D-180 Front axle

[JamesBe1 84]

I have two D-180's One I got a few years ago with an FEL. Had lots of problems with it, but am close to getting it running with a donor engine and help from some of the great people here.

I was swapping the engine, and noticed a difference in the front axles.

Here is the front axle from the one with the FEL:

The two bolts on the ends have always bugged me, but not knowing any better, I let it slide.

Here is the front axle from the donor D-180

Obviously a big difference. The FEL D-180 seems to have a smaller axle on it. Anybody know what that might be off of?

I'm finding more and more that the FEL D-180 is an amalgam of parts from different tractors. I recently noticed that the rear wheels on the FEL D-180 only have five lugs, while the donor D-180 has six lugs. Checking the parts breakdown, I see that six lugs are the norm. Obviously the hubs are off of something else. Given that I like the AG tires on it, and the horror stories I hear about getting hubs off, I am planning on keeping the five lug hubs and tires.

Anyhow, I thought I'd throw that out there to see if anyone here had any thoughts as to why the axles might be different other than it being a frankenstein tractor. I'm wondering if I should go to the trouble of swapping the front axles since the one with the smaller axles will have the FEL.

James

[Kelly 1,038]

The bright red axle looks like a cub cadet axle, I'm thinking like a 1650 or something like that.

[73-18 automatic 8]

The bright red axle looks like a cub cadet axle, I'm thinking like a 1650 or something like that.

I agree with Kelly and the donor tractor has the correct axle the only difference is some had 3/4 axle's and other's had 1" axle's

[JamesBe1 84]

A cub axle??? Is that even possible? Wow.

I'm definitely going to have to swap the axles between the tractors. I never liked the way it sat in the front end anyhow. Sometimes I noticed that one of the tires isn't vertical. I hope the rims swap nicely. The ones on the bright red tractor are in much better shape.

This is turning out to be almost a never-ending quest to finish this tractor. Oh the humanity!

[wheeledhorseman 579]

James, that's going to be a really nice tractor when you finish it.

Re the axle, it's yet another example of "Look what a PO managed to do to my 'D' " - when all these restos are done and dusted we ought to post a thread under that title as I'm sure there would be many contributions to be made.

On the plus side the photos led me to your album - don't know why but I've missed out on that till now. I'm looking forward to having a good look through tonight when I get home.

Andy

[JamesBe1 84]

Thanx Andy.

Yeah, I think a "Previous Owner" thread would be hilarious. Maybe make some grown men cry. Some of Jeff's pics were pretty scary.

Someday I am actually going to finish this thing. Being between job makes money tight and time cheap (it's usually the other way around). Good thing I'm a born cheapskate. I would rather rather source and replace a small component than to throw away and replace the next-higher-assembly.

My pics aren't all that great. Mostly lots of rust! There is one that I put there yesterday. It is the one of the bear that I tried to attach to an IM to you that made it blank.