Flex Hitched 42 Ft Bean Drill

Flex hitched 42 ft bean drill PLANTERS Planters 14-2-9 "I can plant as much as 300 acres in a 15-hr. day. A comparable commercial flex hitch would have cost $11,000 without the drills or markers. I already had one drill and bought everything else needed for less than $4,500," says Richard Wurtzberger, Sleepy Eye, Minn., who teamed up two 20-ft. Tye grain drills to make a flex-hitched 42-ft. drill. "It seeds a total of 32 rows. There are 4 skip rows so I can use a 21-ft. rotary hoe and also a 21-ft. bean bar. The skip rows are also spaced correctly for the dividers at either end of the 20-ft. head on our combine. Two of the skip rows are be-hind the tractor wheels, with four rows in between, and the other skip rows are two rows from each end of the drill. "I started with a rigid frame another farmer had originally built to mount two 15-ft. Deere drills. I extended the drill and fitted it with a pivoting 3-pt. hitch. I used a Weldon 3-pt. swivel on the inside lower link. The outside lower link is a slot which allows a Cat II to Cat III adapter to roll up and down 3 in. The third link is adjustable and is spaced at a height equal to the drill hitch. "The flexible hitch gives the drill a total of 16.5 in. of flex at the ends of each drill, or a- total flex of 33 in. However, when turning or on ends, the outside end of the drill can lower 1 1/2 in. from center (half of 3 in.) so the drill will be 5 1/4 in. lower on the outside than the 3-pt. frame. To remedy this I attached, through a series of cables and pulleys, the outside lower link to the center cylinder on the lift assist. A turnbuckle is used to set the drill at a level height. I used two Deere lift assist wheels from a 71 corn planter to help lift the drill. They lift simultaneous with the center," says Wurtzberger. He uses 2 transport pivot wheels and the hitch from an IH 500 planter to trans-port the drill, pulling from one end. The planter monitor he uses came off an 8-row IH planter. "To adapt the IH sensors to the Tye seed boot, I made bushings by cutting donut sections off 1 1/4-in. dia. plastic tubing. I cut the seed boots in the center and removed several ribs, replacing them with the sensors. I put sensors on the outside rows and then distributed them evenly across the width of the drill. "The markers were salvaged from an old IH Cyclo planter." Wurtzberger says no permanent modification was made to the planter, although some holes were drilled to attach braces to it. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Richard Wurtzberger, Rt. 2, Box 136, Sleepy Eye, Minn. 56085 (ph 507 794-6869).

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