Rear-Unloading Chopper Boxes Unload Faster

Rear-Unloading Chopper Boxes Unload Faster COMBINES Down Corn 33-2-6 James Wielenberg and his father Melvin had always wanted a hydraulic rear-unloading chopper box, but hadn't been able to find one near their Long Prairie, Minn., farm. So they made two of them, by converting old Forage King Chopper boxes. "There are a lot less moving parts and the speed to unload is quite a bit faster," James says about the converted boxes. They built the first one two years ago after they bought a cheap, rusted 14-ft. box at an auction. "First we took all the beaters and front conveyor off. We framed it up with 5 by 1/2-in. steel where the beaters were," James says. They reversed the box to put the new opening in the back and built a door out of square tubing and sheet metal that pivots on a 1 1/8-in. shaft on the 5-in. steel frame. The door automatically unlatches when the hydraulically driven apron chain starts running. The Wielenbergs changed sprockets and gears, making them bigger to slow the apron down to accommodate the motor from an old fertilizer gravity box auger. They cut a 2 1/2-ft. deep opening in the front to blow in silage. It worked well enough that they converted one of their 16-ft. forage boxes that had worn out. They beefed up the roof in the front opening and installed a hydraulic motor from a Deere combine soybean head. "It's quite a bit faster," James says. "You just dump it in the pile and get out of the way (for someone else to move and pack it)." The father and son own a dairy and used their two converted boxes to put up 600 tons of corn silage and 200 tons of haylage in 2008. The conversions cost about $500 each. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, James Wielenberg, 16761 County 38, Long Prairie, Minn. 56347 (ph 320 732-6547; jmwielenberg@yahoo.com).

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