July 18th, 2010
At long last my original backhoe is now repaired. I had a trip to Tractorama last Monday and picked up the new boom arm and fitted it the other day. Thank you very much!
The new arm is far more substantial than the original and has some severe bracing to stop it buckling again.
Backhoe with new boom arm fitted.
I’ve modified the stays on the hydraulic pump so that they are steadied by the top link of the 3PL - the same as my AGMAX backhoe does. This is much better than the original design that went around the tow hitch and dug into the ground when I got bogged - breaking the original pump.
I’m also going to weld a couple of stops on the boom arm to stop it coming any where near straight - although the new design is much stronger, it annoys the engineer in me that the disaster is averted by strength rather than design!
A bit of new paint here and there and I shall be putting it up for sale. Although it now works perfectly, I now have my AGMAX backhoe, for which I have bought two different bucket sizes - and the buckets are not interchangeable - I’ve tried - a shame because the OZ-QUIP backhoe bucket has replaceable tips.
If you are interested in buying a backhoe, contact me via this sites Feedback page.
Tags: Backhoe, repair, Tractorama
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June 14th, 2010
After I topped up the back-axle / hydraulics the other week with $100+ of oil I discovered some new leaks - from the seals around the brake rods that go into the axles to the brake mechanisms. Bought the new seals this week ($17 each) and have just spend a day and a half fitting them. Actually it is quite a simple job, the difficult bit is removing the foot plates, brake peddles and handbrake mechanism to get at everything. Once it is all out of the way the old seals come out quickly - and promptly dump the new oil out - grrrrrrrrrr! Still new seals in and then it is time to adjust up the brakes.
This too is quite simple, what isn’t simple is getting both back wheels off the ground and free to rotate. A Holden ute jack stood on three bricks will just manage to reach to the bottom of the three-point linkage bottom pivot points and tilt/lift one side at a time. Then it can be lowered onto the 4 tone axle stands I bought for the purpose. Except they don’t extend enough and have to stand on a layer of bricks. This is NOT GOOD. The bricks slowly crumble with the weigh as you work. Fortunately the tractor is only about 1/2″ off the ground and the working distance is huge so if it did all collapse, apart from being real scary it wouldn’t actually fall on me. Still, a lesson is learnt - I need to buy a 4 tonne trolley jack and some decent steel blocks to stand the axle stands on. The brakes are much better now!
I also reassembled the diff lock pedal assembly - and now it works. Not an off/on switch, it works like a clutch in reverse, when a wheel is spinning you press the pedal and the two lock together.
Other problems:
The off-side stub axle has bent, downwards, again. A new kingpin is on order, an original manufacturer part this time and I’ll try and make sure the bearing is fully on, a ball-joint replaced and the wheels aligned this time;
Although the tachometer now works, and the 1/10th of an hour meter goes round, the actual hours aren’t clocking on. A new tacho/instrument panel is $450 so I’ll have a go at puling this one apart I think;
There is a lot of slop in the clutch pedal - first thing I’ve found is a cotter pin in the linkage rod is worn to the shape of a crankshaft. I’ll put a new one in and see how vastly better that makes things.
Tags: brakes oil jack
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April 26th, 2010
Ever since I bought the tractor the tacho hasn’t worked. When the steering pump broke and I had to disassemble the console I found the tachometer had seized and I freed it off. I found then that it worked by driving the tacho cable but that there was no drive coming out of the crankcase fitting. As this is tucked tight up under the oil filter I left it alone. The tractor has thus always shown 893.7 hours of run time.
I guess it is about time I gave it an oil change so today I took off the oil filter and stripped down the tacho drive. Fortunately nothing was broken, just a short length of flexible drive cable had ridden up out of the drive - presumably when the head seized. It took quite some fiddling to pull it apart and even more to reassemble - mainly because there isn’t even a picture of it in my workshop manual. However, when I reassembled it the tacho works just fine. Hurrah. New oil filter and an oil change tomorrow - what a treat!
Tags: repair tacho
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April 2nd, 2010
The Easter long weekend started and I was looking forward to four whole days of digging. Hopefully finish the fish lake and repair some of the damage caused by last weeks torrential downpour being dumped onto my land by Narrogin Council’s lack of a drainage system.
Ten minutes in and as I lowered the bucket into a pile of mud there was a fountain of hydraulic oil! A hose to the bucket crowding ram had burst! I had visions of the whole weekend being lost as it was already 16:30.
I managed to get the bucket off the ground and drove back to the parking pad. I took the hose off and rushed round to Geoff Perkins Farm Machinery - my local supplier of Ford and general tractor parts. Within 10 minutes they had made up a new hose and before dark I had it back on, the oil level topped up and the Ford ready for some hard work.
Tags: hose hydraulic
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March 6th, 2010
The new kingpin and assorted parts arrived this Friday and I put them together this morning. I drove the tractor out of the paddock, dropped its bucket-load of soil a the top of the paddock where I’m raising the level and around onto the new concrete pad.
4100 Tractor parked on its new pad.
The old stub axle was bent and cracked so it must have had knock at some time in the distant past. The kingpin bushes were OK and I replaced the wheel bearings. I stripped down the other kingpin and found it worn and its bottom thrust bearing breaking down. I’ll be back on Monday for some more parts I guess.
Tags: kingpin wheel-bearing
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March 1st, 2010
You’ve probably all seen this photo in emails:
well that’s my 4100 today after a stub axle broke and a front wheel fell off.
I’ve taken the broken part around to the local dealer - it being the Saturday morning of a long weekend - typical, just when I had so much work planned - and they will ring me with prices on Tuesday. Of course it’s not just the stub-axle i.e. kingpin, there will be new bearings, wheel bearings and a stabilizer rod bolt and end-cap to replace.
Tags: kingpin stub-axle wheel
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February 8th, 2010
.. When you finally get rid of the latest self-obsessed, loser girlfriend? Well I’ve no idea what you do, but I take the money I’d been saving to do something with in ‘our future’ and spend it on tractor toys!! Hence my 4100 has the following new playmates:
a 2 blade mouldboard plough
and, as of this weekend,
a shiney new AGMAX VT-3 backhoe to replace the broken one. Oh the joy and fun I’m having!!!
Tags: plough mouldboard backhoe AGMAX
Posted in Attachments, Backhoe, Tractor Tales | No Comments »
January 4th, 2010
Had to spend a day in Perth today shopping, registering my bee hive and other wonderful tasks, so I decided to sling the damaged backhoe arm in the back of the ute.
However when we got to Welshpool I had an unpleasant surprise. The Tractorama yard is all closed up, not a tractor or implement in sight. One end of the yard has some oil drums, a pile of wheels and some shipping crates leant up against the fence - but it is very much the look of a company that has stopped trading. 
I’ve tried emailing and tomorrow, now I’ve found their phone number, I’ll give them a ring. It could be they have just relocated, let’s hope so - but if they have, it might have been an idea to put a sign on the gate.
Might be I end up fixing the backhoe myself - where’s the welder!!
Note added 03/03/2010: Following a hint noted below I emailed Tractorama again last night and got a reply - moves are a foot to get the backhoe fixed - see comments below.
Tags: backhoe Tractorama
Posted in Attachments, Backhoe | 6 Comments »
January 1st, 2010
I was spending my Xmas break excavating a new lake at the bottom of the paddock. Yesterday I took time out to clean and check fluid and lube levels on the tractor and grease all the back-hoe’s pivot points. Today it broke!
It must be said that here is some room for improvement in the design in that the central pivot point that allows the arm to become completely straight, the ram then pushes down the length rather than immediately causing the joint to articulate. Normally this isn’t much of an issue but when you are working to the maximum reach it is easy to slip and apply pressure where it won’t do any good. When you do, this is what happens:
Buckled arm of backhoe.
I’ve stripped it down and will take the damaged link up to Perth and Tractorama. Hopefully next week when WA gets back to work after the Xmas break. Until then my digging days are over.
Tags: Backhoe, broken, buckled
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November 11th, 2009
A man just has to have his toys and I’ve got a new one. Last weekend I bought a post-hole borer attachment for the tractor. With a 9″ auger it works like a dream and produces metre deep hole in paddock soil now so dry and hard that a pick-axe bounces off! I did have concern that it might not actually be able to cut into the concrete like surface but I shouldn’t of worried - in less than half a minute it cuts its’ hole.
I’ll be using it to give tree plantings a good start in a deep hole filled with compost and potting mix. It is also going to be very useful for putting up fence posts.
New 9 inch post-hole borer.
Tags: new, post hole borer, toy
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