Oh what a day!

I think each of us have had days we wonder why we did not get anything done. Today was one of those for me. When I got up this morning I planned to cut beans all day today. WRONG. I am using a Oliver 7300 combine. I cut three acers then had the main drive belt come off. It took me an hour to get it back on. I finished the one field I was in and had a truck full. I thought to myself, go take this to the mill while they are open and then you can cut another truck full this afternoon. The trip to the mill went fine. I got back to the combine moved to another field and notice a jar lid size hole in the floor of the header. No problem I thought. I deceided I would take a peice of thin sheet metal and some self taping screws and make a tempory patch. Well that called for a trip to the hardware store, the barn for tools and a hour of time. I got that screwed into place and thought to myself, "I can cut all of this feild and maybe the next one before dark". Wrong again. I made one round and deceided I should check my patch. Not only was it gone, but I now had two holes the size of soft balls.

Upon much examination and figuring I deceided that it was best for me to let a professional weld a permanet fix on this machine firt thing Monday morning.

I was aggrevated that I did not get more cut than I did, but I was happy that no one got hurt and I did not tear up anything harder to fix.

You show a good attitude my friend. I am sorry that you had problems, but in most instances you can always find an "upside". I installed a reman. master cylinder on my old truck and tried to bleed the lines this afternoon. Can't get any fluid to the right rear wheel. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Today was my first day working on the farm in a while. We were getting ready for a new baby and then I spent some time home with mom & the kids, so no farming for me.

Today I took the hay head off our retired fox 3000 so we could use it as a wood chipper. Everything was going well until we were almost done chipping, when the spare shear bar I used 2 months ago to set the knives before doing a little corn and forgot to remove fell into the knives. 2 knives are junk for sure, not sure about the rest yet. If nothing else I'll remove 3 of the 6 knives and use it like that for the wood. I don't have any intentions of using it in the field again, espescially after today...

And to think, we chopped 3 loads of corn with it and then some hay, and even a little bit of bedding with it and the shear bar stayed in place for all that. I guess the 3-4" branches we were feeding in today may have jiggled it loose...

Donovan from Wisconsin

(quoted from post at 19:58:39 11/10/12) Today was my first day working on the farm in a while. We were getting ready for a new baby and then I spent some time home with mom & the kids, so no farming for me.

Today I took the hay head off our retired fox 3000 so we could use it as a wood chipper. Everything was going well until we were almost done chipping, when the spare shear bar I used 2 months ago to set the knives before doing a little corn and forgot to remove fell into the knives. 2 knives are junk for sure, not sure about the rest yet. If nothing else I'll remove 3 of the 6 knives and use it like that for the wood. I don't have any intentions of using it in the field again, espescially after today...

And to think, we chopped 3 loads of corn with it and then some hay, and even a little bit of bedding with it and the shear bar stayed in place for all that. I guess the 3-4" branches we were feeding in today may have jiggled it loose...

Donovan from Wisconsin

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How well does that work? We have about 20 acres of woods with heavy brush I want o clean out and I have ben looking at buying a PTO chipper. I know I can find an old beat up chopper for a lot less.

Rick

Sometimes the rubber hoses rust shut where they are crimped on to the steel.

Works pretty good. I'm thinking of making a chute to help guide the limbs in, and the benefit of the Fox is the apron bed which helps run them in from farther away, instead of having to feed them directly into the feed rolls. Tons of caution is needed. (don't think I need to say that, but I'll still say it)

The prev. owner of our fox used it to do some chipping, and they had made up a safety bar that went in place of the original linkage for the reversing gear box, and has a bar right above the housing. Of course since I took it off 10 years ago, it got used for something else. Yesterday I had to refabricate something else for the job, but it still does the job and is handy when a branch doesn't want to feed in.

I'll try to get some pictures of it when I'm working on it.

Donovan from Wisconsin