Andres' Air Horse Restore

Thanks for the info Scott.  

The Air Horse is mostly figured out and done for now.  It's coming off of the forklift tomorrow and I'll get back to it after Andres comes up here to look things over with me.  The tug arms are off, the steering is apart, and everything is cleaned up to see how all of this this needs to be replaced or fixed.  

The 3rd pic has a piece of 3/4 rod in it which is supposed to fit snug to the lift arms, it's worn out and tapered pretty bad...  

Did a little more work over the past few weeks, all things that can be done here.  I've been sending pics of the tug to Tiffin and figuring out things that are missing and welds are present like the first pic.  I sent some more pics to them this morning because I think there may have been mods made to this that haven't been on ones I worked on previously.  It may be because this is one of the first generations they made so I need to get clarification from Tiffin to see.  If they are added mods they will be removed to get it the way it should be.  

The piece to the left in the first pic is the lift shoe holder that is worn on the right to the point it's unsafe.  This piece has been welded on before and has a lot of stress cracks in it now.  I can buy this piece from Tiffin for just a little more than I can invest to make it so it will be bought from them.

I came up with a nice solution to fix the holes in the lift arms with a hardened steel bushing at half the price of replacing the assy so it was done here.  A lot of aligning, getting the bushings just right, checking, countersinking spots for the welds, and getting it perfect but it's going to be better than a new one as well.  



 

More work on the lift arms.  Both sides of the arms were counter sunk for weld on both sides.  The assy was all squared up on the bench, then tack welded, then welded all the way around.  No chance of these guys coming out, I know, the usual overkill...  


More pics on finishing up the arms tomorrow.

 

Trying to get caught up on what's going on so far and all the pics of the progress.

A few pics of the lift arms with the bushings cut off, everything cleaned up and finished.  The 3/4" piece of rod in the 2nd pic inserted into the new bushing is the same size as the rods in the lifting shoes.  The play is gone and with the hardened bushings in there the arms will now last longer than when new.  Everything is square and the measurements are the same in the front and rear of the arms.  It was a lot of work but it was better than buying new ones and ended up to be less than half the price of buying them new.   

 

My friend Kevin was here last Sat and he helped me get this thing in 2 pieces so they were easier to get on and off of the forklift without having to spend all the time strapping it down.  Next big thing on the list was to get rid of the big mess someone made for the hydro steering and get it the way it belongs.  This is the start of that project.

 

I did some searching on the forum and found some pics of the hydro steering setup on the last 2 Air Horses I worked on, and also found a parts diagram from way back when they were still making Wheel Horse tugs from over 20 years ago.  The first pic is Jim's Air Horse that had the tower that was originally all broken up and welded to the frame, and the second is Scott's in the beginning.  

I also learned that the upper piece on Andres' steering valve must have been on something that had no top support so it was not needed.  After that I decided the first thing was to make a new custom steering shaft that would work in the tractor.  I started out with cutting down and starting to modify the 12 spine shaft in the old unit.  I was surprised to see that a pipe was used between the upper and lower pieces but there was just enough left to center and weld a 3/4" hardened bushing to the more solid piece toward the bottom.  

 

The steering lower shaft was finished last week.  I'm actually several days behind on posts but it's been crazy as usual... 

The plating was stripped off of a bushing in the lathe, then the 12 spline piece welded on, then the weld was cleaned up on the lathe.  The top part of the shaft when made will go in the other half of the bushing and most likely be drilled with a bolt or pin through it to make it easy to remove.  After the steering lower shaft was done it got some good used parts put on it to get everything ready to start on the correct alignment for the making of the hydro steering bracket. 

 

After the steering shaft bottom was done I took a break from the steering knowing the bracket and alignment was gonna take a lot of time and work to check on a few other things.  There were 2 braces welded between the top and bottom tug mount plates that didn't belong there so they got cut out to get the top plate off.  After that mess was all ground down and cleaned up it was time to check out what was going on with the cylinders and leaks.  More mess I'm afraid but consistent with everything else going on with this one.  The hoses between the two are incorrect and kinked too much, and both cylinders have bent rods.  There are rebuild kits available for these but with the bent rods that option is out the window.  How someone does this kind of damage is beyond me...  

The last 4 pics show more of the mess made putting the incorrect motor on it, rear frame damage, damage from the belt guard hitting the hydro pulley and eating most of the outer part of it away, and the misalignment of the pulleys.  Some peeps were just not cut out for mechanic work or modifications to say the least...  

Needless to say with this and all of the sheet metal, tower, dash, frame, and other things needing to be replaced plus new tug parts, tug work, steering work, done here, etc, etc, etc, the budget will not allow a full restore.  We have switched into getting the tug fixed and restored, and the steering setup fixed so it is at least usable.  We will have to replace some parts with a few good used parts like the dash, dash panels, fuel tank support, and a few other little things so it can be used but the tractor will not be able to be restored.  As with a lot of jobs I wish I could have gotten this one before someone else did their handy work but it is what it is...   

 

This is the start of the custom hydro steering bracket, it was started on last Friday.   It took a lot of time to make sure the alignment was right, it fit the dash panel the way it should, the play in the gear was centered, and it would end up being bolted where the original steering support was.  My test shaft was put in with a tight top bushing in the dash.  The 5th pic shows another 1" to 3/4" bushing clamped on the dash panel to make sure there was the proper clearance and centering there.  The top ended up being a straight up 90 degrees with good clearance for the frame bolts when done so that was nice.

A piece of metal was completely cleaned with a flap disk so it was ready to be welded wherever the need may be.  The top plate was made to use all 4 bolts with as much metal as possible up there to prevent breaking like the mount that was in it, and make it better than the original mount from Tiffin.  Tiffin also didn't weld on the bottom of the top bracket, they snugged it up against the pump.  You can see this in the pics of the other two Air Horses a few posts before this one.  I added a little clearance and moved the rear piece back a little so it could be welded from both sides.  The rear piece of metal was also angled to be wider on the bottom and extended above the top piece to make it stronger as well.  Every piece is longer or a little wider than need be to prevent cracking in the future, more metal is always a good thing if there's room for it.  Most of the force on this bracket is circular so it made sense to do it this way.   

I thought I had updated this more than I have, oops.  

These are more pics from Jan this year.  There are lots more but I'll try to keep it to 8 pics or so per day so peeps can keep up.  The top plate was welded on and the steering unit bolted to it. These pics are lining everything up, the steering shaft to the dash with the new steering shaft in, and the upper steering bracket to the lower plate that will bolt to the tractor.  After spot welding the lower part of the bracket it all came out again to weld the lower plate.