For those who have an old Woods 18 foot bush hog, where the hinges on the wings broke off, you may not need to fret. One of our friends told us that most of the right hand side hinges had completely rusted and/or broke off on his bush hog making it useless for him to use. Three people turn him down when asked if they could repair it, so he finally came to us. At first it looked pretty bad. But once we looked it over, it really wasn’t that difficult to repair. What really made it challenging was handling it due to its large size and our small tractors. If you got larger equipment, or a few extra hands, repairing the hinge section is not that complicated.
First we removed the whole wing section. Then we cut out the rusted and broken sections. We welded a new 2”x3”x3/16” L-shaped angled steel on both side where the hinges would be placed. This gave us enough metal and strengthened the section to attach the new hinges to.
The ¾” rod was still usable and if we had to replace it the cost would be not too bad. However, for the hinges we needed to replace them. We were looking at a 1.25” OD x .875” ID steel tube to do the job. We figured we needed approximately 6 feet of it, which would have cost over $80.00 and would give us a 1/8” clearance when the ¾” rod would be inserted through the hinge.
What we did use instead was a schedule 40 - 1” pipe and a ¾” pipe, which you can insert the ¾” pipe into the 1” pipe to get approximately the same size. Actually, the clearance between the rod and hinge using the pipe idea was even better than the steel tube. Total cost for both pipes came to about $30.00. Yes, we did have to cut the pipes to length, which we would still have had to do if we went with the steel tube, and then press fit them together. The best part was we did not have to do any machining for the press fitting. There nominal sizes were good enough to press fit together without having to do any turning. We did chamfer the edges to remove any burrs and aid in the press fitting though. Plus it made the part look a lot cleaner.
After the parts were made it was just a matter of laying them out to be welded to the L-shape angle steel. All in all it was rather simple to make the repair. I hope this encourages anyone out there that may have a similar problem and is afraid to take it on. The hardest part for us was in the handling of the bat wing, since we have rather small tractors compared to our friend. However, with a little ingenuity and a few friends this project was easy. Our friend drove away with a smile on his face and a workable bush hog again.
First we removed the whole wing section. Then we cut out the rusted and broken sections. We welded a new 2”x3”x3/16” L-shaped angled steel on both side where the hinges would be placed. This gave us enough metal and strengthened the section to attach the new hinges to.
The ¾” rod was still usable and if we had to replace it the cost would be not too bad. However, for the hinges we needed to replace them. We were looking at a 1.25” OD x .875” ID steel tube to do the job. We figured we needed approximately 6 feet of it, which would have cost over $80.00 and would give us a 1/8” clearance when the ¾” rod would be inserted through the hinge.
What we did use instead was a schedule 40 - 1” pipe and a ¾” pipe, which you can insert the ¾” pipe into the 1” pipe to get approximately the same size. Actually, the clearance between the rod and hinge using the pipe idea was even better than the steel tube. Total cost for both pipes came to about $30.00. Yes, we did have to cut the pipes to length, which we would still have had to do if we went with the steel tube, and then press fit them together. The best part was we did not have to do any machining for the press fitting. There nominal sizes were good enough to press fit together without having to do any turning. We did chamfer the edges to remove any burrs and aid in the press fitting though. Plus it made the part look a lot cleaner.
After the parts were made it was just a matter of laying them out to be welded to the L-shape angle steel. All in all it was rather simple to make the repair. I hope this encourages anyone out there that may have a similar problem and is afraid to take it on. The hardest part for us was in the handling of the bat wing, since we have rather small tractors compared to our friend. However, with a little ingenuity and a few friends this project was easy. Our friend drove away with a smile on his face and a workable bush hog again.
