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Look What They're Doing With Old School Buses Self-Propelled Sprayer
"Works great", says Montana farmer, Chuck Pluhar, of Cohagen, who converted an old school bus into a self-propelled field sprayer.
Pluhar bought the old bus from a bus company for $1,200. "The engine had only 30,000 miles on it. I knew what kind of condition it was in and felt it was a good buy at $1,200," Pluhar
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Look What They're Doing With Old School Buses Self-Propelled Sprayer SCHOOLBUS CONVERSIONS Schoolbus Conversions 7-2-14 "Works great", says Montana farmer, Chuck Pluhar, of Cohagen, who converted an old school bus into a self-propelled field sprayer.
Pluhar bought the old bus from a bus company for $1,200. "The engine had only 30,000 miles on it. I knew what kind of condition it was in and felt it was a good buy at $1,200," Pluhar told FARM SHOW.
The bus had a short 150-in. wheel base and was designed to haul 24 passengers ù small as school buses go. He took out the middle sections where the windows were, and moved the rear wall of the bus forward to just behind the operator's seat, creating a cab. A 750 gal. tank was mounted behind the cab, and the spray booms behind the tank. The roof over the cab is the original bus top.
"If you tried to convert a long bus into a field sprayer, you'd probably have to shorten the wheelbase," suggests Pluhar. "Otherwise, you couldn't turn very sharp in the field."
So far he's sprayed about 4000 acres of small grain with his home-made "bus" sprayer. "It works great, although I did have to make some minor modifications. I built the hydraulic sprayer unit myself from components I bought, but the hydraulic oil was getting too hot. I revamped it so water in the tank now cools the oil."
Cost of converting the bus and building the sprayer was about $5,000. Everything is controlled from the driver's seat, and the booms spray a 60-ft. swath. The booms swing up to a travel height of 13 1/2 ft.
Pluhar put flotation tires on the front of the bus and eight tires on the back, four on each side, with the tread touching, to act as flotation tires. He notes that a key advantage of his sprayer is that it carries about five times as much water as most commercial self-propelled field sprayers.
Pluhar asks that you include your phone number in letters sent to him.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Chuck Pluhar, Box 345, Cohagen, Mont. 59322 (ph 406 557-2809).
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