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SW Ohio | As others say, pretty simple job, really. When we did it, we traded our 2wd front axle to a salvage yard and got a MFWD axle, driveshaft, and drop box from a burnt tractor. Had to put new o-rings inside clutch pack in drop box, check that before you bolt it up. Tie rod ends were also shot, had about 1" slop each, I think they had some kind of plastic in them that melted out. I put all new outer hub seals in, did one side a couple times. The MFWD axle we got was a newer unit with the steering cylinder cast into the housing. Works just fine, just have to cap one hose on each side. Also make sure you read the operators manual and match front tire size to rear size. If not the tractor will either try to pull itself apart or run over itself, neither are good. Realistically it will just tear the clutch up in the drop box, but added the visual effect there in your mind. We had to swap the front bolster from between the frame rails on ours, it was axle specific. I would tell you just to plan on doing that from the start, as the pivot bolt was very difficult to remove on ours, only to find we had to swap bolster anyway. I would beg/borrow/steal some splitting stands and bolt them on as close to the front as possible without getting in the way too much, we did that and it really made the tractor much more stable. We had about 10 grand in parts plus tires. It really made a nice tractor out of it, and we couldn't trade for that difference. Only negative thing about the whole deal is the turning radius is now much larger. We did find a shorter weight bracket and adjusted the steering stops as far as we could and it is acceptable pulling 30' planter. If you put 60' ends on you can turn it back in time just fine, but you have to be ready and pay attention to what you're doing. If I had the choice to do it again, I would. If grain prices ever come back I might look into swapping it back to 2wd and making my 7700 MFWD and trading it for a 8120 MFWD, but thats down the road a ways yet. | |
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Adding MFWD to a 7800/7810
