School Bus Grain Hauler

School Bus Grain Hauler GRAIN HANDLING Miscellaneous 17-2-1 "My converted 66-passenger school bus hauls up to 350 bu. of grain. It makes an excellent grain hauler and cost less than $2,000 to build," says Indiana farmer Charles Vogel, of North Vernon, who mounted a pair of used gravity boxes on the bus frame. Vogel started with a 1963 Chevrolet school bus equipped with a 327 cu. in. V-8 gas engine and 4-speed transmission: Ife cut off the body of the bus behind the driver's seat and made an enclosed cab by cutting off a 2-ft section at- the back of the bus and welding it to the front part of the body. He then bolted a pair of gravity boxes together and clamped them onto the rear frame. It does everything a regular grain truck can do and is much faster than pulling gravity boxes behind a tractor," says Vogel, who built the rig three years ago. "We use it only to haul grain from the field to our bins. We use a semi-truck to haul grain to the elevator in town. Since we don't drive it on the highway much it qualifies for special machinery license plates in Indiana which cost only $5 per year. It's much safer than pulling gravity boxes behind a tractor be-cause you can see traffic behind you on the road. It's easier to unload than a truck be-cause we don't have to back up to unload. The windows at the back of the cab make it easy to see when we pull up to unload. "Each grain box holds about 175 bu. and is about 10 ft. long. The bus gets a little top heavy if the boxes are loaded too high and driving it takes some getting used to but we haven't had any problems. The bus's 2-speed rear axle really comes in handy for going up hills and through muddy fields." Vogel also built two other school bus grain haulers and uses one of them to haul dry fertilizer in the spring during planting. An unloading auger powered by a hydraulic motor mounts on the front of that box. The hydraulic motor is powered by a hydraulic pump pto-driven off the bus transmission. He uses the cut-off bus bodies to make sheds for storing lawn mowers and other equipment. He boards up one end with plywood and puts a door on the other end. He also built a planting and spraying supply truck by cutting the back and part of one side off a bus and putting a 1,000-gal. nurse tank inside. He loads chemicals in back and seed in front. Contact FARM SHOW Followup, Charles Vogel, Rt. 6, Box 191, North Vernon, Ind. 47265 (ph 812 522-1323).

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