Hi Rusty, Those David Bradleys are neat little machines. I've never run one, but I see them a lot at local thresherees. I wonder what they weigh and if you had weighted it if it could pushed better. Hi Kris, My 715 weighs about 140 lbs and the blade weighs just under 100, or so I've been told. I've never put my hand on one, but the blade is 36 inches and made out of 3/8 flat steel so it's beefy. I've been told on some other forums to weld a pipe on the blade frame and mount 90 lbs of free weights and mount as much weight on the wheels as I can fit. A BCS dealer offers weight brackets for the wheels that take free weights as well. Hey rej, I've seen pictures of those blades for the fronts of the troy bilts. Can you angle those? If you need more traction, I imagine you could just engage the tines, eh ;-P

***"The half moon sector gear slip pass the teeth when you hear that rip sound. this caused the sector gear to not be center and you will have less or very little right or left steering wheel travel in the direction that the gear is short in."*** NO, the "rip" sound is when the PINION TEETH are "jumping over the teeth on the sector gear, not the other way around. Look at it this way. If you removed the sector gear from the tractor and left the steering wheel, steering column, and pinion gear in place......you would be able to sit there and spin the steering wheel in whichever direction you chose (CW or CCW), to the end of time (or til the economy turns around), without ever reaching a stopping point. It is the SECTOR GEAR that limits the number of revolutions you can turn the steering wheel from "lock to lock". What is happening with the "worn out" steering gears (and wear in the shaft bushing and wear in the sector gear pivot) where "you can turn more in a certain direction than the opposite direction" is because when you turn the steering in one direction.....the sector gear is PULLING on the drag link, and this increases the "separation space" or, "clearance between the pinion gear and the sector gear. With the extra clearance caused by turning in that direction, the pinion teeth will begin "jumping over" the teeth on the sector gear BEFORE the sector gear is able to rotate far enough for the front wheels to reach the limit of travel. BUT, when you turn the steering wheel in the opposite direction, the sector gear is PUSHING on the drag link. This has the effect of forcing the sector gear tighter against the pinion gear and thus, the pinion and sector gears remain in good mesh, and you can move the front wheels to the limit of travel when turing that direction ONLY. Trying to "center" or "index" the steering wheel does not help you make equally effective turns in either direction once the wear and slop reach the point of "jumping teeth". "Indexing" the steering wheel really only means that you have equal spacing of the spokes of the steering wheel on both sides of the clock (imagine the steering wheel is an analog clock face) when the front wheels are oriented "straight ahead". Indexing is not critical for operation of the steering system in executing turns. Indexing only becomes an issue where the position of a spoke might hide or conceal a dash gauge, indicator light or other important feature of the dash or instrument panel. If none of those details apply, it matters not the least where the steering wheel (and pinon gear are oriented). Driving a tractor typically involves so much turning of the steering wheel that you hardly roll more than a few feet before you need to turn the steering wheel one way or the other, so having the steering wheel properly indexed to the dash is not something that will keep the wheel positioned "in use", as you indexed it "while parked". Highway vehicles are almost the opposite (in regard to "centering the steering wheel") for a couple of reasons. First, the sector gears in the steering gearbox of those vehicles are made with "uneven size gear teeth". The teeth in the exact center of those sector gears, (or the center teeth of the "rack gear" in Rack & Pinion designs) are "slightly bigger" than the gear teeth on the rest of the sector gear (or rack gear in those types). The larger teeth in the center actually "bind mesh", or create an "interference fit" with the teeth of the pinion gear which reduces the clearance between pinion and sector (or rack) gears to ZERO. This "interference mesh" removes all slack or "free play" between the two gears and that means that you can "feel the road" with the steering wheel and the vehicle has a minimum amount of "hunting" caused by cumulative clearance in all the other components of the steering system. Why do they only make the center teeth "fit this tight" and not the entire sector (or rack) gear? Because, when you execute a "low speed turn" (like turning into a parking space etc.) it is desirable that the mesh be "looser" to make steering easier. Secondly, because of the greater "array" of instruments on the dash of highway vehicles, and the recent trend of having "steering wheel mounted functions or controls" (cruise control, entertainment sound systems, horn, to name just a few), it is "vital" that the steering wheel be indexed properly, so the steering wheel mounted features can be seen, and operated easily and accurately. The same constraints do not apply to your typical yard/garden tractor.

anicee - an inexpensive(Squarely cut a length off the pipe with a hack saw or such - dress the ends to remove burrs/etc and dry fit the two cap ends to make a 4 inch diameter cylinder slightly shorter than the width of the ribbed rubber cover on the pedal. Carefully measure the outside diameter of the ribbed rubber pedal cover. Drill a thru hole in the center of the two end caps to a size mebbe 1/16 inch smaller than the the ribbed rubber pedal cover outside diameter. The idea is to create a tight "interference" fit between your home-made cylinder and the pedal cover diameters so that once tapped on using a hammer and a piece of scrap plastic tubing, the plastic tube will stay firmly in place. Once the plastic tube assembly is successfully dry-fitted and looks like it will fit tightly to the ribbed rubber pedal cover, glue the two end caps together on the tube and let cure for an hour before doing any hammering. If you you really want to embellish the cylinder, cut a pretrimmed piece of wet/dry sandpaper (coarse grit) - glue it to the plastic tube outside diameter grit side out to give you a less slippery surface for your foot to contact. If the company rep gave you good info, the resulting 2 inch pedal extension should work for you. Good luck - and perhaps other contributers on this forum can improve on above.

Refer to the online Owner's Manual (click link) and the line drawing below. There will be some wear in the lower steering column bearing (items 6&29) which allows deflection of the steering shaft (item 16). There will also be wear in the sector gear (item 35) shaft bearing (items 6&27). Because the sector gear PUSHES the drag link (item18) toward the steering knuckle (not shown here) when making left turns, the wear in the sector shaft bearing allows the sector gear teeth to move away from the pinion gear teeth. When this happens, the gear teeth simply jump over each other instead of operating the steering knuckle. When making a right turn, however, the sector gear PULLS on the drag link and the steering knuckle, and the wear in the sector shaft bearing allows the sector gear teeth to be pulled closer to the pinion gear teeth, and right turns can be executed with no problems. To fully restore the integrity of the pinion gear to the sector gear, you will need to replace at least the bearings indicated on the line drawing. If the teeth of the sector and pinion gears have worn places, replace the sector gear and the steering column shaft also. Ask whether a "kit" is available to do the rehab program, sometimes a comprehensive kit is cheaper than buying individual parts. By the way, this is a fairly involved procedure, requires complete disassembly of the steering column and a lot of clearance underneath the tractor. Here is a link that might be useful: 917.275021 OMan