Bolt on knife

[molinegb]

Rebuilding a knife with bolt on sections. Some holes worn so bolts turn. Some will seat. Any fixes besides replacing?

 

[DanielW]

A quick solution would be to use rivets for those sections, but I can understand why you might not want to do that. No other easy fix that I can think of if you want a bolt-on section. Could maybe put the bolt in and tack the head on the bottom, but of course that makes the bolt non-removable. Might still be able to unbolt the nuts and pull the section off the top.

I don't think you'd want do try building up the hole with weld and re-drilling. For one thing, it's a main to drill through weld. For anther, the heat affected zone of the weld would probably weaken the knife in that area.

Have you looked at the price of a new knife? Some of the aftermarket ones from places like AI are just as good as the OEM ones and not badly priced.

 

[molinegb]

No knifes nearby. Around 800$ for new one with shipping/tax. Wonder if oversize bolt /shanks were available. Don't want to go back to rivets.

 

[DanielW]

Hmm, only thing I can think of in that case is going with a slightly larger knurled neck belt. See this link. I think (but could be misremembering) that regular sickle bolts are 7/32'' diameter, so if you go with these in 1/4'' diameter they'll give you an extra 30 thou on the diameter and might do the trick.
Knurled Neck Bolts for Sickle Sections

 

[flying belgian]

I wonder if you could put an anvil under it and then smash the hole with a ball peen hammer.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

(quoted from post at 09:23:24 07/17/23) Hmm, only thing I can think of in that case is going with a slightly larger knurled neck belt. See this link. I think (but could be misremembering) that regular sickle bolts are 7/32'' diameter, so if you go with these in 1/4'' diameter they'll give you an extra 30 thou on the diameter and might do the trick.
Knurled Neck Bolts for Sickle Sections

Sounds like that's what the OP is looking for.

 

[molinegb]

Will try that.

 

[caterpillar guy]

If the bolts are wearing the holes the bolts are not tight or are not big enough for the job by running dull sections or dull guards. We take the guard off when changing sections rather than knocking the bolts out. We also try to align the old marks on the bar with the bolt when we have to replace a broken bolt usually from being twisted off from over tightening. Bolts can be had from dealers and Shoup or other places. Never found a big difference in bolt quality between them.

 

[300guy]

Have you tried Webb Knife in Grand Island Ne for a new knife price? They are a lot cheap=er that dealer price.