the Walnut Diary

When the 1980 Bolens G174 was pressed into garden-watering duty this month, the ancient tin seat crumbled under the attention, so I was in the unenviable position of having to fit a replacement which came with many threaded holes in the bottom of the pan, but nothing for the pivot pin which holds the seat to fit into.

There were a few pieces of 2X2 steel angle iron leaning in a corner of the shop and a 14″ cut-off saw, so I set about to fabricate something.  I tried ripping the 12″ piece of angle to reduce its contact thickness toward the rear of the seat.  That worked reasonably well for the right side, but then it is always more difficult to do the other one.  I drilled and bolted the end of the second piece to the blade slot at the rear of the chop saw and had at it with the saw, popping a 15A breaker in the shop several times before I moved the material around in the slot to reduce the contact point for the blade.

Then the drill press produced a couple of nice holes for the pin, but that left the seat tilted forward at a very awkward angle, and putting undue pressure on the operator’s lower back.  This would not do.  I had to raise the front of the seat.

Planning to weld something to the front of the rails I had fabricated, I cut a 1 1/4″ cross section of angle iron, thinking I would split it and see how that fit.  Instead I took the angled piece to a granite boulder near the shop, placed it on the makeshift anvil, and clobbered it with my 8 pound sledge hammer.  On the first attempt the steel vaporized, only to re-appear some thirty feet away on the driveway.  Next try it took its punishment and flattened out sufficiently that the drill press vice could hold it, so I ran four holes into it and another one for the other side, sanded off the burrs on the 12″ disk sander, and bolted the new flanges to the rails with a view to welding them into place.

“If I weld these flanges, they will no longer be adjustable.  What if I just over-tighten the bolts and try that temporarily?”

The temporary fix seems to have worked.  It widened the footprint of the seat front to where the pin had room to fit with both rubber grommets attached.  After a test drive I spotted a can of black spray paint, so I had at the fresh metal surfaces before rust set in.

So far, so good.

BTW:  The seat came from TSC Canada, was made in Turkey, I think, and cost about $185 CDN plus taxes.

UPDATE:  11 December, 2020.   That new seat is very comfortable, and has worked all summer without adjustment or repair.  I find it at least as good as the upscale $300 Kubota seat I bought from the dealer to replace the crappy original one which came on my B7510.  The Bolens received a lot of hours this summer and fall.  The Kioti eventually took over watering duties for the garden, but the Bolens skidded to the burn pile many pines which had died from blister rust amid the various tight stands on the property.  It also ran the generator a couple of times during power outages.  Its little Mitsubishi twin cylinder engine is still my favourite diesel on the farm.