My old, original drawbar was getting worn, so I replaced it this spring with a new Chinese special.  Everything was working fine, until it wasn't.  I was bushhogging some grass and I dropped into a ditch.  Nothing I don't do on a regular basis.  I heard a loud pop and I stopped the tractor. The pictures below show the result.  The drawbar doesn't appear to have flexed at all.  Neither the bushog tongue nor the pin have so much as a ding in them.

So, I went back to the barn and put on my old, worn out, beat up drawbar which has never broken and pulled everything back to the barn.  Then I found an OEM drawbar on ebay which is now headed my way.

The place I bought the Chinese drawbar is going to send me a replacement, but after this, I don't think I will trust one. 

I know that the OEM drawbars are getting scarce, but if you decide to use one of the new Chinese, drawbars, be careful.

HoughMade wrote: If you still have the old one and it isn't broken, it can be straightened, any wallowed out holes built up and rebored and, generally, repaired.  Not cheap, but it would probably be a better drawbar than even a new domestic manufacture.

The old drawbar has never broken.  The pin hole was getting wonky so I thought I would be proactive and replace it.  I couldn't agree more that it is still better than the drawbar that broke.  I haven't seen any US-made drawbars for the 185.

gee, I'd like something wider than either of those bars are. The holes always reduce the strength of the bar,so the more 'meat' to begin with the better. I've got 3 D-14 drawbars sitting here collecting dust and they lok a LOT wider than yours. When you consider the extra HP your tracor is, I have to wonder what grade steel/HT those bars are.

Like Tbone95 said, I am glad I wasn't pulling something like a wagon up the highway when the drawbar broke.  I thought that if you guys saw what happened to the drawbar I was using, you could maybe avoid a similar situation.

I don't know why they drill the little holes so close to the drawbar pin, either.  I don't think I have ever seen one of those holes in use and there is no way the drawbar is as strong with them as without them.  Drilling the holes requires extra work in the manufacturing process to make a less usable product.  Go figure.

I tried to find out what kind of steel was in the drawbar before I bought it but I could not get an answer.  I was told that 4140 and 4142 were used for lots of drawbars, but after the way this one snapped, I don't think I got one of those.  I think the post about the heat treating not being ideal is right on.

A wider drawbar would be stronger, but it won't fit the OEM drawbar sling.

When I was working at the Allis dealership back in the early 1990's they had a drawbar sitting in the shed that was broke in two. I had to ask and an older mechanic there said it broke while he was demonstrating a brand new D19 diesel and plow.

I sure envied those guys for being there all through some of the best of Allis-Chalmers. I was told a lot of stories about things that went on at the dealership.

Might also be that the old DB, with its worn hole, don't put the pin in a bind, when crossing the ditch...

Where didja get this model of chinese steelwork, anyway?

One of the comments the Gleaner guys also made was that they came up to Minnesota to harvest corn not trees....... it was a real good growing season that year and the corn head had trouble with the very thick stalks.

I wish I could remember some of the stories better........ They used to do a lot of head to head plowing demonstrations in the area when the WD45 was new and they demoed against the competition right at the farmer's field. At the time nearly every town had one or more dealerships. Blooming Prairie had three back then. Deere, IH and Allis. It got to the point where the Deere people woudn't go head to head anymore. Those 2 cylinders were easy to out perform in a plowing demo. Pickle said he never got beat driving the 45 with a plow. The closest was......... I think it was a tractor with a torque converter. Not Case but a little known brand like Silver King or Wards and then the Super M was close too. They would demo with both an Allis mounted plow and whatever pull-type plow the farmer already had. By the time the 7000 series were out those types of demos were pretty much history and farm shows took there place.

Kermit, before they owned the Allis dealership, went to work for Oliver down in Charles City. This was back in the 1930's. He liked it and made more money than he had ever made before but then the plant went on strike. He came home because he didn't want anything to do with a strike. He said it was stupid because it was good money already at a time when jobs were scarce.

There were lots of stories not involving anything to do with farm equipment. Like filling a chew can with acetylene and lighting it up with the torch from behind a wall. Scared the other mechanics and people from nearby stores came running because of the loud bang. They came rushing in asking what the loud bang was and those guys said "what bang?", as they stood there with white flakes of whitewash floating from brick the walls.

Some stories, like I said are better told by them and they ain't here no more. Trust me, they were funny stories.

What grade do you get when you melt down a shredded pile of rusty old 78' chevys, a school bus and mix in some scrap I-beams and soup cans?

Kurt WI wrote: My 7060 drawbar was broke in the same area. It was broke and fixed before I bought it though, but the previous owner was going through a ditch with a 5000 gal manure tanker when it snapped.

Manure spreader!  That stinks!!  :-)

More seriously, though; I understand that my drawbar and his were under a lot of pressure.  What surprised me is that the new one did not bend.