School me on Hydraulic Reset Plows

Hi folks,

I'm sure this has been covered, but I can't find any great info on it. I'm wondering if some of you experts can tell me about hydraulic reset plows: Mainly wondering about their advantages/disadvantages vs. spring resets.

Up here the ground is stupidly rocky - not just fist or grapefruit-sized stones, but 1500# and larger rocks that will bring a tractor do a dead stop if they catch a board. Sometimes it seems like the boards spend more time out of the ground than in. The only plows anyone has around here anymore are Kverneland spring resets - coil springs greatly preferred over leaf springs (which apparently fatigue with repeated flexing and fly apart).

I have a 4 furrow Kverneland I pull with my White 2-105, but would like a 3 furrow to use on my Ford 6600 or Allis 180. The White is very bulky and unstable for some of our steep side hills and odd-shaped fields.

There's a Massey 3-furrow hydraulic reset plow not farm from me that looks in excellent shape and reasonably priced. It's tempting, but I'm hesitant to go with anything but the Scandinavian plows that everyone around here now uses.

Any thoughts/opinions greatly appreciated.

Run away from a hyd. reset plow. In almost every application they were a failure. If you have more than a few rocks they will not work. Oil can only move so fast and if you trip several bottoms at the same time you are very likely to break something. The best reset plows are either the IH 450 three point mounted or the IH 710 semi mount. The Oliver or White was very good as well. I grew up in extreme limestone rocks and back when everything was plowed the IH or the Oliver was the only plow to hold up. The Deere, Massey, Allis Chalmers and Oliver hydraulic resets were all failures. Maybe in area with only a few rocks they would work. Tom

Dad and I and a neighbor bought JI Case 3300 hydraulic reset plows in 72. Neighbors would ride with us to watch the plows work. They have a nitrogen accumulator pre charged to 1600 psi. Had a bladder in the accumulator with hydraulic oil on one side and the nitrogen on the other. Had a valve and gauge to set the pressure on the bottoms. I don't think we ever broke a lay on those plows in some pretty rocky soil. JD had a hyd. reset plow that was always breaking or blowing seals. Think I have a half dozen of those plows from 5-7 bottom. The 7-8 bottom plows had 2 accumulators.

Dad said stay away from those hyd reset plows when I was a teen ager. Never saw many around here, havent seen one in a couple decades.

Paul

Can you drop a bottom off the Kverneland?

I am thinking if the MF is cheap enough and you are using it for smaller pieces then running a little slower or shallower might be enough to get buy.

I plough with fixed beam, any reset would be nice to me.

There were a few Overum ploughs I saw that had hyd reset that was a single line to tractor remote. Think you pressurized system with remote, was a gauge on plough. Appeared you could increase or decrease from the seat while on the move.

So you never saw a JI Case plow from the early 70s?

I think I saw 2-3 of the JD hyd trip plows.

I dont recall seeing a Case version. Its possible, but dont recall it.

Whole lot of JD and IHC stuff around here. Lot of Oliver. Little bit of Allis Chalmers. Case was around for a while but mostly sold tractors at the end, not much equipment at all, just tractors. Im just amazed at all the Case stuff Jon finds to work with on his farm, dont see that around here!

Paul

Paul

Thanks to all for the replies.

I think I'll probably hold off on the Massey, mainly due to what Tom said: I took a look at it last night and see what he means about all bottoms tripping at once; after some quick volume calculations using cylinder bore and accumulator volume, it doesn't look like the accumulator is large enough to handle all three bottoms tripping at once. Probably fine for most plowing, but around here I'd rather not risk having them all trip and blow the accumulator bladder.

I could drop a bottom off the Kverneland, but I'd like to have a fully mounted plow for ease of maneuverability in some of our awkward fields. I agree with Paul that IH and Oliver made some great plows - we had two IH 720's and an Oliver 4240 years ago - but they still weren't built as robust as the Kvernelands in my experience. Those Scandinavian plows are built to take some pretty wild abuse.

Where I grew up the IH 720 was not well liked. It had more trash clearance than the 710 but that made more leverage and lots more broken parts than the 710's. When I started looking at farms we came here to WI and the dealer had a Deere plow with shear bolts rather than trips. I knew I was in the right area to buy a farm.LOL I still do just a little plowing and in 17 years have never tripped a bottom on this farm. Neighbor has a deep ripper with shear bolts and maybe breaks one bolt ever 2 or 3 years. Tom