I didn't really check the level. doesn't look like engine oil though.
So I have a forklift and a reasonable amount of room. I also have a car lift that I thought I might use to stabilize things? I have enough tools to do most things with a car but no specialty "tractor" tools. This will be my first time working on the tractor.
I've scoured the internet looking for the WSM but for this tractor is just not available. I think I'll have to buy a paper copy if you think that would be helpful.
-Mike
support the front half with the loader frames. I put jack stands under them and shim the stands with plywood or sheet metal so that they both support the front of the tractor at just the right level. This takes some practice to know how much tension to put on the jack stands at rest before splitting. I have used screw jacks for this in the past, I suppose scissor jacks would work as well. I've never had luck with fork truck to support/move them, unless they're already split and I'm moving half of it outside out of the way so I can split another one. One time I had two identical tractors split and forgot to tag whose was whose. That was interesting....
if y'aint got a loader on it, you'll have to support the front half somehow. Maybe make up some cribbing under the oil pan or something. The pan is really thick, and cast aluminum, you aren't gonna hurt it. The biggest thing here is to make a way to keep the engine/front from pivoting side-to-side as you split it. I made some wood wedges but they were never the right size, never stayed in place either. At one point I had a set of adjustable J-hooks that clipped onto the frame and then had a bolt adjuster on the outside that you could adjust. They were SLICK, but they 'disappeared' (along with some other stuff) when one of the techs suddenly quit. Funny how that works.
For the smaller tractors I sometimes used an electric pallet stacker (fork over leg) to move half of the tractor, but had to crib the forks with wood blocks. That worked "pretty good". BUT, IMO, a floor jack works better. I put the floor jack pad under the mid section, while leaving the front half on jackstands, then use the floor jack to roll the back half away from the front. The biggest challenge is keeping the jack from turning sideways, I sometimes would either use a helper, or if the other tech was gone or real busy, I'd put a bungee strap around the jack handle to hold it tight up against the drawbar frame. This worked decent.
Ideally a track system is used in conjunction with a screw jack so that the jack lifts a half, and the track keeps it going in a straight line fore and aft. This makes reassembling the halves MUCH easier! I was fixing to make a track system but ended up leaving the dealer before I could acquire all the parts. Now, with zero need for it, I scrapped the plan altogether.
we had lifts at work but they were always in the way to split a tractor, never used them for the purpose. Also had forklifts and the only time I used those for splitting was the walkie stacker (for smaller tractors) and/or lifting larger tractor halves, which thankfully we didn't do much of. It was just not safe to do it the way the boss wanted it, which was the cheapest way and also one (of many) reason I left.
