Can You Use A Chopper Dolly?

Can You Use A Chopper Dolly? FORAGE HARVESTERS Forage Harvesters (31F) 1-5-18 Latest new wrinkle in high capacity grain, hay and forage harvesting is a couple of related new developments FARM SHOW has learned about called the Chopper Dolly or Self-Elevating Bogey. They're using them in Western states and Canada behind highcapacity forage choppers. The devices allow large semi-trailers or wagons to be towed in the field right behind the chopper, or behind a regular farm tractor. By using your 100-plus hp tractor to load large semi-trailers or other wagons right in the field, it frees up expensive semi trucks which, instead of having to be driven in the field, can be kept busy on the highway hauling ready-filled trailers. The Chopper Dolly, developed by Keith Mfg., Madras, Oregon, hitches right behind large-capacity field choppers, or it can be towed with a 100 hp or larger tractor. From Canada comes a similar device called the Self-Elevating Bogey. It's a do-it-yourself hookup which you can pull behind your 100 hp tractor to tow semi-trailers in the field. For example, you can spot trailers at various points in the field where combines can pull up and unload into them. When filled, you use your tractor to pull the loaded trailer to the road where a regular semi-truck! tractor hooks onto it and takes off down the road. "We suggest that anyone interested in developing our type of self-elevating bogey simply copy our design and take it from there. There are no patents," explains Ralph Gray, project engineer for Grayco, at Heidelberg, Ont., Canada. The firm specializes in potato harvesting equipment. Gray points out that the bogey can be made from salvaged semi-truck 5th wheel axle assemblies and can be equipped with air brakes, or hydraulic brakes, operating off the tractor's hydraulic system. Although Grayco has shelved plans to produce their self-elevating bogey commercially, they do have experience in building them from used 5th wheel and axles assemblies salvaged from semi trucks. "What is needed is legislation forbidding the use of huge farm wagons without brakes. The whole situation involving farm wagons behind farm tractors is out of hand. When farmers are compelled to use safe, road legal trailers, then we have the products they will need," he points out. The company's address, if you'd like to compare notes with them on how to build a self-elevating bogey, is: Grayco Potato Harvesters Ltd., Heidelberg, Ont., Canada (ph. 699-5372). For more details on the commercially available Chopper Dolly, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Keith Manufacturing, Box 1, Madras, Oregon 97741 (ph. 503 475-3802).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.