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Quick-Hitch Also Hooks Up PTO
Quick hitches are common, but hooking up a pto without getting out of the tractor is not. So when word got out that a pto quick hitch would be on exhibit at the 2007 South Dakota State Fair, fairgoers came - looking for "the hitch guy".
The hitch guy is Tom Heller, a Seneca, S. Dak., rancher with a 500-head cow/
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Quick-Hitch Also Hooks Up PTO HITCHES Hitches 32-1-29 Quick hitches are common, but hooking up a pto without getting out of the tractor is not. So when word got out that a pto quick hitch would be on exhibit at the 2007 South Dakota State Fair, fairgoers came - looking for "the hitch guy".
The hitch guy is Tom Heller, a Seneca, S. Dak., rancher with a 500-head cow/calf operation. His TommyJohn Quick Hitch is the result of plenty of tractor time and four years of thinking how to hook and unhook his feed wagon's hitch and pto without getting off the tractor. Heller headed to his farm shop to weld up what his mind had created, and it worked. After using his hitch for a year, Heller patented it. With the help of partners - brothers Craig and Steve Heller and John Schiley, he found manufacturers and fabricators in Webster and Ft. Pierre, S. Dak., to build the hitches, which became available in 2007.
"Engineers told me it couldn't be done," Heller says. His design has simple frames of 3 by 3 by 1/4-in. steel tubing. The hitch on the tractor has a ball hitch on top, which is lowered, backed up to the implement, then raised to slip under a receiver pipe on the implement hitch. When the ball hitch slips in, gears line up and the pto connects. A couple of latches on the bottom hold everything together.
"It's just like a drawbar and 3-pt. hitch," Heller says. "You don't have to do anything special to your implements."
Heller uses the hitch to feed cows and also on his manure spreader. It eliminates the need for a second tractor to load the spreader. His quick hitch is also on a bale wagon and a mixer wagon. He plans to work on adding hydraulics and hitching up snowblowers as well.
The hitch won the Minnesota AgrAbility award and was a winner at the 2007 Minnesota Inventors Congress.
The hitch is built strong, weighs about 400 lbs., and sells for $2,995 through the TommyJohn Industries website or by contacting Heller or one of his partners.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Tom Heller, TommyJohn Industries, 16472 339th Ave, Seneca, S. Dak. 57473 (ph 605 598-4544; info@tommyjohnindustries.com; www.tommyjohnindustries.com).
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