[NUTNDUN]

I had got to talking to Daniel down at the Ball Hollow Plow Day about how the foot / hand hydro control lever never wanted to stay in place on my Bush Hog HD-12. Daniel said there is a set screw on the lever to adjust tension against a piece of clutch type material. This has been in my mind since we left plow day. Especially since Erica almost ran me over when I was trying to show her the ins and outs of plowing with the HD-12.

She was using the hand lever and wanting to just move it a little bit and expected it to stay but mine would always go full bore within a matter of a couple of seconds once you got it out of the detent if you were not using your foot to control it. I was able to talk her in to using the foot control but I knew she wasn't completely comfortable. She did a great job though plowing and she had a lot of fun.

The other item I wanted to take care of was to put the muffler back on. I guess the older I get the less I could care about having a stack. Always having to make sure you remembered the ear muffs or ear plugs and not being able to even think. I had the muffler from when the Wisconsin was in the HD-12 and when I first swapped in the Kohler K341 16hp I had put this muffler on. However I was having issues with it not wanting to run right and swapped the muffler for the stack temporarily. Laziness got the best of me once I figured out it was the points causing the problems and i never put the muffler back on.

I had the pieces I needed for pipe and elbows to make it look as close to factory as possible. Only difference is the exhaust is on the right side of the Kohler as opposed to the left side with the Wisconsin. I also can't use the factory heat shield but plan on making one here soon.

Once I had the muffler done I went and tinkered with the hydro control lever. Pulled the set screw out that Daniel mentioned at plow day and used a small scribe to feel if there was still any clutch material and sure enough there was. Put the set screw back in and adjusted it till it had a decent bit of tension. At least enough to hold the lever in any position without moving unless moved by the operator.

The other thing I didn't care for on the foot pedal was how far forward you needed to tilt your foot to go full forward. I noticed the linkage was in the middle hole on the lever so I moved it to the outer most hole. Also adjusted it to where when in full reverse the bottom of the foot pedal was about a 1/4" off the foot rest. I gotta say these couple of adjustments have made a world of difference. I even had Erica come out and drive it around and she gave it a thumbs up also. And we ran it without ear plugs

 

[Bill56]

Sounds like you had a good "fix it" day!

 

[KennyP]

Glad to hear you working on tractors again!

 

[olcowhand]

Glad to see/hear you're back into the GT's more these days. What with your surgery and work stresses, I know it put a damper on things for a time. The hydro going full-bore is what Hogzilla was doing that inspired me to go back to hand control. In high range it still tends to jump to full speed, but my brake tension system on the hydro works great in low range.

 

[sacsr]

Looking good George! That nelson muffler really cuts out on the noise. I have one with that muffler and one with a typical tractor muffler....the nelson is definitely quieter.

Glad you got the shifter fixed.....scared the heck out of me the first time it jumped on me when it was plowing. Once I figured it out.....just don't push it too far forward!! I too need to adjust my foot pedal to where I could actually use it.

Your HW-12 is one sweet machine. You have it set up nice and even with my poor tractor plowing skills, made the job look easy.

Thanks for letting me get to use it for my first time plowing! Good memories!