how big of a disc can i pull

rick1

Member
i have a massey 165 diesel i have been using a 8ft 3-point massey disc.it hardly knows its back there the biggest problem is it makes valleys down the center i tried adjusting it but still hard to get the field level with it.so been thinking of getting a pull type transport disc.but not sure what size i could pull
RICK
 
It depends, of course, on the soil type, depth, and how the tractor is ballasted, but I wouldnt want any bigger then a 10 ft wheel disk behind a 165. Heck a good heavy deep cutting 8 ft disk with good big blades will be plenty. Sure you can pull bigger, but for a decent disking ground speed and letting her down to cut deep, I would want an 8 to 10 max.......

Now lets see somebody braggin about how they pulled a 12 or 14 zippin right along lol (bet they dont say how deep or how heavy a disk or blade size or if it was light easy working soil???)

Hey its your tractor, your soil conditions, your depth and speed choices so its your call...

John T
 
(quoted from post at 22:16:46 12/26/12) It depends, of course, on the soil type, depth, and how the tractor is ballasted, but I wouldnt want any bigger then a 10 ft wheel disk behind a 165. Heck a good heavy deep cutting 8 ft disk with good big blades will be plenty. Sure you can pull bigger, but for a decent disking ground speed and letting her down to cut deep, I would want an 8 to 10 max.......

Now lets see somebody braggin about how they pulled a 12 or 14 zippin right along lol (bet they dont say how deep or how heavy a disk or blade size or if it was light easy working soil???)

Hey its your tractor, your soil conditions, your depth and speed choices so its your call...

John T

I once used a 4020 on an 16' disc pulling a drill at 5mph. I didn't actually, but someone else told me that.
Its all about your soil and your depth. People are scratching the soil and my belief when they tell me some of the things they can do. I know in my sandbox, some things don't work. :wink:
 
It sounds like you may have the wrong top link for the 3pt hitch. I'm far from being a MF expert, but they offered many rear tire options, thus a couple different lower and top link lengths. If your top link is too short, and won't adjust out far enough, you will gouge out the center with the front gangs, and the back gangs will not penetrate enough to throw the soil back to the center. I see no advantage to a trailing disc, other than your 8' 3pt is a bit small. I think a 12' pull type disk is a bit much for your tractor. You loose a lot of traction when you switch from the 3pt to a drawbar tillage tool.
Just a question for you. Are you running the hydraulics in position control or draft control. Position control will allow the disc to drop into the ground better, and perhaps some ballast on the disc will help also with proper top link adjustment.
Loren, the Acg.
 
Want level and pretty. I have a 12ft cultipacker. Twin clod buster with cultivators in between them.
Wil leave your field as smooth as a Babies butt.
Walt
They cost new around $17,000
I will let mine go for $2000 or best offer.
 
A 165 is a light 50 horse tractor.Unless you have duals,10 ft anything is all that tractor will want.With singles,8 ft is plenty...
 
A 165 will toy with a 10' disc. No duals needed. We have heavy clay here, and hills to boot. My 165 handles a 10' IH 370 disc, sunk to the axle, @ 4-3/4 to 5 mph I pull an 8'er with my MF150.

You've got something out of adjustment on the Massey disc. Set correct, a #25 MF 3-point disc does an incredible job of leveling a seedbed.
 
i used one of those magnet levels last year.sticking right on it so i could see it.as i think back it does seem like the front was digging deeper than the back.the blades are all like new.maybe this spring i will be a little more patient.i fenced in a nice 1 acre part of my pasture last spring and plowed and disc it.i was in a little bit of a hurry when i disc it for the rain was coming the next day.however that was the last rain for a long time.i drilled it and nothing hardly came up.i am going to disc it up again and reseed it this spring with a orchard grass/timothy mix.
RICK
 
speed and too heavy in the front both can cause your problems. The only way to get it right is experience, which you get from making mistakes. That's why pencils have erasers!
 
My 8ft.I-H transport disc with a packer behind it is a handfull for my 231 Massey. My tires are not loaded either which would help alot if they were. My soil is light and the ground is fairly flat. I would think you would have no problem with my set-up and probably do ok with a ten footer. Depending on the ground and the hills you have. I beleive it was 2.5 hp per disc blade as a rule of thumb.
 
If in fact a MF165 is a 50 hp tractor as stated below I wouldn't want anything bigger than an 8' around here. Likely with that size of tractor you aren't doing big farming and I'd much rather have one my tractor would handle fine rather than struggle. In our soil a 50hp tractor would struggle with a 10'. As stated, your disc is running too heavy in the front and that isn't allowing the back gangs to pick up enough soil to fill in the trench. You adjust that with the center link.
 
Try the 3 point disk without the top link for a little ways- and adjust the front-to-rear balance by lifting and lowering the 3 point arms, to see if you can find a setting that eliminates the center valley problem.

I use a chain for a top link on my 3 point disk, set up so it is normally slack while underway, and only lifts the back of the disk enough to barely get it out of the ground when the 3 point is all the way up.
 
This topic comes up rather frequently, prompting many anecdotal oriented answers. All disks are not created equal and wear makes them even more unequal. Some disks are classified a primary tillage tools while others due to design or wear are secondary tillage tools. A Massey 165 will not pull a 10' heavy duty cutting or primary tillage disk with 20 inch coulters.. period.. unless you set the depth wheels to rather shallow... turning the disk into a secondary tillage tool.
 
OK, first, you didn't say where you are or what your dirt is like. If you are in NewMexico dustbowl talcum powder, get whatever you want.

A disc harrow isn't what is suppose to make a finished seedbed. It breaks up the roots and clumps brought up by a bottom plow. It is only going to make the clumps smaller, very few people plant in this condition, but I know potato growers that say the seeds like it more than a proper seedbed. For that your disc-ed ground needs a follow up, spring tooth harrow, spike tooth, rolovator, cultipacker, something. the poor or cheap truck farmers around here used to put a chain on both ends of the back of the disc, and bolt or weld a 2 or even 4 inch pipe as wide as the disc to tumble that low spot you don't like. These easy adjust harrows can't make everyone happy, but I am glad I got mine. I got others, but none as handy-in general- as the Dearborn/MF 3 point one.
Now, a 165 is a nice beast, but not a sci fi transfomer. A bit wider-10'?, harrow would be max- for long term safety of the machine. But anything bigger than yours isn't going to be 3 point is it? so you need remotes, tires, turning radius of a footbal field, and more brain power involved getting it organized in a small patch, which is all I deal with.
And- hate to admit it- more of a problem in the bigger newer Massey's, but the splines in the drive train aren't indistructable, you don't match the torque, speed- @#$%^ bumps, you are tearing up a little shaft and tearing into a big project.
A diesel? So it is a Perkins, and Cat is cutting production of old Perkins replacements, so you're best off to treat that engine well too.
So in a nustshell? Get 2 pieces of chain a few feet long and an old iron pipe wider than the disc, and your little furrows will disappear on the cheap and easy......
But then again, on this forum... I am always wrong...
 
If you want the ground smoothed out and level, a disk harrow is the entirely WRONG piece of equipment to do it.

After the disk you need some sort of spring toothed harrow to finish breaking up the clods and smooth the seed bed down nice.

For many years, we pulled a 16' light disk, with a 16' spring tooth "drag" harrow behind that, and a 16' piece of well casing behind that. The well casing would take dirt from the high spots and funnel it into low spots. You could almost completely fill in the dead furrow in a couple of passes.
 
You are leaving a lot of information out. Does it have the 28" rear tire or the 36" rear tire. That in itself will make a 2 foot difference in width. Then are tires loaded or do you have iron weight on. A 38" wheel with a dual tire and fluid in a lighter finnishing disk you could handle a 12-13'. That setup would be equivilant to the Ford I had. Now if you have no duals and no weight with the 28" tires you are maxed out with an 8' unit. The way the tractor is setup is first consideration, next is style of disk as they varry considerably in power to pull sane size and depth you are trying to cut is a big factor.
 
10 foot would work, 12 foot will work in the right conditions but be a load and then some in the wrong conditions.

Disks were parked in the grove back in the 1970s around here, field cultivator does a much better job of secondary tillage to level the fields.

Paul
 

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