New seat for the Bolens/Iseki tractor
June 4, 2020
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.
Bolens G174/Iseki 1500 Review
August 10, 2011
Mike
Northeast Connecticut
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Mike:
Yes, the 17 hp diesel has lots of power to run 48″ mowers through whatever I face. Its radiator sheds seeds well and doesn’t plug in tall hay or weeds. It bulls through spruce boughs without damage. In 4 low it’s a mountain goat, even with turf tires. The diff lock is occasionally useful.
The smooth tires aren’t so great in mud pulling a trailer, but that’s to be expected. On the other hand the Bolens will mow over soft ground that I can’t touch with my heavier tractors until much later in the year.
It doesn’t have enough lift to skid logs with my mid-sized winch, but the pto will pull them out to the road and it will carry the 500 pound implement around for me.
It needs the three weights on the front. Beware rearing with a load on the 3 pt hitch on a hill unless you have the weights. It has no overrunning clutch, so you MUST buy and attach one to the pto shaft before running a rotary mower. A finish mower is fine without.
Without live pto the Bolens would make a lousy snowblower tractor. Beware leaving the key on. It kills the battery on mine. Parts are available.
The thing gets way more hours than I anticipated.
Buy one of those triangles for trailer hitches. It’s very handy for jockeying trailers around the lawn between mowing sessions.
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UPDATE, 14 MARCH, 2013
For the winter I have fitted the tractor with a pair of tire chains off my dad’s old military surplus jeep. I extended the chains about 2 to 3″ with extra links for the fit. The increase in traction meant that the Bolens could work all winter if I kept it out of the cold. It doesn’t like to start without plugging in if it’s much below freezing. The simple solution was to appoint it Garage Queen for the winter. That way there was always a clear path among the woodworking tools to the woodpile, and its primary function was to haul wood to the pile on its 10 cu. ft. 3 pt hitch dump box, anyway.
BTW: that dump box is an excellent implement for this tractor, if you can find one. Mine was marketed by Walco and I found it used at a farm equipment dealer. Several searches of the Internet haven’t turned up another example of the type, though.
In early winter while my 35 hp loader tractor was broken down I pressed the Bolens into service on a 7′ 3 pt hitch blade. It lifted and dragged the blade well enough, but as snow volume increased it had nowhere nearly enough weight to shift the drifts away from the centre of the long driveway. If you want to use the blade to clear a rink, the Bolens would likely do a good job, but it’s outgunned in heavy snow unless it has a front blower. The front pto operates independently of the 1 stage clutch, so it likely works well in this application.
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The Bolens uses about 1 litre of diesel per hour, and it’s a pleasant thing to run.
UPDATE, 29 December, 2014
The Bolens originally had a pair of hydraulic auxiliary fittings installed, so I reconnected them.
I have used the Bolens a great deal over the last year on a small hydraulic tipping trailer I bought new. The single axle Chinese import is 44″ wide and about 7′ long with sides about 15″ high. A pair of off-road tires sit beneath the box. The sides and/or the tailgate fold down for loading, and of course it can be configured as a little dump truck. It holds about 3500 pounds of gravel without distress.
It’s very handy for pruning trees. The rig fits down narrow alleys and turns easily.
For firewood I find the best feature of the trailer is the folding sides. I can slide substantial blocks onto the bed, then shift them to the block splitter with only the single lift from the ground.
The rig is also small enough I can back it into my workshop for easy stacking of firewood right from the trailer bed.
While the Bolens doesn’t have the hydraulic pressure (1600 lb/sq. in.)to dump a trailer load of gravel (neither does my TAFE), my 21 hp Kubota B7510 with its system tuned to 2600 lb. tows and dumps gravel quite well.
Hope this helps,
Rod
Update 13 September, 2015
The following article contains an accident report of some significance. Short version: don’t tow a trailer much wider than your tractor.
UPDATE: 18 MARCH, 2019
The Bolens is still working around the farm. I should mention a session it had at the local tractor dealer, though. The clutch began to misbehave in early 2017, working only intermittently. Eventually it quit clutching, so I loaded the tractor onto a trailer and dropped it at Feenstra’s Farm Equipment in Athens.
A few days later they called and I picked it up only to face a bill of a bit over $900. It was all for labour.
Turned out the clutch was full of mud, and it took twelve hours with a toothbrush (metaphor) to clean up the bell housing, the clutch plate and the rest, and re-assemble the tractor. The tech also cleaned the glow plugs.
The only time the tractor had been stuck in mud was when I buried it in clay at my friend’s house while we were landscaping under his deck posts with a box scraper. It spent the night in the springy bog, and the clutch-contaminant must have leaked back into the bell housing through the drain. That was four or five years before the clutch actually quit working.
It starts better in winter now since I went with Shell Rotella 0W50 synthetic oil. The tractor hauls the trailer when the Kubota is on the wood chipper. Around the lawns it’s handy to get rid of the chips without having to rake them up. For extended runs on the 7.5 kw pto generator, I use the Bolens because it uses so much less diesel than the 21 hp Kubota, as well. But its primary use is to jockey trailers around the yard. Its 3 pt hitch will lower the hitch bar right down to the ground. The Kubota’s is held up pretty high by the design of the tractor and the mid-mount mower.
Spring and fall involve lawn cleanup. I run both small tractors at this, the Kubota on an estate rake, one of those things with a series of four rotating, vertical rakes suspended over a little triangular trailer, producing a windrow. I follow it with the Bolens on a ground-driven sweeper to gather up the munge in spring and the leaves in fall. I can get over the two acres of lawns in a few hours, spread over about a week, as things dry out in spring or leaves fall in October.
I should mention as well that I had to order new front tires for the Bolens from the local tire dealer. They cost a bit over $400 installed for the pair, but they are identical to the original tires. I don’t know if they make rear tires for the tractor any more, but there are still years of life left in them yet.
the Walnut Diary 