| Dan, Another thing to do when making your tow mixer is to remove the brakes entirely. I used mine for 3 years and then one wheel locked up going forward. It was fine driving backward but the blade didn't do much chopping and it was a real challenge heading down the driveway backward :) I thought a bearing had failed and tore the whole towmixer apart to build a new one. While doing that I decided to find just what had failed and pulled the wheel off the recalcitrant axle. It was a chore as the braked had seized on the drum. Bottom line, there were no bearings bad, rather a brake problem. It was an old (1950's) 9 bolt Ford rear end and I will use it again. Also there is a vent somewhere on most rear ends and you can use it to be sure the whole rear end is full of oil right up to the bearing now at the top (normally horizontal facing forward). I took a squeeze ketchup bottle, fitted it with a section of vinyl tubing and sucked up a bottle at a time and injected it into the vent. Normally the vent is on top, but because the whole rear end is rotated 90 degrees it will probably be facing horizontal or even down a little. Fill the whole rear end with oil till it starts seeping out the top. I hammered a wooden plug into my vent, but you could easily put a short hose on the vent and using a couple of worm drive clamps to seal it. Let us know how it works. Ron
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