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Twin-Engine Land Leveler
"We own a land improvement business and felt it was taking us too long to do a good job leveling fields for furrow irrigation. So we decided to build our own equipment to do the job," says Ted Pyle, Pyle Inc., Miles City, Mont., inventor of a patented twin-engine, self-propelled, laser-controlled land leveler.
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Twin-Engine Land Leveler MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Earth Movers 16-4-8 "We own a land improvement business and felt it was taking us too long to do a good job leveling fields for furrow irrigation. So we decided to build our own equipment to do the job," says Ted Pyle, Pyle Inc., Miles City, Mont., inventor of a patented twin-engine, self-propelled, laser-controlled land leveler.
Pyle cut the bucket out of a Euclid TS-14 scraper, then had a local company (Holland Loader, Billings, Mont.) fabricate the center frame out of 1-in. thick steel plate. He then mounted a 16-ft. wide blade from a Caterpillar 16G road grader in the middle. The circle mount allows the blade to rotate back and forth. He added a 2-ft. extension to one side of the blade to make it 18 ft. wide and mounted laser instruments on both sides of the blade. The machine is powered by a 150 hp 4-71 Detroit diesel engine with a 6-speed Allison automatic transmission in front and another identical engine at the rear. A 45 gpm Sunstrand hydraulic pump is powered by the front engine. He had a ROPS cab made that he mounted on the back half. The last step was to add a large ripper at the rear.
"It works much better than the Terex scrapers we had been using because it has much more downpressure," says Pyle. "Our old machines wouldn't cut through hard soil and often left a mess in the field. Many fields we work are soft and we wanted the weight distributed evenly between front and rear. It works faster than a conventional scraper because the operator can steer both ends independently - 90 degrees in front and 42 degrees at the rear - which makes it very maneuverable for such a large machine. It turns around on a dime and the blade can be offset in any position on-the-go which is very handy. With 300 hp and weighing about 68,000 lbs. it can and will do just about anything.
"In the winter we mount a 14-ft. V-plow on front and use it to plow snow. We built it 14 years ago and have put about 1,000 hours per year on it."
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Pyle Inc., Rt. 2, Box 3180, Miles City, Mont. 59301 (ph 406 232-3349).
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