Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

I find it frustrating the way Case/Ingersoll attached the seat to the tractor. It fills you with false hope, only to let you down when you find that, not only do you have to "do it the hard way", but the hard way is extra hard!

What I'm referring to is the seat hinge pin. You look at the pin and see that they've left you a nice notch, so you can just slide the pin out to the left, and your seat will be off "in no time." But you start sliding and soon discover that the pin hits the fender wall. And though it seems close, it is not close enough. So you're going to have to pull the two bolts.

HOWEVER: the bolt heads are overshadowed by the folded metal of the hinge mechanism. So you can't put a socket on the bolt, or even a ratcheting box end wrench. You can get a regular box end wrench on it to break it loose, but then you have to take approx. 159 passes of 1/3 turn each with the open end wrench. The bolt comes out eventually, but it feels like it takes a week. Then you have to do it again on the other bolt.

And it looked like it could (SHOULD) be SO EASY! That is precisely the kind of frustration I don't put up with, if I can help it.

So I did this: I cut the hinge pin up, creating 2 shorter pins. Each one is just long enough to go from the center gap out through the hinge band, and has a washer welded onto one end as a handle. The other end is drilled for a hairpin.
So now it's just a few seconds to pull the seat: Pull the two hairpins, and slide out the two hinge pins. Re-assembly is just as fast.

Problem solved.

Now, on to world hunger...

I Like it . Like most things the engineers did not consider disassembly and in fairness I don't think they considered us still using them 40-50 years after they were built . On the Bride (diesel dumper), I have actually remove the tool box and made the hinge mount right off the plate giving more room for a set of seat tracks . Adjust ability is very important as the wife , our grandson and I have different leg lengths . I am with you if it doesn't seam right anymore and there is a better way lets do it , I don't have any parade queens . Everything earn its living around here.

Dave

To be clear, I love these machines. They're very solidly built with excellent engineering. By pointing out a small definciency like this I'm not trying to insult the machines or their makers. But I gotta call it the way I see it, and that seat deal has been bugging me for too long. And like David, though I care about my tractor's overall appearance and try to keep it looking respectable, at the end of the day it's a tool for doing a job. So if I can improve it, you can bet I will.

Bob

Never had my seat off, but as I started reading your thread and looking at the first pic the first thing I thought was cut that puppy in half. Scrolling down, exactly what you did.
Nice job

Great post and a nice solution! Like Tim I never took the seat off but I like simple, efficient, and elegant usability improvements. When I find some time I will adopt your mod.

I have had several seats off, to pull the gas tank for cleaning and gas hose replacement. I did a similar mod, but used 2 hair pins on each.


Gordy