"School Bus" Trailer Hauls 30 Bales

"School Bus" Trailer Hauls 30 Bales SCHOOLBUS CONVERSIONS Schoolbus Conversions 27-6-32 Missouri farmer Bill Bower can haul up to 30 1,200-lb. round bales at a time on his home-built trailer. "I have a full-time trucking job and farm with my dad, who's getting up there in years. I needed a way to move hay fast, but the new bale wagons on the market were too small and too expensive," says Bower. So he bought the frame of a 1965 Chevrolet 66-passenger school bus at a salvage yard for $250 and lengthened it out 22 ft. by welding part of a truck frame onto both the front and back. He mounted two axles under it on back. The rearmost axle is off a 2-ton truck while the axle just ahead of it came with the school bus frame. To pull the trailer, he made a tandem axle fifth wheel dolly that allows him to use his Minneapolis Moline 120 hp, 2-WD tractor to pull the trailer. He mounted the kingpin plate out of a semi trailer under the front axle, then mounted the running gear off an old New Idea manure spreader on front of the axle. He welded 8-ft. lengths of 8-in. dia. well casing pipe crosswise on top of the frame, spacing the pipes 4 ft. apart so he can set 4-ft. dia. round bales on it. He notes that 4-in. dia. pipe would have worked fine but he got a deal on the 8-in. pipe. "At times I've hooked two small wagons behind it and hauled 50 bales at a time," says Bower, who built the rig two years ago. "The entire rig, including the dolly, measures 64 ft. long. I put two rows of bales on the lower level and a single row on top. I can turn fairly sharp with it, although I do need a fairly wide gate when turning into fields off the road. "I spent about $750 to build it. The biggest commercial bale hauler I could find can only haul 12 bales, and it sells for about $4,500." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Bill Bower, 68 Idlewood Rd., Elkland, Mo. 65644 (ph 417 345-6593).

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