Archive through May 09, 2009

[dfrisk]

KENDELL - Saw all Your comments about "Hardware Store" steel & alum. My guess is that it's ALL imported steel anymore. There's two types of "Imported" raw materials. Most of the angle iron I buy for welding projects says "Made IN Canada" and is of great quality. Lot of imported metals from Europe are fine, Machine shop I bought several Million Dollars worth of parts from every year used almost exclusively European Brass, mostly from Switzerland. There were a couple US mills they'd buy from but the one mill, a "Sole Source" for one family of My parts they had constant quality problems with.

My guess is the source for the hardware store steel & alum. is CHINA. I just got a new FARM SHOW magazine yesterday and the one comment in "Nominate Your Best & Worst Buys" is priceless. That section is always a MUST READ. Guy bought a replacement #50 roller chain replacement sprocket for His silage chopper. Took two hours to remove the old worn sprocket that had lasted for decades, hour and a half to install the new replacement sprocket, and two hours to totally destroy the new sprocket when the questionable steel & heat-treatment caused ALL the teeth to bend and roll over so the sprocket became an idler. Even though most of the new steel, iron, copper/brass, aluminum, etc. processing plants are located in that country they Really haven't figured out how to compete in the World-Wide Marketplace. The bad taste of their dismal quality lingers in the mouth of the Buyer forever while the thoughts of the "Good Deal" fades away the instant the part fails.

Last driveshaft I put in My CC 72 I was going to make from 5/8" dia. STRESSPROOF steel. Everyone do a Google search if You've never heard of it. Then search for 1018 Cold Rolled steel and compare mechanical properties. I still have the Stressproof steel bar, but installed a driveshaft from Midwest SuperCub made from pre-hardened 4130 bar. You compare the spec's for the MWSC 4130 shaft and they're almost identicle to the Stressproof. I can't say how long the MWSC shaft will last, Last OEM shaft I bought was totally shot after 14-15 yrs. The MWSC shaft is only two yrs old.

 

[kide]

Dennis:
My 129 driveshaft and coupler are original. I rewelded the coupler years ago and put a hardened pin in the shaft - too broke (or cheap) at the time for new parts...I made a rag joint out of belting, too. I broke down a couple of years later and bought two replacements - one's still on the shelf (about 15 years later..)
One of the Yahoo Forum guys claimed to have seen some Chinese steel with a large file still visible in the slab - not sure whether this was during the rolling operation or before - he didn't say if there were fingers attached..

 

[aschumacher]

<font size="-2">..Darn it! Kendell busted the Forum again!</font>

 

[jclazar]

i would try to spend the extra $ for a part which i would get alot of use out of. i try to stay away from "made in china" because they are cheep.

 

[kysmith]

I bet you guys thought I was long gone!!!
Well, the auction is finally over and my baby still belongs to me!
So, I guess I'll slowly start the restoration process.
Going to go catch up on all the posts I've missed these past few days......

 

[dfrisk]

KENDELL - Having worked for a division of a large steel foundry located in the US, I always laughed at the ad in American Foundryman's magazine years ago. Guy all dressed up in African Tribal garb, mask and all saying something about "Pouring and Praying". The 5-6 yrs I spent at that foundry taught Me that ANY time You get molten metal in contact with things like air, sand, other types of metal, and people or animals Your just BEGGING for problems! Somebody slipped a couple pounds of aluminum scrap into a 22,000 pound heat of Chrome-nickel-Moly steel fortified with Boron for impact strength, Quite accidentally when Your loading ladels with electro-magnets. The aluminum somehow covered most of the grain boundarys of the castings and with it's poor mechanical properties the scrap shredding hammers made with that heat of steel actually fractured away in big chunks like they were made from glass instead of 55 Rockwell C hardened alloy steel. Another casting, an "L" cross section casting about 4-5 feet long and weighed close to 800# that was precision machined 100% all over, when the Tool Maker who machined the part was on the semi-finish pass on the planer mill uncovered a piece of clay from the molding sand inside the casting that had basically formed a "marble" about an inch in diameter, just happened to be in the most highly stressed part of the casting too.

And This was a GOOD Foundry!

I also used to buy truckloads of LARGE diameter cold-drawn aircraft quality alloy steel bars from a large steel service center, made by the US's best & largest alloy steel bar mill. Bors were either 100 or 110 inches long. While doing the small bit of machining to these bars the Machinist discovered a "Lamination" in the surface of the bar, right in the middle of the bar. A piece of steel had built up on the drawing dies and got pulled thru the dies with the rest of the bar, couple taps with a hammer & chisel and the lamination fell off. Took Me a couple months to get My Money back from that bar!

The difference between US and China produced materials is some parts I bought from China a couple years ago "Split Length-wise". I got parts from three different heats of material and ALL three heats were off analysis on one or more elements. Even the mill's Independent Testing lab couldn't agree with which elements were off and by how much!

But the Good News is, If You want to know for 100% positively sure how good Your base metal is in a part, either heat-treat it or chrome plate it.

 

[pfunk]

I've been working on a writeup on how a voltage regulator on older model Cub Cadet's works and how to check it out. You can see it here:

www.cubcadetman.com

I'm hoping some Forum members that know a lot more about this stuff then I do can check out what I wrote and suggest corrections. Please email me with any corrections or suggestions. You can also use the contact information contained on the website. Thanks

 

[rmeyer]

Originally posted in the wrong forum. Lawn tractors.
?Voltage regulator on a 1250
Being new, I hope I posted in the corect forum.
I have an electrical background and will start out simple.

1) The lead to the B+ terminal broke or burnt off. When I take an ohmmeter All readings look like a diode reactions when I reverse the leads, except I get the a reading from B+ to the top AC terminal as a dead short. Is the module bad?

2) What voltage should I expect between AC and AC?

3) Is this a true regulator or just a bridge rectifier?
If it is a bridge rectifier, I can buy one from an electonic supply house for under $20 versus the $57-$80 I have seen online for the part.

The part is Kohler 41 403 01B.
I tried a 40 amp full bridge rectifier today. I did not have a steady voltage B+ to ground. Bouncing between 16.4 and 19.2. The rectifier was very hot after about 4 minutes of run time. I guess I will spend the money for the correct part.

 

[blitka]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has the procedure for setting the govenor linkage on a 1450? I had to remove the linkage to repair loose engine tins.

 

[mgonitzke]

Ben L.-

http://cubfaq.com/govadjust.html

This is all in the Kohler manual, which you can download for free from their website.