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Farmall BN Gets Hydraulic Lift Blade
Bob Simpson wanted to push dirt and snow with his little Farmall BN, so he built a frame, mounted a blade and came up with a nifty hydraulic lift. He was given the BN to restore when he retired in 2002. He installed new governor gears and tires and gave it a paint job. However, since adding the blade, the showpiece has turned into a workhorse.

    “I’ve used it to move snow, but also a lot of dirt,” says Simpson. “I’ve probably moved 100 tons of dirt with it.”

    To mount the blade, Simpson fabricated a frame out of 2-in. square tubing and 1 1/2-in. steel pipe. The 4-ft. wide frame is attached to the tractor’s drawbar at the rear and hangs by chains from a rocker arm mounted beneath the bell housing.

    “I welded a short length of 2-in. pipe to braces that run up to the bell housing,” says Simpson. “The rocker arm is a 1 1/2-in. pipe that pivots inside the larger pipe.”

    A hydraulic cylinder mounted to the drawbar end of the frame is pinned to a short lever welded to the backside of the rocker arm. When the cylinder extends, it rotates the rocker arm, and the chains lift the blade.

    “When the cylinder is retracted, the blade either floats or digs in depending on how the lift chains are adjusted,” explains Simpson. “The blade weight does all I need.”

    A power steering pump salvaged from a 1972 Chevy pickup provides hydraulic power for the cylinder.

    “A friend of mine was rebuilding the BN’s generator and suggested welding a second pulley to the generator and belting it to the power steering pump,” says Simpson. “I made a bracket for the pump, and it has worked well.”

    Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Robert W. Simpson, 31 Dales Rd., Indiana, Penn. 15701 (ph 724 349-3523).


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2018 - Volume #42, Issue #6