Potato Digger Offset, draft control

I bought an old ground driven potato digger to try to use for potato harvesting and I am wondering about setting it up. It was designed to be pulled by horses but I don't have any of those so the Ford 860 was my plan. I have a drawbar with holes across the bar that would allow me to position the digger blade in the center of my rows and have the tires fall between rows but when I did a test run with that set up the digger was very hard to control for depth. It was either skimming the top or digging in until the tractor tires started spinning. It seems to me that the drawbar does not allow for using draft control since the top link isn't getting load feedback with that kind of set up. Is this correct?

I was looking into putting a proper three point hitch onto the digger to use draft control. My brush hog has a three point attachment I can just unbolt and it sits over the digger just about right but that standard set up has the digger centered between the tires and puts me 10 inches off of where I need to be to run down the rows. I'm thinking I might be able to modify it to off set it by welding another set of pins over to one side, but this is starting to get hairy and I'm not sure if I might be wasting my time and buggering up my brush hog three point. Maybe I just need more practice controlling depth with the drawbar? Just looking for some advice if anyone else has had a similar issue.

Yes, the top link is required for draft control. However, the implement needs to provide the proper load input to the top link. I am not understanding how connecting a pull type implement would provide the proper feedback for draft control. How was the proper depth maintained when using the digger with the horse hitch? I would think that could be make to work with the tractor drawbar without a top link in the system.

The original horse drawn set up would have you sitting on top of the digger controlling depth. It would be a little easier from this position with slow horses.

The digger just has a spade on the front of it that digs into the ground, no mechanical digging so it should be possible to use draft control I would think. The drive wheels would increase drag unrelated to draft, but I think that just means a different setting on the touch control.

It could be I just need more practice runs with the drawbar. I was on my 8N for the initial practice runs and it was very frustrating. The 860 was getting tires then but I've got it going now and it goes slower so that could help.

I am familiar with the draft control on the 8N, I assume the 860 is similar. For the draft control to work your hitch will need to push on the top link - a force pushing on the top link will cause the lower control arms to lift slightly. You seem to be saying that raising/lowering your draw bar does not control the depth of the spade. If this is true then, draft control will not work since it also works on the (raising/lowering) lower control arms.

Sounds like yours doesn't have the front wheel set which it would have had when pulled with horses. I have a ground driven digger that has the front wheel set and I haven no problems with depth of digging. Never used one without the front wheel set so can't say what to do when attached to a 3 pt hitch.

I think you're making too much of this. I don't think the tractor would take the weight of it anyway of you did put it on the 3pt. Just hook it to the straight drawbar on the 3pt without the stabilizer arms. Raise and lower the front of it with the 3pt. Set the lever in the digger so it's a few inches off the ground when the 3pt is fully raised.

TO Charlie M, yes I do not have a front wheel. I was watching a youtube video or two where they had one. The front hitch has been modified, but doesn't seem like something used with a three point. I took part of what was up front off and put some heavy channel iron in with a hole for my drawbar.

Regarding draft control, the draw bar does control depth. The idea with draft control was that if it worked well with the digger it might allow me to pay less attention to the depth and not run over my nicely hilled rows while fighting with the depth.

It seems that it may be the 860's slower ground speed combined with some practice will get it. I was much better on the 860 yesterday practicing on empty rows.

You should be able to hook directly to a solid drawbar and then set the depth of the blade with the lever. Or has that part of the digger been removed also? We had one when I was a kid with the front wheels and two levers, one for the depth control and one to take the digger out of gear (on the right side, I believe). Have fun - if you have any rocks in your ground you will spend a lot of time emptying the bed to find the one that gets stuck in the side chains and locks up the wheels.

Tim

Thanks for the reply, my digger doesn't have any levers except one that lowers and I think engages a set of fingers in the back that spin and I think are for grabbing the plant to shake off potatoes in the rear of the machine. The chain is missing and it wasn't functioning. I cut all the plants off anyway because I wanted to do fall herbicide spraying and didn't want that getting into the potatoes.

We were scheduled for a week of rain and then cold enough to freeze the ground so I had to just go for it with the draw bar. It turned out alright, the slower speed of the 860 made manual depth control with the 3pt work OK. I'm sure I missed some potatoes but I have more than I know what to do with at the moment. I do have a fair amount of rocks to deal with, but the digger did pretty well with them. I locked a few times but backing up a little usually cleared it. Once or twice had to stop and take a look at what was jamming it. I had about 840 row ft.