More work on the 312-8

[Stigian 1,235]

Morning Guy's the 312-8 has been my most used Wh, and has never let me down.

But the time as come where the poor machine needs a bit of love and attention.

The new front tire you might has spotted in another post but as they are part f the 312's story I thought id stick em in this thread as well.

A big to Michael (Fordsonmajortom) for the Raider 12 front wheels.

Speaking of Michael, here's another thank you for the new oil seals for his trans.

It,s one of those "almost" limited slip diff units, it came from a 71 Raider 10.

The trans now looks like this..

It will get the new oil seals as soon as I can work out which "safe place" i have hidden them

Fitting this trans to the 312 has been a plan for a long time, it has just taken quite a while for me to get round to doing it

But before the trans swap another job I have been planning to do is to find a way of tying the roll bar onto the chassis as it was just bolted to the trans..

Hmm... Not easy with so little space and a drive belt in the way..

This is the point where we might of lost the plot a little!!

For the roll cage idea to work the roll bar needed widening.

Now comes in kit form!!

But where to find some more scaffold pole to widen the roll bar

The bench now has wooden legs..

[Stigian 1,235]

A short while later the new widened roll bar was tacked together.

Sorry, bit of a bad photo. The front of the cage is mounted to a pair of cut down quick release bracket thingys.

One of the uprights tacked on. these will be removable and fit over smaller box welded to the cross beam, but were tacked on to help work out the rest of the cage.

Have an action shot of Garry doing he's world famous "setting himself on fire trick" while cutting some box up

And this is how it stood at the end of that day, one side mocked up.

[Stigian 1,235]

The next morning however I got down the shack, coffee in hand, rolled a smoke and sat and had a good look at the cage..

By the time I had finished to coffee I came to the conclusion that I just didn't like the look of the cage. It would of taken something away from the 312's looks and not added to it.

Soooo.

Off most of it came.

Lots of ing later another way of strengthening the roll bar had been worked out.

The rails that run forward will be fixed to the new cross member at the front with a couple of brackets each side.

Plenty of room to get a drive belt on without having to take the roll bar off

Oh, and yes the bench legs are much shorter now

[hoosier 1]

As always, another fun read. Thanks :notworthy:

[Sparky-(Admin) 24,035]

Looks like you have a plan Ian, and then another plan Ian, and then another plan Ian....... .

So will the new "cage" get a roof or sides? I'm amazed at the number of Redsquare guys with cabs this year and figured your tryin to get in on the action .

Mike.........

[WHC-125 4]

Mike, ya beat me to it!

Ian, I could picture you driving everywhere with the 312 with cab and lights. Lets not for get the beer holder(I mean soda )

Great Job! :notworthy:

[sawhorse 0]

I'd really like to see how the trans swap turns out. I may do that to my machine

someday with the spare trans I have. That is, if I ever fix what is wrong with

the spare trans. Other than not working, the swap is very similar because my 310

has the 1 inch axles and I would exchange it for the older trans like yours with

1 and 1/8 inch axles.

Good luck Ian and thanks for the photos.

[Stigian 1,235]

As always, another fun read. Thanks

Thanks Hoosier, sorry about my lack of posts of late.

It's been a strange few weeks, not been able get get my head around what I have been trying to do!!

This photo should ive you all an idea on how my brain has been..

Can you spot what's wrong???

Mike and Chris - Sorry no roll cage or cab on this WH. If I can build a cab thingy that looks in scale with the rest of an 'orse (and i could fit in it) than maybe one day.

Jon - Fitting the older trans (1971) to a newer WH (1988-ish) was not as easy as I thought it was going to be.. Read on and you will see why..

So back to the build...

Finding a way of fixing the extended roll bar rails to the new front X-member was easy.

One bracket..

And number two on the now trimmed down X-member.

Here's the finished front X-member being displayed by Garry..

A BIG Thank you at this point to GlenJeri for shipping out a couple of WH flags and patch.

Many thanks Sir

At this point what there was of a roll bar was taken off the 312 for a bit of welding.

Welding done, the roll bar went back on the 312 to have the...er... roll bar fitted.

When we first built the 'bar we should of built it a tad wider than we did.

Then it was widened to build the roll cage, but it looked too wide.

Yep you guessed it right, this time only widened by a small amount, 6 inches.

Meanwhile....

[Stigian 1,235]

After a coffee and smoke we felt up to the job of getting the roll bar back on.

And fitting a couple of hefty strengthening plates.

At long last those nasty triangular sticking up bits of steel created by cutting the 'bar up got cut off and welded back on in their rightful place.

This photo also show's the cut off remains of the old mounts that used to mount with the towing pin on the back of the trans.

While on the subject of mounts, I was never that happy with the original 'bar top trans mount as it used one of the trans case bolts.

So off it came, only a bit of tube to cut though.. or so I thought...

I forgot about the chuck of Westwood axle that I had welded inside

Having cut some metal out, I thought replacing it might be a good idea.

The bit of box looks much more "in keeping" with the rest of the 'bar

Parts of the old towing pin mountings got reused and extended a bit.

And made into a stronger towing pin mount.

Over at the bench four odd bits of steel and one nut got welded together to make this strange bracket

Which was welded to the rear hitch thingy but bolted into the roll bar frame.

It should add a vast amount of strength to the rear hitch when the snowplow/blade is fitted on.

[HorseFixer 2,013]

Looks like you have been busy again Ian! Uhhhm yer Bosch grinder has like double sanding disks on it Maybe thats for sharpening the Ole' Ladys Kitchen Knifes! :notworthy:

[Stigian 1,235]

Your close with the double sanding disc's Bob, I forgot to take a cutting disc off before putting the grinding disc on

Still loads more to come folk's so id better get on with it

The roll bar came off once more for final welding and a few more strengthening plates.

And then back on again to checked nothing had moved during welding..

Oh, and a chance for some daft photo's

Standard length.

The new extended wheelbase..

The stupid length extended wheelbase..

And the "oops it's broken" wheelbase

Time to get the paint out.. Black on the roll bar.

And red on the rest.

By far the worst job on a WH so far for me has been changing the oil seals on the trans. Fitting the new ones was easy, it was getting the old ones out the was a right pain

Seals done, a few bit's were needed off the original 312 trans, brake drum and band and the pulley.

Still more to come as soon as I get more photos up on Photobucket, so back very soon.

[Stigian 1,235]

At last.. the end is in sight... Time to put the 312 back together

First on the new trans.

It didn't take long for more problems to show their ugly face..

This time it was the high/low shift lever on the '71 trans that got in the way of the 312's parking brake.

The original 312's shift stick is a different shape!!

The '71 high/low lever refused to come off the trans no matter what I tried, so the only way out of this problem was a "cut and shut" job.

I guess the earlier trans is a little bit bigger in places than the 312's as the towing pin mount on the roll bar didn't fit..

Back out with the grinder and welded again for a quick bit of cutting and extending.

No photo's of that but here's one of the freshly repainted mount being "express" dried

And this my fellow Wheel Horse freaks is how the 312 looked at the end of yesterday.

The roll bar is finally fitted and bolted down, and the big wheels are back on...

So all being well the 312 should be finished Monday and I can drive it again :notworthy:

[can whlvr 994]

she will be a beast of a horse,nice job

[rickv1957 77]

Looking good!! Rick

[Stigian 1,235]

Happy you like the 312 Guy's

The good news is she is back together and running great.

The trans which was a bit of an unknown works well and has no oil leaks

With the roll bar sorted the time had come to see if my snowplow/blade thingy still fitted.

Loads of space under the new roll bar rails

Not quite so much space when the blade angle change lever bolts on..

Hhmmm.

And this will be today's fun and games.. Trying to work how to fit the angle change lever somewhere through this tangle of axle, pto, roll bar frame and foot plate thingy.

Wish me luck, this should be interesting

And just in case your wondering why im sorting the snowplow thingy and not getting on with Project 6x6, it's because the snow here could start any day :WRS:

[Sparky-(Admin) 24,035]

Wish me luck, this should be interesting

You know you dont need luck Ian, just a fresh pot-o-coffee and some smokes and you'll have it all figured out.

Mike..........

[rickv1957 77]

Ian,looks great!!,Rick

[Stigian 1,235]

Morning guy's.

You know you dont need luck Ian, just a fresh pot-o-coffee and some smokes and you'll have it all figured out.

The coffee and smoke's didn't work this time Mike, and I did try a lot of coffee

Ian,looks great!!

Thanks Rick

Well, despite lots of coffee and smoke I just couldn't get my head around how to find the space to fit the blade angle change lever in what little space was available.

A bit more playing about showed there just wasn't the space to even run the old linkage rod back without it hitting the front tires..

I even tried a kinda "push/pull" lever, but mocking up showed the blade was almost impossible to move mostly due to it's heavy weight!!!

With a big sigh and time running out rapidly I realized that I just didn't have the time to sort the angle change lever out.. Anyway, it's not much of a hardship to have to get off the 'orse to change the angle..

To make the snowplow/blade thingy last a bit longer it got a coat or two of red stuff.

Only a bit of patching up on the back of the blade.

A bit more was needed on the front of the blade though..

By the end of Wednesday the plow had all got a good coating.

Jumping forward to about 3.30 Thursday afternoon, the plow had got a second coat of paint, been express dried, and all fitted up on the 312 ready for some snowplowing action..

Oh, this was the reason why I was in such a rush to get the snowplow sorted..

This was 10.30 Thursday night

[JimD 3,347]

looks great ian, and i hate to poke and prod, but i can't wait to se some pics or a video or her in action. oh, and make sure to get one of the cup/bottle holder..

jim

[sawhorse 0]

Stigian,

Thanks for the transmission installation pictures. I am glad I got to see the

fitment of the older transmission to the newer tractor. The whole thing looks

great. Thanks for the pictures.

Sawhorse