The lift handle now locks firmly in place at it's upper most point of travel. It does look more or less the same as the factory part but with some changes. The ratchet detents I timed over by 1/2 of a tooth, that changed things out a lot. Here they are side by side. Although I had drilled the hole I skipped finishing the lower most detent as it was not needed or wanted, the limit stop on the frame of the machine will take care of that. I gained a lot of lift on the blade when locked up in place which is exactly what I was after to begin with. There will be much less clipping the sides of hills when backing or turning now.

Any higher and you wouldn't be able to see where you are going. Lol. My yard is mostly flat...but when needed..like this weekend I grab the lift rod and hold it up that extra 1.5" to clear the snowblower at a few spots in the yard while pulling the mulch wagon. Good job!

Ken - That was a really cool project. It feels great when you turn a broken part into an improvement!

I'm thinking perhaps the detent plate was borrowed/repurposed from existing stock like other Cub parts. That or someone just screwed up when designing. I can't think of any other explanation for an unusable detent stop.

A interesting example of "repurposing"... The spring that retains my 3-point arms of the Cat 0 is the same part number as the spring that ties the right and left engine compartment side panels together. I got a chuckle out of that.

Look at all this ground clearance. It has to be a good 4 inches. Lol. Good thing for the wide skid feet I got from Ray few years back.

Hi Guys!

Ken- wear edgefastenes take it from both top and bottom sides... (uh... that didn't sound.... nevermind...

They're worn on the ground side by sliding on abrasive surfaces, or sliding through sand and gravel. On the top side.., it's materials being pushed up by the blade that chews 'em away.

TYPICALLY... a wear edge gets a hardened carriage bolt that gets RECESSED into the edge, and there's usually a hardened washer with a recess for the bottom... and TYPICALLY, when the wear edge is shot, there's nothin 'left of the nut to grab onto with any tool other than a cutting torch

Cutting torch- the dedicated and focus'd man's alternative to vise-grips...