Let’s Go Plowing—rolling Dirt!

[Greentored 3,201]

12 hours ago, 19richie66 said:

@Greentored I hope to be moved up closer to you by the end of April/May if all goes well. I do plan on having a meet n greet one day. I’ll have about 5 acres of good plowable land to mess around on. We’ll get in touch. I’ll be about 2-3 hours east of you, south of Greenville.

Man thatd be awesome, and you could count me in!  I did find the 'member map' and was surprised how many of us are in the VA/NC/SC area, yet no meet n greets, and not really much for garden tractor shows/plow days.

Theres enough room at my new place to host something, but with a total of about 1/3 acre that would be ok to plow, it'd be done in 15 minutes if I turned you all loose haha.  The way the land is laid out, there IS a maybe 120x120 'no man's land' field up front near the road- plenty of room to set up a tractor pull.

 

Thanks for the help you all. Ill read through these pages and may come out the other side a professional plow dog 

 

[19richie66 16,942]

Well I have never plowed a field myself. Been on the wrong end of a shovel many times. I have two 12” plows, a Wheelhorse and a Brinley. I am looking forward to getting at least one setup and usable. Hopefully I’ll get a chance soon. I’ll have plenty of ground to play on and hope to cut some small trails through the woods to cruise on. 

[Greentored 3,201]

Ok plow guru's, help the noob!

 Now that the garden has sat a bit after plowing, an obvious issue can be seen much easier. There is a good 6 inch 'gap' of untouched ground between each furrow. If you look at the marks at the end of the furrows where the plow point was lifted/dropped, this gap is approx one foot. I ran the right side tires in the previous cut on every pass.

The Sleeve hitch pin fits a bit loose in the hitch, and even looser in the plow, I can rock the plow around quite a bit. In a previous post I mentioned that it almost appeared that the plow was 'laying over' (twisting) and not cutting a nice vertical 'wall'. This is the only thing I am questioning. Could this be caused by that loose attachment/pin?

[Stormin 9,975]

 How deep have you gone? Looks to me as if you've ploughed shallow. You need to be about 5"-6" deep. A bit of sway is ok, just in case you hit a large stone.

 A photo of your set up would help.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Stormin

[Pullstart 59,733]

If you cut a new furrow, then go back over that same one again, does it get deeper?  Is the tractor limiting the depth, or is the plow point leveled out and not digging?

[Greentored 3,201]

Pardon the crappy quality, but I took this the day I was plowing.  Sure looks like the plow is 'twisted'- as in the main frame is not perpendicular to the tractor? You guys might be able to spot something else im not aware of.

I have the landslide a good 2.5" off the ground with the tractor level and dont believe the hitch is preventing it from dropping further.  Depth was about 4-5", id definitely like to bury this thing, theres gobs of power to spare, and traction was adequate- its pretty clean dirt.  Perhaps moving the plow to the right one position would help as well?

 

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Greentored

[Stormin 9,975]

 The plough is swinging to far to the left. It should be straight in line behind the tractor. What hitch have you got?

[Pullstart 59,733]

There’s a set screw on the for lack of the proper term... Tail.  It should help steer the plow to turn it in a bit 

[Achto 26,566]

Brinly says to leave the bolts on the hitch loose so that the plow will swing free from side to side. I find that mine works much better if I tighten those bolts up so that the plow will not swing side to side. This keeps the plow strait behind the tractor.

[Razorback 1,032]

6 hours ago, pullstart said:

There’s a set screw on the for lack of the proper term... Tail.  It should help steer the plow to turn it in a bit 

Are you talking about the tracking adjustment on the "frog"?

 

Brinly plow manual

Edited February 26, 2020 by Razorback

[Pullstart 59,733]

1 minute ago, Razorback said:

Ar e you talking about the tracking adjustment on the "frog"?

 

Brinly plow manual

 

Yep, that’s the one!  The frog adjusts the landside.  Why didn’t I remember that?

 

 

[Razorback 1,032]

2 minutes ago, pullstart said:

 

Yep, that’s the one!  The frog adjusts the landside.  Why didn’t I remember that?

 

 

 

 

It's not that I'm a genius...... I just went and read my manual...... I had forgotten about that adjustment.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Razorback

[Greentored 3,201]

@stormin I have a brand new WH sleeve hitch with adjusting/stabilizer bolts.   

@achto Glad to know I can snug those stabilizing bolts even though the manual says no haha, that seems like exactly what this needs, and it would also eliminate the slop I have between hitch, pin, and plow.

As far as a 'frog', I have no idea what the heck it is and will go back and read the setup manual now

We are not far off from planting beginning here in NC so ill be spending some time getting things ready. Will update with pics and a vid when I do.

Thanks guys!  Youre a lifesaver for this plow noob!

 

[PeacemakerJack 10,671]

Your plow was doing something that I like to call “chisel pointing”. If the geometry of the plow is off, everything gets wacky pretty fast.  If you start at the first post in this thread and slowly walk down through it, you will see much of this explained.

 

—If your tractor isn’t sitting as deep in the furrow as it needs to be, your plow beam will be tipped to the land side and won’t have correct geometry

 

—If your plow has too much suck, meaning the suck point is tipped too far down and the tail of the Landslide is off the bottom of the furrow more than an inch, you won’t have correct geometry 

 

—If your plow is loose and free to move side to side, especially toward the land, you won’t have the correct geometry

 

—If the soil is too hard and you can’t get the plow to suck in, thus riding high and shallow, you won’t have the correct geometry 

 

When any or all of these are present, it won’t allow for decent plowing. I have faced these at different times over the years and had to learn from them.  

 

My recommendation is that you block up your tractor as mentioned in this thread earlier on and recheck your initial suck point setting.  Then as Achto mentioned, tighten up those bolts while eyeballing the main beam of the plow. It should be in a straight line with your tractor not swinging to the left (when viewed from the back, a little movement to the right is acceptable).

 

As far as choosing the correct hole in the plow hitch, check out your Brinly manual for that.  They have a whole system of measurement in there based on the spacing of your back wheels.  That should help you out...

 

Good to see you playing in the dirt while the ground is frozen and snow covered here.  Thanks for the video👍🏻

[Greentored 3,201]

@PeacemakerJack Ya know whats funny (not really, but...)  aside from hard dirt, every single thing you just noted was a problem

Not moving fast enough to roll the furrow, therefore driving on top of it half the time- check.

Suck point set WAY too far down, tail in the air, attempting to dig deeper- check.

Plow flopping all over the place- check.

I am going to go back, read this entire thread, take the advice you and the other plow guru's have given, then start from square one.

The farmer up the road has 50+ acres of clear land right behind my house that he has not yet planted this year- if I can get his permission, that will be an excellent place to dial her in, versus a 40x40 plot.

Thank you- You guys rock!!!

[Greentored 3,201]

PS- I plan to attend the Big Show this year and look forward to putting some names with faces!

[Greentored 3,201]

I snuck out of work early and went to work on this plow issue. Set it up on 6” of blocks. 

1. Landslide was WAY too high. I kinda knew this but it wasn’t digging deeper. Although the hydraulics had more travel, the rock shaft and chain were in a bind, preventing the plow from dropping fully. Drilled a new hole, made some adjustments, it now digs deeper AND is not dragging the ground when transporting. 

2. Far too much slop/play. Bought a 5/8” pin, squared the landslide up with the wheels, and snugged the stabilizing bolts. 

Shes diggin’ now! Front tires are barely touching and she’s grunting a hair more. How’s the re-plow look to you guys? I do notice the ‘cut’ edge of the furrow is still not nice and vertical, and think those 10.5 tires just aren’t getting down into the previous cut enough to tip the tractor? 

All in all a day and night difference thanks to you plow dogs!!! 

[PeacemakerJack 10,671]

Looking much better!  I love the fact that you took the tractor back to the “drawing board” started from square one and rechecked and reset everything.  Honestly, I’ve had to do that a couple of times over the years even with one of my tried and true plow mules.  I’ve gotten into a field that was particularly hard to plow and I messed around with so many adjustments hoping to make it plow better...In the end it wasn’t my rig, the conditions just weren’t good for plowing and no matter how much adjustment or finagling that I did, it still wouldn’t plow good.  Tom @Shynon said it a couple pages back, when conditions are like that, don’t radically adjust your plow, it won’t do much good.  

 

All in all @Greentored it looks much better and more complete.  You still have a little trail of dirt up on the landside that I’m not sure how it is getting there without a video of the plow in action.  The furrow looks much sharper and more square.  Well done for a second stab at it!  You’ll be a plow dog in no time...I can tell it😉

[Greentored 3,201]

@PeacemakerJack here ya go! Terrible quality, didnt even want to post it. I need to put the phone in the woman's hand and make her take videos, but she has not fully 'converted' yet and still think this is ridiculous

Maybe you can still pick something up from it though....

 

 

[WHX?? 46,797]

Doesn't look too bad at all. While a 520 has plenty of power is not the best plowing tractor given the wider swept front end. The tracking geometry between the front and rear tires is not the best. This probably why it's difficult to keep the front and rear tires in the furrow. A spacer on the furrow side rear wheel would help this. the other thing I noticed was your ground speed seemed like it was somewhat stop and go, probably due to the hydro and another reason gear jammers are preferred. For more consistent speed for any given ground conditions. If the hydro linkage moves a bit you might lose a little ground speed and lose that good roll. I would suggest tightening the motion cam on the top of the tranny just a bit to help keep the speed from creeping. Wave washers here might help too but don't use lube in that area.. dry graphite only. If I were to set up a 520 for plowing I would have a pedal kit on it and some sort of adjustable travel limit. Just put it to the boards then and regulate ground speed thru engine RPM. Lord knows still plenty of power in that Onan at even 1/2 -3/4 throttle! 

Don't be too concerned about the square vertical edge. While it is desirable getting that depends a lot on soil type & conditions so not much can be done. You can try setting the coulter a tad deeper if doing ground that has not been plowed before. Re-plowing or soil  that does not need cutting ditch the coulter altogether. This was in very sandy soil with perfect moisture content...

Edited February 28, 2020 by WHX24

[Greentored 3,201]

@WHX24 man that is a beautiful cut right there!  Good eye on the ground speed- now that its had some use after restoring, my motion control plate is a hair loose- between trying to take a video and steer, I was almost down to a complete stop halfway through the video haha. Pedal kit will happen but just cant swing it right now.

Yeah youre right about the power that Onan has, I still cant believe how much this thing can be loaded and still cant even make that stack bark, not even close!

[PeacemakerJack 10,671]

I don’t know if we posted this picture before (circa 2018) but my man @Achto took this one and I love it!  Plowing conditions that day weren’t good at all but we were still having fun.  My youngest, Zach, is such a plow dog that he was willing to even walk and observe the furrow quality, or lack thereof.  This last fall, he was plowing and I was walking the furrows behind him...

they grow up fast!

[WHX?? 46,797]

Hope yer happy Jack.... now you got me jonesing for a plow day! 

Edited February 29, 2020 by WHX24

[PeacemakerJack 10,671]

I know Jim...once it gets in your blood...look at Kevin @pullstart 

 

 

One of these days we have to get to a serious “spring” PD.  Something more than a few passes in a short field.  It is too long to wait for October every year...good times!

[WHX?? 46,797]

Agreed Jack... maybe a field around here just to get our shine on ?!?!