New-Style Hitch Swivels On 3-pt.

New-Style Hitch Swivels On 3-pt. HITCHES Hitches 5-1-14 Wayne Buck, who farms near Melbourne, Iowa, was having problems with heavy, 3-pt. toolbar-mounted implements. When he pulled them across contoured land, the downward pull of the slopes forced him to ride the brakes too much to keep the tractor on the contour. After burning out a couple of sets of brakes, he asked Vern Waterman, the White Implement dealer in Melbourne, to try to solve the problem. He did - with the new Swivel Hitch. It's basically two steel plates which slide, one on top of the other. The front half hooks to the tractor and the rear half to the implement. It can be adapted to fit either Cat. II or III 3-pt. hitches. As the implement shifts, it turns the swivel rather than putting stress on the tractor's 3-pt. hitch, or forcing the tractor operator to apply the brakes. "I know of one farmer who was going through three sets of brakes in a season with a mounted plow," Waterman told FARM SHOW. "At a couple hundred dollars a set for some of these tractors, it wouldn't take too long to justify one of these hitches." There are no bearings in the Swivel Hitch. One bushing takes some of the wear off the joint in the front. Waterman says a grease zerk may eventually be needed there to help prevent wear, and to increase the swivel life. The top and bottom plates are made of 5/e in. steel and 3 in. steel, respectively. The 3-pt. mountings are welded onto the swivel hitch frame. Along with worn brakes on contours, another problem Waterman's hitch solves is the difficulty of turning at the headlands of fields. Waterman says one farmer had a mounted subsoiler that needed a turning radius of 88 ft. at the ends of fields. With a Swivel Hitch on the subsoiler, he was able to reduce that to just 44 ft. Another advantage is that there is less twisting between the tractor and the implement, which means fewer blades and knives are broken on implements such as anhydrous injectors. Waterman will build a Swivel Hitch on order for "about $500", but he is also interested in locating a manufacturer to refine and massproduce his patented hitch. For more information, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Vern Waterman, Vern's Implement and Repair, Melbourne, Iowa 50162 (ph 515 482-3237).

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