Wheel Rake Advice

So, I saw this picture about a week ago, of a Farmall H or M, narrow front, with a 2 wheel wheel rake mounted on the front. I know that used to be pretty common, but now I can't find a picture like that for the life of me!

I have been in the market for a new rake, because I just don't like using my old basket rake. I've been wanting a smaller 3 point 4 or 5 bar rake, or a pull behind bar rake.

Anyways, last fall, I bough a DARF 2 wheel rake, that mounts on the front of a tractor, for like $25. Someone has made a REALLY poor 3 point set up for it, and I tried it with my Ferguson TO-30, and it sucked big time, so I just abandoned it and went with the basket rake!

After seeing that picture online a few days ago, I am intrigued about mounting it on the front of my Farmall H (single front wheel) and raking with it? But I would really like to see a picture, or even a video of it in action! Thanks! Bryce

My father used to have a New Holland 3 point lift. I really liked that rake because you could speed it up by getting lower gears. You could also pick it up anywhere and set it down where you wanted. That worked good for places with thicker hay. He also had a fluffer that had a basket with long fingers on the back and it would make a windrow tall and fluffy like women used to tease their hair.

Hi Bryce, when I was a little guy, back in the 60?s, I remember well many farmers had a front mounted two wheel rake as you describe. These where often front mounted on to old tractors that didn?t have a three point hitch, like a IH H, M or maybe a Massey Harris 33 . The primary job for these rake was used as a swath turner. Much of the grain here was still swathed at that time, and if it was rained on , it needed to be turned ove to get the underside dry. These two wheel rakes did a wonderful job at turning widrows up side down. They could also be used to rake hay, but being only two wheels, they didn?t move the hay very far. I have been on the hunt for a frontmount windrow turner for several years now with no luck. Funny how some thing that once was so common, is now rare. I did fined a 3 pth two wheel swath turner, and while it does the job . Your front mounted unit is better because you don?t have to drive on top of the crop before the rake hits it. I believe that some of the reasons the front mounted window turner fell out of fashion was because folks went more to direct cutting grain, after more farmers adopted the wide spread use of herbicides to control weeds in grain. Before spraying, if there was too many green weeds/hay/grass coming up in your grain crop, it would plug the cylinder on the combine. So if the grain was swathed for say 5-7 days before you ran it through the combine, all the green stuff was then dry enough to go through and not plug things up. And of coarse many retired the old tractors and the front mounted rake was awkward to put on and off. Bruce

I have one the Farmall B, works great(I can get pictures off my computer for that easily). I have a video, but not sure how to upload it here. E-mail me I can try and send it to you. Not sure if it will have sound though, when I transferred it from my brother's phone to the computer I lost sound on the computer file.

opps.......... Forgot to open Email on this thread.