Letter to Swartz Manufacturing

When I was a kid, we had to be constantly changing the front ends on the tractors from a single to a wide front depending on the time of year and what jobs were coming up.

The single front end was needed for cultivating, ditching, mowing, etc., while the wide front end was needed under that loader to put up every cutting of that heavy alfalfa hay. You could not pull a potato planter with a single front as the 'tail wagged the dog'.

This swap had to be made 3 to 4 times each and every summer and a guy got fast at doing this change over. Granted, I was younger then, but I used to be able to pull this off in about an hour.

Fast forward 40 years. Now, I’m a part-time ‘gentleman farmer’ who is involved in running a medical company, but who needs a wide front end for my little grounds maintenance tractor.

I like the looks of a Swartz front end to fit this little Farmall H, as I like the way they mount back ‘under’ the tractor and not 105 feet out in front like the corporate ones did and the drag links are mounted behind the axle.

They turn sharper because the ‘stop bolt’ is not required as it was with that old factory ‘steering knuckle’ setup; also, they turn the same amount in both directions, which the original ones did not.

I know they are not the heaviest built front ends, but my requirements are light duty. So, at the end of the day, I buy the damned thing.

After two solid days of fighting with this front end, she is coming back off and we are starting back at square one.

Nothing fits!! Close, but no cigar. Looks as though I’m going to have to spend another half a day to finish the manufacturing process with my drill and a torch.

The main mounting takes four 5/8-inch bolts to mount to the tractor boss. The front end is drilled at these bolt locations with four nice, neat 5/8 inch holes. This makes no sense to me whatsoever….Why not drill the damned holes at 11/16 like they should be for “wiggle” room?

The radius arm bolster mount is not even close. It is built ½ inch to narrow to fit the rails. Where’s the torch? I wonder if this outfit ever tried to mount one of these front ends?

No dust caps for the wheel seals and the originals do not fit the spindle boss. What’s up with that? I suspect that they are built for the sole purpose of selling to idiots like me who "assume" that they are of quality construction.

I think that I would have been better off to have bought a used factory front end from a junkyard for $800 and then rebuilding it.

The pretty red paint looks nice, however.

Rant over,

Allan

Oh, I think I like to hear myself complain is my biggest problem! However:

Yes, the metal dust shields from the trike front are too large for the boss on the Swartz spindle. All the bearings and tri-lip grease seals worked fine, tho.

For what I am going to do, I just ignored the metal dust shields as this tractor will probably never see field work to any extent again. I just left them off.

The steering arm on the Swartz did fit perfectly with the tractor's steering pad bolt pattern.

But secondly, the four large bolts that mount the main frame of the frontend to the tractor were drilled the exact same size as their respective bolts.

This would be fine, but I found that their bolt pattern was off by just a few thousandths of an inch from the tractors bolt pattern. I therefore had to over drill those bolt holes to the next 1/16" to allow the tractor's bolt pattern to be reached.

Final problem was mounting the radius arm bolster assembly. It was not even close to being corrrect. The whole radius arm assembly was off in left field by 1/2" and also, the spread was too narrow.

I used a come-along to bend it over into position, then drilled one frame rail and bolted down the one side.

I then used the come-along while at the same time using a jack to spread that bolster out. When it was in line, I drilled the frame rail and bolted down the opposite side.

All in all, it wasn't so bad; I think what kept gnawing on me was the price of this thing and that it just would not "bolt on". But, I had a lot of fun working on the old gal, anyway.

The front end is not nearly as heavy as the factory units, but will certainly serve my purposes.

And I've gotta be honest: I just can't stand the look of a trike front end; probably because I have never been around them. Just my preference.

Thanks for the hollar back,

Allan

Alrighty then,

Three days, three snows, two broken drill bits, one burned out drill and numerous cuss marks left in the snow, she is on there for the third and last time. All that is left to do is to adjust the toe in.

Now, on to the loader. If it takes me three days to tighten 6 bolts and hang a pump, I think I'm gonna give up. :>)

Later,

Allan

Back in the heyday, they also had a plant in Cokato MN.

If I remember correctly, Ameriquip may have also been involved in the selloff of Schwartz.

They still make loaders, box scrapers, and numerous other attachments. I'm not sure about replacement front ends, though.

You do _not_ want wiggle room in any part of the steering. No, no, no. Oversized holes lead to _really_ oversized holes down the road....

--->Paul

So, there was one bolt holding one front axle on, and just 1/2 of a bolt, which I could pull right out, holding the other side on. Should be 2 gr8 bolts on each side....

That took a trip to town, but I consider myself lucky, simple repair that could have been bad a few minutes later.

--->Paul

I saw one of my parts companies carries parts for them, I think it was Shoup, not sure now?

--->Paul