Army 6-WD Truck Makes Dandy Manure Handler

Army 6-WD Truck Makes Dandy Manure Handler MANURE HANDLING Equipment 19-5-7 When Young Farms, Caneyville, Kent., started looking for a better way to handle their liquid manure, they considered several different options. "We looked at pumping it right out to fields through an irrigation system, but we couldn't because of our hilly terrain. An-other option was to build a tractor-pulled tank but the hilly terrain would have lirnited us to a small tank. It would be difficult to stop a large tank with a tractor on hilly ground," says Randy Young. "We finally hit on the idea of using an army surplus truck and discovered it has some features that make it ideal for this type of job. "A friend located a 5-ton 6-WD truck for us and we fitted it with a 3,100 gal. Balzer vacuum tank. Operation of the rig is very simple. All vacuum tank controls are in the cab except for the lever to change from vacuum to pressure, which is on the pump. Army trucks have several pto options so we were able to run the pump off a jackshaft that originally powered a winch. The truck also had air-overhydraulic brakes. We were able to tap into the air system and run all valves and actuators with air cylinders, eliminating the need to install a `wet kit'. "As far as we're concerned, there's no other vehicle that would work as well for this job. It maneuvers easily on even the roughest terrain, generally unloading in about 15 min. It works so well, we've had many offers to do custom spreading in our community which has proven to be a lucrative business for us. We've also received orders to build army truck spreaders and have so far built two of them be-sides our own." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Young's Farms, 856 Young Rd., Caneyville, Kent. 42721.

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