Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

I decided to start a thread about this old MIG welder I got a while back which is in bad shape and needs some fixing. Don't know if it works, it's full of crud inside and out so a good cleaning is in order.

The gun and cable or however they are called are in very bad shape. The gun trigger button is broken, and the cable has multiple lengths of thick windings of electrical tape.

It's an old machine, not idea if or what parts can still be found. I've no experience with any of this, so now it's learning time for me. But I have decided to bring this old girl back to life.

@Eugen That unit was a work horse in it's day. Is is a 3 phase 600, 480, 240 volt unit. Some of that style could be tapped as single phase. I would be leery of the potentiates and the capacitor bank. Those were consumables when maintaining a clean running machine. I have a Hobart HF250 from the same time period and use it as a stick welder for overhead and rotten metal welding but when it dies it will get a warm bath at Stelco.
I picked this unit up at a garage sale for $300 about 20 years ago. It is more than adequate for home use and light enough to do occasional job site work. It is a beater and probably has a 60% duty cycle. That means that for continuous welding on high out put, it will over heat and trip out.

If it works, I am the last owner

Spike

A quick search for troubleshooting a linde 225 mig welder.

https://www.google.com/search?q=trouble ... e&ie=UTF-8

and linde 225 mig welder parts

https://www.google.com/search?q=+linde+ ... nt=gws-wiz

and good luck,
Gordy

I'm not sure what Spike means by potentiates but the electrolyte in the capacitors dries out with age causing the capacitance to decrease. Eventually the capacitors loose there ability to filter the rectified DC.

@MattA big thumbs, auto correct and sleepy eyes makes Potentiometer turn into potentiates.

Spike

Or as we call them sometimes, pots! it so happens that I have extensive electronics and all electrical thingy experience, having been in the trade of electricians back in Europe, and some years of diy hi-fi audio hobby. I have a good stash of vacuum tubes guys, if any of you are into that.

Anywho, yes, I'll have to find some time and get new capacitors and potentiometers, and gun and cable for this machine. I believe the transformers are not damaged. I want to restore this old lady back to its former glory!

Eugen I'm an Electrical Engineer
In the first picture in the bottom right are some massive heat sinks. Is this a rectifier or some sort of output stage?

MattA wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 2:58 pm Eugen I'm an Electrical Engineer
In the first picture in the bottom right are some massive heat sinks. Is this a rectifier or some sort of output stage?

Yay Matt! The machine is DC output so yeah, that's a big diode bridge. The capacitor bank for smoothing but you know how it is, when the current draw is big like 200 amps the capacity can't do much at all. You get closer to constant current with a biiiig choke. I don't know if this machine has it. If the bridge is gone, which I don't actually expect, I got this little puppy as replacement




Still thinking about adding a big iron choke too. The welder is huge anyways. Look how I unloaded it from the truck. I simply could not wrestle it down just by myself. Weak back n all



https://vimeo.com/547784749








This was before I figured out a way to put a tire bumper on the 644

Ouch, kinda figured that was a gunna happen.

Noel

I would expect you'll be able to come up with a new stinger for the machine. Failing that a new liner for sure, but if the jacketing is really damaged, then new is better. There's nothing more frustrating than working with a welder with a kink in the stinger liner that keeps grabbing the wire.

I've got a Miller 35 that's in that vintage. Still runs beautifully, and reliably while living in an unheated barn for decades. My only real fear with the older migs is if the board goes that controls the wire feed. That's beyond my skillset to repair, unless I can just replace it. Haven't had to yet, but who knows...

Do I prefer to run with the Miller 185, or 250 I have, sure, the controls are a little nicer... Will those machines outlive the 35? I kinda doubt that, but I guess I'll find out...

I used to also have a Miller CP-200 of similar vintage. Three phase machine with the heaviest spoolgun I think ever made... That was without a doubt, the smoothest welding machine I've ever had. Yet again, big transformer machine without much electronics... God I hated having to sell that one off when I closed my shop and lost 3 phase.

Sometimes things unplanned get done in a hurry. Was looking yesterday for something in one of the tents and came across this welder. Wasn't planning to restore this any time soon, but the planets were strangely aligned yesterday so it got pulled out of the tent and went on a date with the pressure washer.


It is customary in the electronics world to start restoring vintage devices with a trip in the dishwasher, but one this wouldn't fit and two I'd probably sleep in the tent if I did that.


It'll take some time to get all dry. The plan is to take all electrical contacts one at a time and make sure they are clean and dry. They will also get some contact cleaner and lube spray.

However, first thing to address now is the capacitor bank. A few leaked already, but I will replace them all.

This is the capacitor type it has at the moment.
Looking for high ripple capacitors now, at least 9800uF, between 50 and 60 working volts, 2" diameter and at most 6" tall.

@Eugen this link might help.https://weldingweb.com/vbb/threads/4431 ... Capacitors

I often find that a local welder rebuilder will stock caps at a reasonable price. But here is a fleabay link to a possible replacement https://www.ebay.com/itm/272501381335

Spike188 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 12:57 pm @Eugen this link might help.https://weldingweb.com/vbb/threads/4431 ... Capacitors

I often find that a local welder rebuilder will stock caps at a reasonable price. But here is a fleabay link to a possible replacement https://www.ebay.com/itm/272501381335

Thank you @Spike188 , these are very good leads! Looks like the capacitors alone will cost more than the whole welder cost me oh well, it'll be a good welder once it works, I think.

https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/filt ... ABhABdAL5A

These might be stock in Toronto. I have an account.

https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/deta ... 2B/2538257

This is definitely stock in Toronto.

I have a digikey account, I used to buy electronics parts from them when I was doing audio stuff. Looks like I have options, will just have to decide which one to go for.

I'm not sure you can get 105C rated caps in that size but in theory they should last longer. For every 10C you lower the capacitor operating temp, the lifetime in hours doubles.
Just put a good fan in the welder and call it done?

Why not install 10,000uf 50v caps? They will be just fine. More than likely a hair smaller in size than those 9800uf thats harder to find? I do believe they just need to be weld output capacitors

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

Ok, there's an electronics surplus store in Toronto which I used to visit often when I was into audio stuff. The job needed me in Toronto today so I went by the store and found some big cans. These are not the same physical size as the original capacitors but if I could make them fit they'll do just fine. The three big ones at the back are 16000uF and cost me $12 a piece. New old stock. The other ones are 10000uF except for the tall skinny one which is 25000uF. They were $5 and $8, for the used ones.



I just reformed them. This is a procedure one should do after a capacitor has sat for a while. The reforming is quite easy if you have a variable power supply and a power resistor. Basically the capacitor gets charged through the resistor (in my case 1200 ohms) up to their normal working voltage, which in this case was 50 volts. The rule of thumb is to charge the capacitor for an initial 5 minutes, plus an additional minute for each month it has sat on a shelf. If after a few minutes you observe a significant voltage across the resistor that indicates more than normal leakage current. These capacitors got to less than 1 volt after a few minutes. One volt divided by 1200 ohms gives 0.833 milliamps. That is just fine.

Mock up fitting. It's fine and more capacitance than the original.

Good work Eugen. Should work good.

Had a minor success yesterday with this welder but didn't get a chance to take pictures, I only have the story to tell.

When plugged in there were two obvious problems: the big fan at the rear of the unit did not turn, and the wire feed did not work when the button on the gun was depressed.

The fan is working on 230V AC, and is pretty big, won't be so easy to find a replacement. But more concerning was the wire feed not working. It has a geared, pretty beefy motor, about 4" diameter and 7" tall. On to some troubleshooting. The wire speed is adjusted from a potentiometer on a circuit board with some solid state components: three transistors, some resistors, diodes, and a capacitor. This is hooked via 8 wires to various parts of the machine, through a multi-wire connector. After some goggling the various connections it seemed to me that 24V from a transformer feeds the whole wire speed control mechanism. What I found strange was a component I haven't seen before, a rectifier bridge with 6 pins. The regular four pins, two for AC input ~ ~, - + as negative and positive output, and two pins marked G1 and G2. After some searches it turns out that this is a half-controlled rectifier. A regular rectifier bridge has four diodes, whereas this device has two diodes and two thyristors. A thyristor is like a diode, allowing current to flow only in one direction, but it will only do so when its gate is triggered, and therefore you can turn it on and off. This controlled bridge rectifier is the main power component for controlling the speed of the motor that turns the wire spool when you press on the MIG gun button. My fear that the motor is fried was easily put at rest, when I applied 12V from a battery charger to the motor and it turned. The controlled rectifier bridge was not so easy to troubleshoot. The voltmeter didn't help, so I pulled out the oscilloscope. Hooked up a 24V transformer that I had around, and powered that part of the circuit. I really didn't want to work on this plugged into 240V if at all possible. After some intense and long staring, pondering, and poking of various things, I noticed that the waves on the oscilloscope would change when the multi-wire connector on the circuit board was wiggled. Looking at it more carefully showed multiple pins no longer soldered to the board, cold connection. Re-soldered properly all pins, and the wire speed mechanism works fine. Easy fix, not so easy to find the problem. It was an enjoyable mystery to solve.

Maybe some of you may be wondering about various aspects about this forum. I am as convinced as I was the day it was created, to keep on going with it. Besides offering a (second) home to the Case garden tractor enthusiasts, for me it is also useful to record somewhere the process of fixing my tractors, and all that comes with it. For instance this MIG welder will be used to fix or build something for the tractors. We live in the age of finding a lot of information on the internet, and over the years it has helped me tremendously to find how someone dealt with an issue I was facing. Sometimes you cannot find any info, as is the case with this MIG welder. Maybe my journal of fixing it will help someone else one day. It also helps me remember in a couple of years what I did. And this concludes my ramble

Eugen, I couldn't agree more. That's precisely what's so awesome about this particular forum.

Bob

thebuildist wrote: ↑Sun Oct 16, 2022 1:37 pm Eugen, I couldn't agree more. That's precisely what's so awesome about this particular forum.

Bob

Thank you for the kind words Bob.

Ya, we are all multitaskers, we don't just work/play with our tractors.
Besides if you don't like something or it's not of interest to you, don't read it.
It's all good
Tim

I agree completely with you guys. I really appreciate being able to come here and not only learn or share things about Case tractors, but many other things that I have found quite interesting, useful, and sometimes downright entertaining!

Thanks for being so understanding guys!

soooooo... there IS an update. We were gone all day yesterday, visited my sister, and arrived late. After the kids went to bed, I needed a little time to unwind, and headed to the shed to have a look at that busted fan. A 10 inch diameter, Caravel Rotron fan, made in USA. It made me sad to see this thrown in the garbage.

The motor was not seized, the propeller was turning, but not smoothly. Measured the winding with the ohmmeter, about 90 ohms. This is a reasonable value, not shorted, and not open circuit either. The fan did not turn when hooked on 120V, or 240V. It's a 220V AC fan, but it should turn, just slower, on 120V AC.

At this point I had no expectations of fixing it, but it's fun doing a post mortem too. On to taking it apart, but I was stumped as to how to disassemble it. After many minutes I realized there were two screws/nuts under the label on the back.
Once those nuts were undone the propeller and motor assembly came out of the outer case. But here I got stuck even more. Could find no way of taking the propeller off the shaft. You know how you don't want to force something and break it, only to find later there was a neat way of disassembly. After enough time staring at it I decided to force the propeller off the shaft. With older equipment I always expect that it's maintainable, and therefore there must be a way to disassemble it neatly. I was surprised to see that the plastic propeller was molded onto the shaft. You will see here on the top of the shaft, that mushroom shape. The propeller has a skirt that goes all around the motor assembly, so it must be taken off to get to the motor. The middle interior of the propeller skirt seems to have been molded around that mushroom, making it impossible to take it off without breaking the plastic, which I did. More on this later.
Once the propeller was taken off, I could take apart the motor, which had four clips holding the top plate. I found two wheel bearings, one the top, and one at the bottom. They were not seized, but turned hard and rough. Some WD40 got them to rotate easily and I got the idea of putting the motor back together just tentatively, and see if it now works on 120V. To my surprise it worked. Amazing, the "thermal protection" that this motor has (inside the winding) seems to work by not allowing the winding to fry if the motor is mechanically seized. Great design! OK, now I realized that the the "heart" of the motor is fine, and all I need is to replace the bearings and fix the propeller somehow.

But it seems the rotor assembly is pressed together, so the bottom wheel bearing would be easy to pull off the shaft, but for the top one to come off I would have to pull the rotor off the shaft, which I am reluctant to do. The bearing at the top can't simply come up the shaft, because of that mushroom shape on the shaft, which seems to be part of the shaft, and not pressed on to it. Being already quite late, but still not ready to stop fooling around, I took the seal off the bearings, washed them well with brake cleaner, blowed them dry, and packed them with some good quality grease.

Standard 608 bearing.
Bearings cleaned.
Repacked.





If the bearings give up on me later, I may as well take the risk and pull them off and replace them, as they are standard 608 wheel bearings.

Here's a short test of the motor on 120V, with the bearings re-packed. At first they wouldn't turn, probably until the grease got spread around. Maybe it's my imagination, but they don't sound smooth like new bearings.







And now, how to fix the plastic propeller. To be continued...

Here's the front of the propeller.

Here's the back of the propeller cleaned up a bit so the steel shaft mushroom fits in.

Drilled the steel shaft with 9/16

Tapped it with an 8-32 and now the propeller is secured to the shaft with a bolt.

Not perfect but better than seeing it thrown in the dump.

Those bearings pull off with very little effort. I did one recently where the bearing got tight then spun one the shaft. Packed the shaft with jb weld then turned it down. It beat waiting for a repair shop rebuild it.

After being plugged in for a couple of minutes the fourth capacitor started to spit.

There goes $12

Just makes you want to spit and spew when that happens. Better luck on the next round. I didn't do the math but with larger capacity caps installed, can you get by with 3 caps?

Spike188 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 21, 2022 1:52 pm Just makes you want to spit and spew when that happens. Better luck on the next round. I didn't do the math but with larger capacity caps installed, can you get by with 3 caps?

True! Yes, the forth one even didn't behave that nicely when I reformed it. It was hungry to draw a lot of current for too long, instead of charging nicely. Anyway, the three of them left are 16,000uF each, which is just 2000uF less than the original total capacity. And they didn't get warm at all while testing the welder on scrap.

So, yes, I decided to hook it up to welding gas and give it a proper try. Tested this MIG welder on various heat and wire speed settings and it sparkles just fine. The only slight problem is that the wire gets occasionally stuck in the cable of the gun. It's the only solid wire I got now (0.035), is rusty, and the gun and cable are really beat up, so this requires some attention.

However, right now it looks like this Linde 225 MIG welder has been saved from scrap and this makes me quite content.

You will have a real nice welder when you are done .

Just a little tip for the mig welder. Seeing how you have some rusty wire. I use a clip on wire cleaner. You could use just about anything like foam ear plugs or felt with a paper clamp. Keeping the debris out of the liner is the goal. Hope this helps.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

Thank you @Gordy !

DavidBarkey wrote: ↑Fri Oct 21, 2022 5:18 pm You will have a real nice welder when you are done .

Yes Dave, I think you're right. I must say right now it seems a little too sophisticated a device for a beginner like me. I felt very comfortable with the stick welder and if I convert it to DC it'll probably be even nicer. So...

I have seen a scotch brite pad held on the wire with a clip to take the rust of the wire.

Keep the
Harry

Harry wrote: ↑Sun Oct 23, 2022 4:52 pm I have seen a scotch brite pad held on the wire with a clip to take the rust of the wire.

Keep the
Harry

I do the same with a piece of rag to keep the wire clean . Does a good job .