Artie is underway! (Pics Added 1-2...6-7)

[gitractorman]

Here is a link to some pretty good articulated Cub Cadet builds. I don't know any of these guys, just ran across it when I was doing some research for my project.
http://www.mytractorforum.com/showthrea ... rticulated

[Paul B]

Bigbill,

cool, way to go. I been thinking about this for a while now. Can we power both hydro tranny's with one pump? And just run hoses to the tranny in the rear? I think we need to "TEE" each line to each tranny rather than take the exhaust to the other tranny. This would give us the same speed but we may need flow valves to put both tranny's in sync. So one tranny doesn't lag behind with one being closer to the pump over the other one.

You do realize that on a Cub Cadet the "pump assembly" IS the transmission on a hydrostatic transmission don't you? There is no place to connect or run hoses to, unlike a tractor such as a Case/Ingersol that basically uses a pump to drive a hydraulic motor rather than a true hydrostatic transmission.

Most articulated Cub Cadets I've seen use a drive shaft from the front hydro to drive the rear hydro, and use a teleflex/push pull type cable to connect the trunnions of the two units for control.

[BigBill]

If we can seperate the pressure line and tee it to run both tranny's thats a big plus rather than trying to put both setups in sync. Without a hydro tranny infront of me here its hard to plan and figure it out. My thoughts on this orginally was to use two standard tranny's with hydraulic motors in sync with one hydraulic pump on an engine and feed the tranny's thru a double detent hydraulic control valve so we would have a forward and reverse. We would have to figure out is 1st or 2nd would be the gear to have the tranny's locked in for the best performance. If we left it shiftable we'd have a stump puller in low range with the hydraulics. Its a very interesting project to work on i'm sure. JimT i wished i lived closer. Bill

[BigBill]

Bigbill,

cool, way to go. I been thinking about this for a while now. Can we power both hydro tranny's with one pump? And just run hoses to the tranny in the rear? I think we need to "TEE" each line to each tranny rather than take the exhaust to the other tranny. This would give us the same speed but we may need flow valves to put both tranny's in sync. So one tranny doesn't lag behind with one being closer to the pump over the other one.

You do realize that on a Cub Cadet the "pump assembly" IS the transmission on a hydrostatic transmission don't you? There is no place to connect or run hoses to, unlike a tractor such as a Case/Ingersol that basically uses a pump to drive a hydraulic motor rather than a true hydrostatic transmission.

Most articulated Cub Cadets I've seen use a drive shaft from the front hydro to drive the rear hydro, and use a teleflex/push pull type cable to connect the trunnions of the two units for control.

I understand that now while tryuing to remember how it looked when i fixed my neighbors 147 with the FEL. Its like one continous bolted together unit. Bill

[BigBill]

I think JimT will have a little animal of a 4x4 when its done. I'd have to work it a little anyhoo. Bill

I can picture 8 - 31"-1550-15 tru power duallies on it too. Thats one mean picture.....

[JimT]

Well I did a little cutting today. I think this is where the two halves are going to sit in comparison to each other.

Now I have to work on connecting them together.

[JimT]

For those who are wondering about the driveshaft, it's out of a cub cadet snowblower. I got in on E-bay.

They have a 3/4" keyed hole in each end with set screws. I got bushings from TSC that are 5/8" ID x 3/4" OD and one inch long. I will be drilling the shaft to use roll pins on each end.

[alabama mike]

interested in seeing your plan for the articulating joint, I'm following this build closely, I've been wanting to do this for a long time.

[BigBill]

Now you just need to turn the drive shaft to power it right?

I was thinking you may need two pillow blocks with a belt or chain drive on that shaft to spin it?

Too bad the tranny's can't be seperated from the pump units. Then you could drive the tranny's from one pump on the front of the engine. Then both would have the same ground speed. But maybe you can link the two shifters together in some way. Either way i'm bett'in JimT can do it for sure , he's da man......

An idea for the next progect is a mini forwarder??? (logs) Articulated with 3 driving axles and 12 - 31"-1550-15 tru power tires with chains. (mean looking) That would be awesome for moving firewood in log length.

My thoughts for many years was a 4x4 with dual rear axles. If we put a ford 70's transfer case in backwards we could drive two rear differentionals from it and have the drive shaft connected to the transfer case were the rear drive shaft would be normally. These fords had the transfer case mounted seperate from the tranny's using a short drive shaft orginally. So in high rage 4x4 all the shafts turned at the same speeds.

[JimT]

Well Artie is sitting on all 4's now. I got the two halves put together today. It turns pretty good also. Here are some photos of the progress.







The tire is about 6" off the floor and the other 3 tires are sitting on the floor.


This is the top mount joint.


This is the lower mount joint.


Now I have to work on putting in the steering cylinder and shift linkage. I will probably do a lot of chair sitting figuring this out.

Oh no, the wife is home now. Got to go help fix dinner.

[Bob McCarty]

Looking good!

Bob

[BigBill]

looks awesome!!!! Nice work, great thinking too.

[JimT]

Got a little more work done. Installed the hydrostat linkage and steering cylinder. It seems to work pretty good by dry running it. If I get more time tomorrow I'm going to put it up on jackstands and start it to see how it works with the trannys running. I connected them to the original lever on the dash. Here is a couple of photos. If everything works good I will probably start on the hydraulics for the steering next.

[56cub]

Very nice work!! Just curious how do you plan to control the steering cylinder, are you going use a steering wheel setup or some sort of levers?

Also I really like your set up for the hydro linkage. If I was building a project like that I would be sitting there scratching my head tring to figure out how to link them.

[JimT]

A friend of mine works on towmotors and he gave me a steering orbatol he had taken out of one. It is just sitting in the dash tower right now. I will have to make a mount and lower it down in the dash tower so I can put a sterring wheel on it.