Nicholas Fluhart

After using the Ditch Witch a few times, it became evident that it would be much easier and quicker to get around on it if the main drive chain was fixed. The 40 feet per minute, or whatever it is that the hydraulic drive produces, just didn’t cut it. So, we pulled it up in my shop and Philip began removing the damaged sprocket from the transfer case. The large sprocket coming from the transmission was fine, so he just needed to remove the small one.

In order to do this, the brake rotor must be removed from the rear drive shaft and the transfer case has to be loosened and moved forward slightly to allow enough clearance for the rotor to drop out. The sprocket slides on the transfer case shaft on a key way and is held in place with a set screw. Upon closer inspection, it became evident that someone had tack welded the sprocket on the shaft. So Philip had to grind the weld off, which was not easy in such a tight space, then the sprocket slid off. In the next photo you see the shaft where the sprocket was removed and below the shaft, you see the loose bolts where the brake rotor was removed.

And here’s a shot of the old sprocket. Definitely time to replace…

Philip took the old sprocket to the bearing supply house to find a replacement. We also did some measuring to determine roughly how long of a chain we needed. He was able to order the parts easily enough and a couple days later we were going back together with it. First the new sprocket was installed in reverse order of the disassembly. Next, we needed to cut the chain to the correct number of links to obtain the proper tension. Below you see Philip removing excess links in the chain before installation.

Then he installed it. The next two photos show the lower and upper sprockets with the new chain installed.

And that wraps up the drive chain installation. This thing will cover some ground now. I’ll put it this way, in 4th gear it runs as fast as you would want to go on a machine with hydraulic steering and no suspension. Anyway, running it as such seemed to amplify an existing problem we’ve been having with the engine, and that is the backfire from the exhaust when it’s under a load. It encounters a severe power loss when this happens. We’ve adjusted the ignition timing to no avail, so we’re leaning toward the possibility of carburetor problems or a sticking exhaust valve. But that’s for another day. Maybe sometime down the road you’ll see posts on the engine repair and of course the cosmetic restoration. But in the mean time, the machine still works good enough for the occasional small job.

Well, after a successful first run, it wasn’t long before Philip had a job lined up for the R40. He’s building a shop and needed to cut a trench for electrical utilities. Before heading to the work location, we went over the machine and hit all the grease points, changed the fluids, and tightened the chain. Ready for business.

The trench was to be 80 feet in length through very dense clay, which is much more difficult to cut than the soil we tested the machine in at my facility. Of further challenge was the depth of the trench which was to be 30 inches. We will be trenching from the building up to the white stake in the ground seen in the photo below.

We began cutting at the building where the power meter would be located. The operator’s manual recommends starting the trench about one foot from the slab of the building in case the chain snags something hard fixed in the ground and pulls the entire machine backward and subsequently into the side of the building. This proved to be good advise. Since this area was previously heavily wooded, there were a few roots that were too big to trench through, so we cut them manually. In the photo below, you’ll see the starting point and you’ll see how hard the ground was.

The chain essentially carved through it, bringing up shavings of clay and the auger neatly piled the small clumps beside the trench.

It was very slow going, and we had to use a low trenching gear and a very, very slow wheel speed. In fact, we had to be careful to keep the trenching from rattling the tractor to pieces. It rattled the bottom cap off of the air cleaner, and below you see me reattaching it while Philip continues the trench.

Finally, we were able to complete the trench without any problems from the Ditch Witch. Below you can see the trench and the types of hard, dense clay we carved through represented by the different colors of the material.

Next, we begun to assemble and lay the conduit for the electrical wire. To meet code, it requires a two part epoxy to be used in the joints. Below you see them applying the epoxy to assemble the conduit. Then it’s just a matter of setting it off into the trench.

Once the conduit is set in the trench, we can begin backfilling. Philip uses the four-way blade on the front of the Ditch Witch to backfill.

Below you’ll see the finished product. Now we’re ready to place a string into the conduit and await the power company to come and run the electrical wires to the meter.

There are a number of ways to run the wire through the conduit. You generally place a string through first. This can be done by either attaching a vacuum at one end of the pipe and sucking the string through (I’ve even seen someone tape a ping pong ball to the end of the string and reverse the vacuum which would blow the ball through, bringing the string with it) or by using a type of snake. Once you get your string through, it’s just a matter of tying the string to your electrical wires and pulling them through.

Machine Analysis: Overall, everything went well with the machine. I was very impressed. This was an exceedingly hard job for the machine, and after having been setting up for years before this job, the Ditch Witch did it almost flawlessly. However, such a heavy load on the engine as this job placed on it revealed the need for additional fine tuning. We seem to be getting a backfire through the exhaust under heavy load, which was most of the time here. This could be caused by a couple of things: Either the carburetor main jet is a little lean which causes a “lean pop” (this can be determined by inspecting the spark plugs), or the ignition timing is slightly off which can be adjusted at the distributor. Whatever the case, it should be a relatively easy fix…I hope.

Until next time…

Recently my buddy Philip called and told me he had acquired an old Ditch Witch, and knowing my love for old iron and that I have a similar Ditch Witch, he thought I might come out and help him haul it home. It’s a 1970’s vintage R40 in surprisingly good condition considering it hasn’t run for a few years. I hooked a trailer to my truck and since the machine was close to his house, Philip drove his dad’s new John Deere tractor over to assist with loading.

This R40 is equipped with a rear trencher and a 4-way push blade for back filling. After reviewing the situation, we knew the first order of business was to raise the blade and trencher so we could tow the machine out to the gravel road for loading as the ground was much too soft to back the truck and trailer up to the machine where it sat. We disconnected the hydraulic line to the lift cylinder on the blade and used a come-along to winch it up.

Once the blade was up, we moved back to the trencher. The hydraulic line to the lift cylinder on the trencher had a quick-connect coupler, so it was easy to disconnect the line. I used the front-end loader on the tractor to raise the trencher while Philip held the fitting open so the hydraulic pressure could release. Once raised, we chained it up to the roll bar. Then we hitched the machine to the tractor and Philip towed it onto the road while I steered.

I then positioned my truck so we could load it up. Again, using the tractor, Philip pushed while I steered it up onto the trailer.

The trailer had a long tail on it, and given the weight of the machine when coming up the ramps, it provided enough leverage to raise the rear of my half-ton truck. Subsequently, the brake on the truck was of no affect and the truck skid a few feet as seen below.

Once secured, I set out on the road with the machine in tow. It was a weighty load for my small truck, but it handled the load just fine. Once we arrived at our destination, Philip used the tractor to pull the Ditch Witch off of the trailer as I steered.

We looked the machine over. First, I checked the normal wear points, such as any pivot pins, sprockets, teeth, etc., and overall, it is very straight and tight. It shows to have fewer than 2k hours, and the hour meter is functional. This seems to support my conclusions on the overall condition. In fact, the only wear I could really find on the machine was the tires, one of which is coming apart. The previous owner indicated that there was a drive problem, which is probably why it hasn’t been used in five or more years. We located a broken drive chain from the transmission to the drive components and rear hydraulic pump. That’s likely to be our drive problem and should be a fairly easy fix given there is nothing more serious that caused the chain to break. We then attempted to run the engine. We did actually get it to fire a few rounds, but only on two cylinders. The engine is the classic Wisconsin four-cylinder air cooled unit. Having set out in the weather for half a decade allowed for some moisture to get into the two rear cylinders and seize the valves. This should also be a relatively easy fix as long as the cylinders are in decent shape. Philip has already begun work on this his first equipment project.

I believe this machine would be a handy addition to a good equipment collection, or a start to one. Typically, you can rent a trencher cheaper than you can own one, but when the price is a bargain, like this one and like mine, it’s a good unit to have. The R40 is a sizable machine, about twice a big as my 2300. It has enough weight to easily handle the trencher, blade, and then some. It has provision on the front for a backhoe attachment, which includes the mounting points and the hydraulic hookups. The machine has hydraulic pump driven off the engine crankshaft, and it has a hydraulic motor on the transfer case that actually drive the wheels when the machine is in trencher mode. I think this is going to be a fun project and a fun machine for him.

Until next time…

UPDATE: See the project post for this machine here.