It Begins: Big Bud Tractor to be Produced Again, Simple and Repairable

[DMiller]

Fringe, Edges of a larger 'garment', More or less in this case a cloak for hiding. Multiple definitions to Fringe.

 

[John C.]

That Abrams, they pulled out the firing mechanism and fabbed a shot gun action in, pulled out the electronic sites and put a Vortex Strikefire II 1 X 30 red dot sight. The machine guns were already manual. They couldn't get the fuel pump for the turbine to work so they installed a two inch gas powered trash pump and stuck the suction hose in the fill spout and plumbed the discharge down stream of the turbine feed. They chopped off the swing pinion for the turret and had two guys outside to push the barrel until the guy on the red dot said stop. Starter batteries went dead so they put a pulley and a rope on and fed it through a hole drilled through the frame and out between the road wheels. Next, they hooked it up to a donkey. When they needed the turbine to run, they cracked the donkey on the butt with a bull whip and the animal would try to run away and it would spin up the turbine. That worked good until one time the rope wouldn't let go and the turbine pulled the donkey through the tracks and road wheel. They didn't need to grease that track that day. It was kind of messy on the inside around that starter rope hole though.

 

[Bumpsteer]

No-till is not as popular here as it was 15 years ago. Lower yeilds and later planting because the ground doesn't dry out without tillage.
Vertical and minimum tillage are popular. If you have the hp, hi-speed disks are common.
Still a few old school, chisel plow every acre. Seems no 2 farmers work ground the same anymore.

Ed

 

[Shimmy1]

No-till is not as popular here as it was 15 years ago. Lower yeilds and later planting because the ground doesn't dry out without tillage.


Ed

Don't forget about compaction. Some soil needs steel slicing through it periodically to remain productive.

 

[Bumpsteer]

Yup, ours sure does, every year, heavy clay. Tom showed up one spring to work bean stubble with a field cultivator, went about 200 yards....folded it up and left. Came back with the heavy disk....lol.
There was 180 acres near me that got subsoiled last fall, looked like he ripped it around 12-14" deep.

Ed

 

[Shimmy1]

Tom showed up one spring to work bean stubble with a field cultivator, went about 200 yards....folded it up and left. Came back with the heavy disk....lol.

Ed

Guessing that was because the bean straw wouldn't flow and was bunching. If our bean ground doesn't get ripped in the fall, it gets the Salford in the spring. If I have to plant corn on it, I'd really like to see the cultivator after the Salford, but never do because of time and/or cost.

 

[Bumpsteer]

Lol, no. The clay was so damned hard the field cultivator teeth couldn't dig in.

When I did site prep for my shop I couldn't cut the clay....a friend came over, 850 Case dozer. Looked at me..pussy, dropped the blade and gave it hell!

Went 2' and spun out.....our ground is like concrete when its dry.

Ed

 

[Welder Dave]

Some ground does get so hard you need a subsoiler or very heavy disc. Even smaller acres and gardens that are rototilled need to be deep cultivated every 4 or 5 years. Some sections of my MX track are like concrete once you get below the topsoil. When it gets a good rain sucks because it doesn't soak in so I have a bunch of puddles in the low spots. It needs a deep ripping but I don't have big enough equipment. I've added quite a bit of sand that helps. I found a place to get wood chips which works good along with the sand but don't have a way to transport them out to my property about an hour away. I've been thinking about getting 1 or 2 of the construction debris bags at Home Depot and taking them out everytime I go out. The place that does the tree chipping is really close to where I live and the chips are free. Would be way too expensive getting my dump truck certified and putting insurance on it. Thought about seeing if the gravel pit near me ever delivers close to where the wood chips are and I could pay them for a back haul. Their dump trucks have large aluminum boxes and pull aluminum quad trailers. If the wood chips could be packed you'd never overload a truck.

 

[DMiller]

The big green push was that the organic mass would soften soils, worked initially until does get incorporated then dries, now have a field of solidified adobe.
Have to break it to break it up to get crumbly enough for tiny organisms access to break down the organics so return to tillage. Good New intentions back to what the old guys already understood.

 

[terex herder]

No till works good here for corn, milo, and soybeans. 19 years out of 20 the limiting factor for yield is lack of rain. No till saves moisture, and I understand there are a lot of areas where to much moisture is the limiting factor.

It doesn't work very good for wheat on wheat, as there are to many diseases that are harbored in the wheat stubble. The wheat thing doesn't matter that much, as locally wheat is a loss leader and a tribute to past agricultural practices. Corn and soybean yields have increased 50% in the last 30 years, all wheat only 25%. The high yielding wheats such as Truck Shop posted don't grow in Kansas or anywhere else on the great plains.

 

[56wrench]

Just goes to show that different soil types and different stubble types require different management. Around here the biggest factor is moisture conservation so minimum tillage or zero tillage seem to work best at this point in time and some deep ripping as required depending on the soil base

 

[JaredV]

I farm like it's 1960. Moldboard plow(best part of the job), disc, drill/fertilize and pack. So far my best has been 133 bushel oats and my little IH 80 pull type combine had a tough time getting through it. Too much moisture tends to be the issue here and the ground needs to be broken up to dry out and drain but if you let it get too dry, then you've got a field of concrete chunks to bust up.

 

[KSSS]

I farm like it's 1960. Moldboard plow(best part of the job), disc, drill/fertilize and pack. So far my best has been 133 bushel oats and my little IH 80 pull type combine had a tough time getting through it. Too much moisture tends to be the issue here and the ground needs to be broken up to dry out and drain but if you let it get too dry, then you've got a field of concrete chunks to bust up.

An 80 IH pull type combine? I don't think I have ever heard of one. I pulled a 914 pull type for years. I preferred the pull type to running a regular combine.

 

[JaredV]

It's the perfect size for me. I can run it with my 504 Farmall and it just fits in my shed. Originally it had a 7 foot cut but a previous owner widened it to almost 8 feet.

 

[KSSS]

Wow! That goes back a ways.

 

[DMiller]

Locals that have powered combines always complain of brakes out, belts shot, engine not been run awhile so fuel algae bad or gas soured, maintenance headache unless do as my Great Uncle and Aunt's families did, share equipment, multiple farms planted at altered schedules, machines not left to sit and rot all that long between uses, and they used a local to keep them serviced/serviceable.

 

[Welder Dave]

I had an uncle that used a JD 6601 (I think) pull type behind a 4440 tractor. It makes more sense for a lot of farmers. Combines are a bit of an oddity. You rarely see them with a lot of hours. I don't think I've ever seen used combines with over 3000 hours. Maybe they're a right off for big farms? I knew a dairy farmer who'd buy a new 80K tractor to avoid paying taxes. He did it a few times. He had more tractors than he needed.

 

[still learn'n]

Look up Mike Mitchell on YouTube. They pull big air seeders and don't hardly have enough hp to pull on their hills.

I read somewhere that they were planning on using 988 cat loader axles. I have thought about this and wondered why they would use loader axles and not use 773 truck axles or something down that line. Are loader axles made for long hard pulls?

 

[Tones]

Look up Mike Mitchell on YouTube. They pull big air seeders and don't hardly have enough hp to pull on their hills.

I read somewhere that they were planning on using 988 cat loader axles. I have thought about this and wondered why they would use loader axles and not use 773 truck axles or something down that line. Are loader axles made for long hard pulls?

It maybe more to do with the gearing required.

 

[chidog]

Who are "they?"

We are not allowed to talk about "They" here.