He Gangs 400 bu Grain Carts Together

He gangs 400 bu grain carts together GRAIN HANDLING Miscellaneous 15-5-25 An add-on pto shaft that runs through the bottom of one 400-bu. grain cart and back to a second 400-bu. cart hitched behind lets Mark Herickhoff, Belgrade, Minn., unload two carts at the same time. The add-on pto is belt-driven by a pulley mounted on the front cart's unloading auger drive sprocket and can be engaged or disengaged hydraulically from the tractor seat by moving the end of the add-on shaft up or down via hydraulic cylinder. "During harvest I use them to load double hopper semi trucks parked at the end of the field. The carts' combined 800-bu. capacity allows a combine with an 8-row head to make a complete 1-mile round trip without unloading. Some of my fields are 30 miles from drying and storage facilities, so the carts also serve as a holding bin while the trucks are gone. I pull the carts with a 200 hp Deere 4955 mfwd tractor. One limitation to hitching the carts together is that I can't back up much, but I seldom need to back them up anyway. "I originally had one 400 bu. cart and needed more capacity. However, I didn't want to spend the money for a new 800 bu. cart. I have about $5,200 invested in the two carts and spent about $1,200 more to add the pto shaft. A single cart of comparable capacity would have cost at least $10,000 to $12,000. The two carts are equipped with 12-in. dia. augers and unload at about the same speed as a single can equipped with a 16-in. dia. auger. However, running two carts together is better than a large single cart because I can use them separately in muddy fields where a large cart would sink in." To install the add-on pto, Herickhoff ran a piece of 4-in. dia. well casing through the bottom of the front grain cart to protect the pto shaft. Grain simply flows around the pipe. He then mounted a drawbar removed from a Deere 5020 tractor behind the front cart. He also widened the carts' axles so they can straddle four 30-in. rows without knocking stalks down, allowing his stalk chopper to do a better job. To drive the new pto, he installed heavy duty no. 80 roller chain on the front cart's drive sprocket. He mounted a triple pulley on the drive sprocket which then belt-drives the pulley on the add-on pto shaft. The top pulley mounts on a hinging steel plate which is moved up and down by a 6-in. hydraulic cylinder to engage and disengage the rear cart's pto. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Mark Herickhoff, 26804 U.S. Hwy. 71, Belgrade, Minn. 56312 (ph 612 254-3636).

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