TractormanMike.mb

Aluminum head so welding won't work. What model atv, engine size?

You mentioned something about building a pulling sled?

There are threaded holes on either side of the grease fitting that you can thread bolts into if you haven't already found them. Usually if you remove the grease fitting and thread bolts into those holes with some kind of bridge plate you can nudge them out with a long pry bar. If not a puller can be made by welding the bridge plate to a short length of pipe and using threaded rod to pull the pins. Usually, the pry bar method has worked for me.

Ill elaborate more from my earlier post. The 800 cyclo I planted with originally had the big 540 pump. The inner splined coupled on the pump wore out and it was cheaper to replace it with a 1000 rpm pump, the one with the long cylindrical reservoir on the back of the pump. Those pumps always seemed to vibrate and shake. We ended up with two of them just so we would have a spare and usually had to switch at some point during the season. Those pumps got so worn out that we went with another pump, I think it was from a 1200 series planter, that needed a separate reservoir. That pump worked better but it would still wear the splines on both the pump coupler and the tractor pto shaft. It didn't matter how tight I had the pinch bolt tightened. I even made a bracket to support the pump from the draw bar support but that made it harder and took more time to switch to end wise transport. The last few years I ran that planter we were pulling it with a 4650. I used the pto pump for the first couple years but by now that pump was pushing ten years old and I was having a hard time getting enough out put, especially towards the afternoon when things got good and warmed up. I usually had to close the bypass valve to put full flow to the planter and even then would have just enough air pressure to plant. I knew a 4650 has enough hydraulic capacity to run that planter so finally when I was setting it up one spring I removed the pump and extended the pressure hose to reach one of the remotes. I returned the oil through a case drain I made by utilizing a plug at the rear of the tractor. I put a female pioneer fitting on the planter side of the return hose so I could couple the hoses together for storage or when going to transport. From the first day I knew that I should have ran it direct long ago. I could run the tractor at 1300 engine rpms and the planter would hold steady pressure all day. Need more rpms for climbing a hill or a tough spot, it wouldn't effect the planter one bit. I would the planter all day and I never had a problem with the hydraulic oil getting too hot. These are my recollections of my experiences, hope it helps. The last couple years I ran that planter I was planting over 1000 acres of corn with it.

What tractor do you plant with and does it have enough hydraulic capacity to run the planter off the remotes. Once you make the switch you will never look back.

Reading this thread I'm realizing how little I know about computers.

Another thing to note is that 2+2 tractors have quite a bit more transmission noise compared to other tractors. Is the oil level in the sight glass?

I sure some on here are guilty of this one. An articulated tractor is a large tractor that pivots in the center to turn. If somebody is articulate, that usually means that they are well spoken. Does that mean when somebody says they did some work with their articulate tractor their tractor is well spoken?

My opinion, unless you are playing in the mountains out west with a long, deep cleated paddle track there really isn't a need for that much power. I've gone riding with guy that take their mountain sleds, as I call them, trail riding. Yes, they can leave a corner like a shot out of a gun but then they have to slow way down at the next turn and struggle and use lots of English to try and turn. Then they also have to mess with the scratchers also. Meanwhile I just sit on mine and enjoy the ride. Not to mention the damage it does to the trail. The last few years we just haven't gotten enough snow locally, unless you get out early enough to get out after the groomer went through most of the corners are spun down to bare dirt.

An L&M fleet supply opened near us a couple months back. Today was the first time I finally got a chance to check it out. Wow! That store has everything I need and then some. I would describe it as if tractor supply, Dunhams and Menards got together L&M fleet supply would be the outcome.

The carbs were all out of wack when I bought my 580. The first trail ride I took with it I went 40 miles on a tank of gas, the tank is nearly ten gallons by the way. I'm surprised the thing even ran. Besides that, fuel injected sleds and carbureted sleds take a different drive belt, the fuel injected belt is longer and at some point someone got the numbers crossed and put the wrong belt on. I was turning seven to eight thousand rpms at cruising speed. I spent some time getting the carbs tuned, put the right belt on and serviced the clutches and now I can get about 80 or 100 miles out of a full tank of fuel depending on the riding we are doing.

My zr580 cat is a retativly low mile sled, story I heard was the original owner bought it for his wife to ride and it never got much use. The friend I bought it from didn't ride it much, he could never get it to run right. Anyone who ever owned a carbureted Arctic cat would also know that it might have been due to the fact that it costs a small fortune to keep gas in the tank, those sleds are thirsty.

Looks nice. Looks like it was either never trailered or washed good if it was.

As long as its short haul, under 150 miles, you should be ok.

All this talk about snakes makes me even happier I live in a cold weather state.

When I worked with them it was the black creek Wisconsin yard. There was one guy that was pretty good about returning phone calls, otherwise I had to hound them. Parts always got shipped in a timely manner however. On I side note, I had to run to green bay once and drove over to black creek to pick something up and to see the yard, it was only about a half hour drive. While I was there a Sheriff's deputy stopped in for some business. All of a sudden every worker there was heading out to the yard to remove a part off of something. They must have all figured the deputy was there for one of them so they scattered to the yard.

Waayy off subject but anybody who spend even a little time around an older Deere self propelled chopper knows that you can put as much horsepower you want at it. The issue is getting the feed through the auger bed between the cutterhead and blower.

I got poked by a red snapper once closing a spring gate with a bad handle and my arm went numb, the snap the fence made even made the cows run, they knew what it was.

We tried chopping rye in the spring a couple times. It makes good feed but the window to harvest is very short. Also it seems to fall at a time when other planting needs to be done so freeing a crew and tractors to harvest it is hard. I use rye as a winter cover where I grow my pumpkins, I'll plow it under in a few weeks to get the ground ready to plant. Its amazing the root structure of the rye and earth worm activity that it promotes.

Biomass

Was that rye that you were plowing down?

We had an early 90s Chevy Corsica. How many of you or classmates drove themselves to drivers ed?

A trick I learned is to take a can of high temperature spray paint and paint the inside of the stack, use the whole can and work from both ends

Mr light foot did a show here at a local casino about fifteen or so years ago. One of my friends was really in to his music so he bought tickets to see the show. I went along because it was something to do and the tickets only cost $25 and I knew some of his songs because my friend was always playing them. We get there early and of course consumed a few adult beverages, we weren't trashed but were definitely in good spirits. The show started, Mr light foot took the stage and my friend stood up and started cheering. The lady seated in front of him turned around and shushed him, he got shushed at a concert. Of course the rest of us shushed her back and she turned around in disgust. After that we gave a standing ovation to every song he played and he even acknowledged us a couple times, it was a fun concert. He didn't play guitar at that concert because he had suffered some sort of mind stroke just days before. His guitar tech played for him and he sat on a stool and sang. I really admired his dedication to his fans for still performing just days after a stroke. His legend will live on.

Since we are already way off the rails on this thread... Most of the species of trees used for bio-mass, willows, aspens, patch and such are fast growing trees that don't have much density to the wood. We aren't dealing with mature oak or hard maple so I would imagine the young trees would actually pass through a chopper pretty well. It might not be much different than chopping a crop of hay or corn. One thing I noticed watching the video of the claas chopping trees is that the trees pass through the feed rolls slowly, and they would need to. After running one of those machines I know first hand that once the crop, especially corn, hits the feed rolls it gets sucked into the machine fairly quick. I don't know if the feed roll drive on the machine in that video has some kind of option to slow the feed rolls down more or if they are capable of being slowed down that much from the factory. Interesting application anyhow.