Allis Chalmers Rollabar Rake Gearbox Oddity

lastcowboy32

Well-known Member
My wife picked up an Allis Chalmers rollabar style rake at auction for 175 bucks.

Not a bad deal.

But...the gearbox behaves strangely. I test raked with it for a ways, and it worked fine. Then I stopped to check the teeth.

When I got on the tractor to pull it away and actually rake, the gearbox suddenly developed a hard stop at one point in its rotation.

I can move the rake bars freely in the opposite direction that they are supposed to go...but if I try to rotate them in the direction that they turn while raking.... the gearbox catches...always at the same point in the rotation.

Now, I can force it past, if I lift up on the bar about as hard as I can... BANG! something in the gearbox pops and the bars turn... until it gets back to that point.

Anybody experience this?
 
I do not have one of those and never have had or messed with one but that sounds like a broken gear or something like that and the teeth do not line up when it locks up due to being missing
 

Yeah. Luckily, the reason we bought this rake was because we had found one just like it for 150 bucks in a hedge row at a neighbor's farm.

I figured that a rake and a parts rake for 325 bucks is a deal.

As luck would have it, the gearbox on the hedgerow rake is good. So I can swap gearboxes for now to get raking... maybe then I can take this one apart and figure out what the deal is.


Also, I should thank my wife... I told her about the Allis Chalmers rake at the auction. She also, by her own choice, picked up a nice New Holland 56 for under 900 bucks.

That New Holland rake has been doing the work while we figure out what's up with the Allis Chalmers.
 
The New Holland rake is the better of the rakes and parts are easier to find for it. A/C rakes are a bit less common and many no longer have parts supply since they are sort of obsolete. I have 2 old IH rakes that I got cheap and use the one for years till a gear broke. Both rakes had the same gear go and I found that was a common problem with them
 

I also wonder if there was some cross-pollination between Allis Chalmers and New Idea.

I also have a New Idea 451 rake. The frame of the New Idea looks exactly like the Allis Chalmers. I guess there are only so many ways that you can make a rake frame, but I swear they are just about interchangeable.

I'm actually kind of hoping that they are; because that was the other reason for buying the scrap Allis Chalmers rake. My New Idea rake rakes perfectly, but someone, in its previous life, bent the frame.

I was somewhat hoping to swap frame pieces or cut and weld some frame pieces from the Allis into the New Idea.

Mongrels galore...
 
Sounds like a broke gear.

Get it opened up and look, could get very lucky and just a bad bearing that 'drops' now and then. Gears will bust at some point.....

Paul
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top