Rest- O- Ride Rebuild

[Dave Warden]

Farmerized and good job. Ground it back to knock collers off they had. Thought this was what it was, till looked at oyher seat on 971, and bought bushing kit. This will be awesome, just dry fittng it all. Love brass on black.

 

[Dean]

I've rebuilt 5 or 6 Rest-O-Ride seats.

It's time consuming and expensive but the end result is worth it. The Rest-O-Ride seat is not a bad seat if properly functioning. It's far better than the spring seat also used by Ford in the 50s.

Unfortunately, with the demise of Minn-Kota, there appears to be no source for quality torsion springs aside from CNH. Let us know if you find one.

Dean

 

[Dave Warden]

Will do. Sure they are all same manufacturer.

 

[hurleyjd]

Check Steiner parts

 

[Dean]

No, they are not.

Minn Kota rebuilt the springs themselves from old units. I know of no one that has had trouble with their work.

CNH (at least in the past) sourced their springs from a US manufacturer, as did other tractor manufacturers. I've used new springs from JD without issue but they are very expensive.

All of the aftermarket springs (so far as I know) are imported. Many, many (all?) of that have used them have experienced early failure.

About two or three years ago, I again tried a set of aftermarket springs, hoping that the quality issues had been corrected. One failed after less than a year.

I've had Minn-Kota springs on three other tractors for well over 10 years. The set on my 860 is pushing 20 years.

Dean

 

[Dean]

Steiner's has them but I have no experience with theirs.

I suspect that they are imported as are all of the aftermarket springs.

Dean

 

[Lanexa Speedway]

At some point this winter I plan to rebuild the RoR seat as the final piece of the 641 I am restoring. Was planning to check with Steele Rubber in North Carolina about doing what Minnkota used to do. A friend of mine who owns a restoration shop uses Steele to restore motor mounts that otherwise are unavailable. If they can do that, I'll bet they can do RoR seat springs.

Will post back when I get to that point.