Home-Built Sprayer Looks Factory-Built

Home-Built Sprayer Looks Factory-Built SPRAYING New Sprayers 27-6-25 Dennis Cotter, Osceola, Wisconsin, says using a tractor to spray crops was costing him a lot of money. "We had a tractor mounted boom with side saddle tanks and it all worked fine," he says. "But with about 3,000 acres of corn and soybeans, we were putting 400 hours a year on a $150,000 tractor with front wheel assist. All those hours were eating into the trade-in value of the tractor. And if we didn't want to knock down a lot of the crop, we had to take off the duals. It was a lot of work and a waste of a valuable machine." Cotter solved his problem by making his own self-propelled sprayer from a 1984 PixAll sweet corn picker. "It's an articulated machine with the engine in the rear, the harvesting unit in the middle and the picker head on the front," he says. "I got it from a junkyard for about $2,000." Cotter stripped off the corn picker and harvest unit and then had a friend use a computer assisted design (CAD) program to determine how he should position the tank and cab on his soon-to-be sprayer. "The program said we needed to have 60 percent of the weight on the rear axle and 40 percent on the front," Cotter says. "I figured if we put the cab and fuel tank up front and the spray tank over the rear axle, that would do it." Cotter wanted the wheels spaced at 120 in. on center, and intended to use high narrow tires on it, so he took measurements and sent the specs to Hanson Tire and Wheel, Austin, Minnesota, to have wheels and hubs made to fit the Pixall axles. "They designed and manufactured the hubs and wheels and delivered them to me with new tires for just $4,500," he says. He also wanted a modern cab on his machine. "The cabs on their newer machines resemble those on Deere combines, so I bought a cab for it that was salvaged from a 9500 Deere combine," he says. In his shop, he moved the PixAll fuel tank from the rear of the frame and mounted that on the front axle. Then he made mounting brackets that allowed him to put the 9500 cab on top of the fuel tank. He mounted the 460 6-cyl. Deere engine from the PixAll behind the cab, using the old engine mounts. "We just moved everything forward," he says. He measured the two-point hitch that mounted his old 60-ft. Demco hydraulic fold boom on the tractor and duplicated that on the back of the old Pixall frame. Not only was he able to use the old boom, he used the sprayer pump from the old system, too. The next step was mounting a 1,000-gal. poly tank behind the engine. Once that was done, he added electric over hydraulic controls salvaged from a 3960 Deere forage chopper to allow him to fold/unfold, raise/lower, and control the nozzles on three sections of the boom, all using the buttons that were in the 9500 cab. "All we had to do was change the labels on the controls," he says. Solenoids even allow him to shut off spray to the nozzles on both ends of the boom to prevent overspray on field ends. The Pixall picker had four wheel drive, but the operator had to get off the machine to lock them. "We automated this with a kit designed to open and close the feederhouse on a Deere combine, using small electric motors. We mounted the motors so they'd operate the levers. It works great." Cotter added ladders and walkways to give him access to all areas of the sprayer. When he was through, he painted everything in John Deere colors. "One guy who saw it asked where he could get a John Deere sprayer like it," he says. Cotter figures he spent about $23,000 to build the sprayer. That includes the Pixall, $4,000 for the cab, $4,500 for the new wheels, hubs and four new Firestone 14.9 by 42-in. tires. And both windshields. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dennis Cotter, RR Farms, 95 250th St., Osceola, Wis. 54020 (ph 715 294-3807; email: rrfarm@centurytel.net).

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