I have owned 6 planters that have used the John Deere Maxemerge planting units. I am sure I reworked the double disk openers on all of them at sometime. I recently bought a Kinze 15 row soybean planter of course with Maxemerge units on it. Three of the row units have shanks that have been welded. Was caused this to have to be welded? I can think of two things. 1) The shank was damaged by an impact or 2) the double disk opener bearings went bad and spun on the short little stub shaft damaging it. Then the owner cut it off right above the little stub shafts and welded on a new lower end cut off of a damaged shank. Has anyone seen this before? Completed this repair? Fortunately it appears that all of the welds have held well for sometime. Planter will only be running 1 to 1 1/2 deep so hopefully they will hold up for the life of the planter. See attached picture with weld immediately above stub shaft. Thank you for your ideas.
