Giant Manure Spreader Mounts On Mack Truck

Giant Manure Spreader Mounts On Mack Truck MANURE HANDLING Equipment 26-6-9 "We have a custom manure hauling business and this rig lets us go fast both in the field and on the road. It also reduces compaction," says Gene Suteau, Onoway, Alberta, who converted a 1980 Mack tandem axle semi truck into a 6-WD, tri-axle model. It's equipped with a big 24-ft. long, 9-ft. wide box that hauls up to 32 cubic yards or 60,000 lbs. at a time. The entire rig is 40 ft. long and rides on tires that stand 4 ft. high Suteau already owned the semi tractor but he bought another identical truck for parts. He stretched the frame 3 1/2 ft., then added a third axle and mounted a second differential in front of the original one. He got the box off another truck, lengthening it by 2 ft. and making it 1 1/2 ft. taller. A gearbox taken from a Massey big square baler is used to operate the box's apron chain. It's driven by an orbit motor that's powered by a hydraulic pump off the truck's engine. Two others orbit motors are used to operate the big 30-in. dia., drum-type beaters that he made himself. "It has about twice as much capacity as a standard McKee 18-ft. truck-mounted manure spreader, which is one of the biggest on the market," says Suteau, who uses the rig to custom spread manure within a 300-mile radius. "The truck is powered by a 300 hp diesel engine and has a 15-speed transmission so I have plenty of power. The 6-WD lets me work right through wet conditions that would shut down other rigs. The spreader's eight big tires operate at only 35 psi, which results in very little compaction. "I had been using four truck-mounted spreaders - a commercial McKee model and three others that I built on my own. As a result I needed a lot of extra help. Last year I was able to use just this one truck by myself which greatly reduced my overhead costs. My total cost was about $40,000." Suteau built his own oversize beaters in order to get away from twine-wrapping problems he was having with the beaters on commercial machines. "Conventional beaters are only about 4 in. in diameter, which allows twine to wrap up tightly around them. It can take hours to remove the twine, but with big beaters the twine wraps much more loosely so it takes me only about 5 minutes," he notes. He uses a switch in the cab to operate an electric clutch that controls the hydraulic pump. A pair of levers are used to control the speed of the floor chains and to operate the endgate. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Gene Suteau, Box 977, Onoway, Alberta, Canada T0E 1V0 (ph 780 967-4755).

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