Front Mount Deere Cultivators Go IH

Front Mount Deere Cultivators Go IH CULTIVATORS Cultivators (58C) 14-6-22 Anyone with a farm shop and a welder can convert front-mount Deere cultivators to fit International tractors, says Alabama farmer Jerry Newton, of Anderson, who converted a pair of Deere FM-4 4-row front-mount cultivators to fit his International 966 and 656 tractors. Newton raises 675 acres of cotton. "I had been using front-mount IH cultivators, but they don't do as good a job as Deere's. They kept getting out of adjustment so I had to spend a lot of time tightening bolts. Two local Deere dealers said I'd be wasting my money if I tried to convert front-mount Deere cultivators to fit IH tractors, but I've used them for four years now and they've worked great." The problem with the IH tractors is that they're shorter and wider than the Deere tractors the cultivators were designed for. The first step was to drill new holes in the cultivator mounting brackets to fit over existing bolts in the frames of the tractors. He then cut the front part of the cultivator frames, widening the frame for the 966 tractor by 2 in. and the frame for the 656 tractor by 1/2 in. He also cut the side frames of the cultivators to shorten them because the IH tractors are shorter than the Deere tractors he had been using. Newton found that vertical coil springs above the cultivator shovels interfered with the oil pan and other parts of the International tractors. He ordered an owner's manual for the cultivator and found that the same problem existed with certain Deere tractor models. "To solve the problem Deere offers a part that converts the spring to a horizontal position, but it costs $22 and I would've needed four of them, so to save money I built my own part," says Newton. "I made a 45 degree bend in the center of a 6-in. long piece of 1-in. sq. rod and drilled three 1/2-in. holes into it. After I converted the shovels both cultivators fit and worked perfectly." Newton notes that Deere front-mount cultivators have two problems, which he solved. One problem is with a 1/2 by 4-in. bolt, with a pipe spacer, that mounts on the rockshaft that raises the cultivator. "Every time I picked up the cultivator the bolt would break. I tried to fix the problem by using a stronger bolt and a larger pipe, but it didn't help. I finally installed three bolts and a piece of square tubing which seems to have solved the problem. The other problem was that the arm supporting one of the rolling fenders blocked my view of the row. To solve the problem I cut the fender in half and mounted each half on its own arm. Now I can see the row as well as I could with no fenders at all." Newton sells two front-mount Deere cultivator conversion plans. One plan con-veils cultivators to fit International 656 to 686 models, and the other plan converts cultivators to fit International 706 to 1586 models. "Front-mount Deere cultivators can easily be converted to fit other sizes of International tractors, as well as other brands," he adds. Each plan sells for $10. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Jerry Newton, Rt. 1, Box 239-A, Anderson, Ala. 35610 (ph 205 247-1535).

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