Cast iron or cast aluminum cyclops nose replacement?

[a3v03v0]

Originally Posted by Sam Mac

What Mike said. I've bought plenty of them with busted plastic. I have never had a problem with one myself. The 2182 I'm working on now has a broken grill, I'll probably put a new grill on it for around $140.00. Just my 2 cents but a decent bumper would be cheap insurance if your prone to running into things.

Well put. Even the non plastic front ends and grills are often broken.

[markmdz]

I haven't forgotten about this topic, but after calling around to a couple local foundries and a few out in the midwest, I was either shut down right off the bat, or was told that they'd want a near fortune for each piece (one foundry said 800-1k each) which just about made me throw up. We're not doing cast silver, we're talking about cast iron or cast aluminum.

Oh well.

I'm still going to explore other options, but that's been put on hold for the winter as I'm a bit busy with all the snow.

I realize there are a few nay-sayers on the thread talking about how someone must abuse or bang into stuff with their machines if they're worried about cracked noses, and even one comment about seeing plenty of busted cast noses...

To that, although I haven't had many cyclops or other plastic-nosed tractors (compared to how many n/f's I've had) I can say that more than 9 out of 10 of all plastic-nosed tractors I've seen (including other makes) have had some sort of damage to them. ...and aside from one very clearly beaten on (I'm talking it looks like someone got over zealous with a hammer), I've never seen a busted cast iron or cast aluminum nose. Sure I've seen some stripped out or cracked holes in some cast aluminum pieces, but nothing that really affected the structure of the piece.

Anyway, I'm off my soapbox now. I'll keep trying to find a way to get it cast at an affordable price. In the meantime, I'll make sure I only use my narrow-frame machines a battering rams.

[inspectorudy]

I had similar problems on some of the later plastic John Deere GT's and I started re-enforcing them with metal at the weak spots. I would bend and cut the new metal piece to match the plastic part that was weak and then bond the metal to the the big side panel and some on the mounting bracket. It seemed to work well and if you do it before it snaps or cracks then it is much easier. I used the two tube dispenser type epoxy and if you rough up the smooth areas and clean them really good it will bond beautifully. The second thing I did was to add a front bumper on them. With a plastic nose a bumper should have been a no brainer for CC and JD.