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Compact Folding Front Hitch
Moving 60 big hay bales inside - one at a time - late into the night and just barely beating a rain storm convinced Lyndon Dunbar he needed to come up with a faster method. Instead of buying a loader for his tractor, the electrical engineer and part-time farmer decided to build a front hitch that he could fold out of t
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Compact Folding Front Hitch HITCHES Hitches 32-3-28 Moving 60 big hay bales inside - one at a time - late into the night and just barely beating a rain storm convinced Lyndon Dunbar he needed to come up with a faster method. Instead of buying a loader for his tractor, the electrical engineer and part-time farmer decided to build a front hitch that he could fold out of the way when he didn't need it.
"I've used the hitch for two years now, primarily to move large round bales," explains Dunbar, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "I can move two bales on each trip with one on front and one on back."
With a hydraulic cylinder and other parts on hand, the hitch only cost $90 to build. The cylinder is mounted on the side of the tractor and pulls a 3/8-in. cable routed across pulleys to raise and lower hitch arms in front of the tractor. With an 8-in. stroke, the hydraulic cylinder provides 14 in. of lift - enough to handle bales.
Dunbar purchased Cat. I hitch arms and a short section of 2 by 2 by 3/8-in. angle iron to build a 3-pt. hitch to support a bale spear. He made and mounted an adapter onto the stationary drawbar of the hitch to support the top link of the 3-pt. hitch. He attached a bracket plate on the side of the tractor to hold the hydraulic cylinder.
"I came up with the design myself," Dunbar says. "The hydraulic hitches that are manufactured are pretty bulky, use a special hydraulic cylinder and you can't fold them up."
Dunbar notes that the compact design works well in his small fields and for negotiating around trees. He can bale his hay, unhook the baler, attach a bale spear to the back, another to the front on his hitch and be back in the field in a short time picking up two bales at a time.
When he doesn't need the bale fork, he removes it, folds up the hitch arms, removes the cylinder and hooks the cable on the cylinder bracket plate to keep the hitch arm in place.
Dunbar noted that he first used 5/16-in. cable, but it snapped. He switched to 3/8-in. cable, changed a sheave size and hasn't had any problems since.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Lyndon Dunbar, 713 Third St. SW, Apt. 3, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52404 (ph 319 364-3769).
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