# Stabilizer-Stay bars or chains



## bmaverick (Feb 20, 2014)

My Yanmar came with stabilizer-stay chains to begin with. However, after the first year, parts shook-off or vibrated-off to the land of impossible to find. Then one day, months later, my boy finds a few pieces out in the field.

With the few pieces found in hand, 2X 3/8-in Quick Links, 2X fender washers, bolt and a nut, I was back in business until the following year. Again pieces found their way to the land of impossible to find.

With the chains, there are MANY parts. When one lets loose, many become lost. These are not parts you can run down to your local ACE hardware and obtain either. SOOOOO, I opted for the stabilizer-stay bars. Seen these on John Deeres, Ford 8Ns & NAA, and OE for Massey-Ferguson. These worked extremely well, for a while. Then one-by-one, these snapped off and dragged into the ground. Stopping and flexing them out of the way to limp home again. A big disappointment too.

Well, after a few sets on different tractors, these Double HH bars are not ideal to replace the OE bars. The steel grade is not as strong. As for the bars, you can see in the one image these don't hold up as aftermarket replacements. Buyer beware.

3 weeks ago, I broke open the piggy bank, got a nice paired set of stabilizer-stay chains from Hoye. This time, I thought it all thru. Larger fender washers, graded-8 bolts, nylock nuts, synthetic rubber washers and even zip-ties. Bond and determined NOT to loose anything. LOL

The Hoye chains (SC-425) came with a nice M14 and tiny cotter pin on the end. I had swapped these for the nylock and fender washers. There is no-way possible for that tiny cotter pin to withstand a brush hog nor a tiller in operation. (Had sent an email to Fredrick's, but got no response to order the SC-425 set. Odd.)

I'm please on how all of this came together. Did disc tilling and brush hog mowing over the past 2-weeks with the new arrangement. It's held up and no loosening whatsoever.

Should anyone with a Yanmar or Deere CUT need a better way, here is one to keep those parts from getting lost.



















This is how the kit came from Hoye or from any of the retailers really. I ditched the tiny R-clip pin on the end and the nut. Replaced them with 2 big and thick fender washers for each side of the arm and a nylock nut. This arrangement prevents parts from being LOST when working.


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## bmaverick (Feb 20, 2014)

Ah, some updated pixs. We all like pixs. As the saying goes 1-pix equals 1,000 words. So, without saying much more ...

Those are the synthetic pink rubber gaskets to keep the nuts from backing off. This is the first failure of the setup should you neglect to have anything like this added to the kit.


















The finished setup. I had to tweak the arms a little to center them after getting the bush hog mounted and leveled, but it ALL WORKED NICELY.


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## bmaverick (Feb 20, 2014)

It's now October and not one part is lost. I'm very pleased on how this is holding up. The chain setup is the most common with the Yanmar's and John Deere's. Should anyone have a question on how to set this up, I can get more pixs too.


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## Hoodoo Valley (Nov 14, 2006)

I've never had an issue with my John Deere 990, but it's nice to view options just in case. Thanks for sharing.


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## bmaverick (Feb 20, 2014)

It's now July 2020. All the stabilizer chains are still together and functioning well. I've put the IH auger on the tractor twice since the upgrade. All held up with no issues. Very pleased not having lost parts falling off due to vibration or working any of the attachments. 

The fender washers, nylocks and the synthetic gaskets (flat o-rings) upgrades are keeping everything held together wonderfully.


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