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Spreader Built From Cement Mixer Truck
If you've got a farm employee who's handy at building things, you should take advantage of his skills, says Dennis Haakenson, Evansville, Wis., who tapped into the mechanical abilities of worker Derek Yoerger, an engineering student who's worked for him for 7 years. They built a 4,000-gal. manure spreading tank mounted
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Spreader built from cement mixer truck MANURE HANDLING Equipment 16-5-9 If you've got a farm employee who's handy at building things, you should take advantage of his skills, says Dennis Haakenson, Evansville, Wis., who tapped into the mechanical abilities of worker Derek Yoerger, an engineering student who's worked for him for 7 years. They built a 4,000-gal. manure spreading tank mounted on an old cement mixing truck.
Haakenson says Yoerger did most of the work on the king-size tank spreader which they use to empty an earth lagoon that stores manure from his 70-cow milk herd. "We wanted to spread manure on fields about 4 miles down the road. We can travel up to 35 mph with this spreader. Lets us spread two full loads per hour," he says.
Haakenson bought a 1961 6-wheel drive Oshkosh cement mixing truck - minus the mixing tank - for $1,800. Engine and drivetrain were in working order. Next he obtained a 4,000 gal. storage tank from a local service station operator who had bought the tank to store waste oil but decided it was too big. Haakenson paid $500 for the tank.
To mount the tank on the truck frame, Yoerger built a cradle out of 3 by 3-in. sq. tubing with angle iron uprights welded to the side of the tank. Tank and cradle attach directly to the truck chassis.
Haakenson uses the existing entry port on top of the tank to load it with manure. To unload, Yoerger cut a hole in the back of the tank. It's opened and closed by a hydraulically-operated slide gate that's inside the tank. The gate is controlled by a small hydraulic cylinder at the top of the tank which raises and lowers a push rod running down inside the tank to the slide gate. They tapped into the truck's power steering to provide hydraulics to operate the gate cylinder. A control valve mounts in the cab.
Manure is spread up to 100 ft. by a paddle-type spreader that spins at about 1,000 rpm's. Made out of heavy plate steel (salvaged from the floor of a Harvester silo), the spreader wheel is about 20 in. in dia. and has 4 paddles. The design was copied from an old tank spreader. A driveshaft, which runs back alongside the spreader tank from the engine, belt-drives the spreader with a pair of V-belts. The driveshaft itself is belt-driven off the engine crankshaft and is kicked in and out of gear by a lever in the cab connected to an idler pulley on the drive belt. The tank is mounted at a slight slant towards the rear so most of the manure empties out by gravity.
"Altogether, we probably spent less than $3,000 since we found most of what we needed around the farm," says Haakenson.
Contact FARM SHOW Followup, Dennis Haakenson, Rt. 1, Box 458, Evansville, Wis. 53536 (ph 608 882-4705).
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