An old Cat 80 scraper, with the original two front caster tires removed and an AgriCon direct mount hitch installed, loads in about a quarter of the time as the same scraper in the original four-tire configuration.
Dave Kroeker is in a good position to make a before and after comparison. He did field drainage with his Cat 80 for years in the original four-tire configuration.
In the spring of 2003, the Killarney, Man., farmer was getting ready to build a five million gallon lagoon for his new hog barn. He wanted to do the lagoon work himself to cut costs. That’s when he decided to make the old scraper more efficient by having AgriCon do the direct hitch modification.
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“It now loads in about 20 to 30 percent of the time compared to before when we had all four tires. The loading is just great,” Kroeker said. “It’s well worth the $7,000 investment.”
Kroeker found the scraper in the 1990s near Birtle, Man., where it had been sitting for about 25 years. A tree was growing through the middle.
“But I could see that underneath all the cover, the scraper looked pretty good. So we bought it and took it straight down to Jack Fehr for the hydraulic conversion.”
The scraper holds 16 cubic yards level and up to 24 cubic yards heaped. In his early years with the scraper, Kroeker pulled the unit with a Versatile 1150. He recently switched to a Case 9170.
After the casters were removed and the AgriCon direct hitch modification installed, Kroeker did more field drainage in 2003 and 2004 as well as building the lagoon.
“Even with all that weight transferred to the tractor, I still don’t feel I have enough traction. I’m still spinning. But the main thing is that now I can load so much faster.”
While the old caster tires caused loading problems, they also served a purpose by holding the scraper off the ground.
“With this new hitch setup, you don’t want to get stuck. When we get stuck now, we really get stuck. Before, when we got stuck, we could just pull the pin and drive away with the tractor and then come back and hook up a chain. Now that we’ve got all that new weight on the tractor hitch, it’s not so easy to unhook. And the weight tries to bring the tractor down, too.”
Kroeker said it’s a small penalty to pay, compared to the efficiency he has gained with the direct mount.
