August, 2005

• Drilled out seed boot bolt holes and inserted hardened sleeve to reduce seed boot tipping and slop.  (See pictures and descriptions below).

• Installed new blades and bolts on front rank

• Installed new 1590 series carbide long wear seed boots on both front and rear ranks.   These boots are around $90 each and should last 2-3 times as long as a regular boot.  They show virtually no wear at all after one season.  The 1590 boot is better than the 1560 boot for seed flow and placement.

• Installed all new 1590 series metal seed tubes to match up with 1590 series boots.

• Replaced all worn bushings and pins on main unit pivot, seed lock wheel pivot, and closing wheel pivot point. (Front Rank only - rears done in 2004).

• New fertilizer hose (heavy-duty 1/4" nylon semi-truck air line hose).

• New Autolock attachments for fertilizer manifold system

August, 2004

• Installed new blades and bolts on rear rank

• Replaced all worn bushings and pins on main unit pivot, seed lock wheel pivot, and closing wheel pivot point. (rear rank only - fronts done in 2005).

Drill Features
(pictures and more details below)

• 20' with 7.5" spacings     32 opener units

• Seed box capacity is 70 bushels

• Has front rank lockups for planting 15" beans or milo.   We have planted 15" beans for the last 4 years, so the front rank has many less acres on it.

• Has 1590 series carbide long wear seed boots on both front and rear ranks (new in Aug, 2005).   These boots are around $90 each and should last 2-3 times as long as a regular boot.  They show virtually no wear at all after one season.  The 1590 boot is better than the 1560 boot for seed flow and placement. 

• Heavy Duty Progressive hydraulic markers

• Setup for liquid fertilizer on all rows.  New hoses in 2005.

• Wingfield drill harrow mounted and included

(click any picture for a larger view)

We easily pulled this 20' drill with a JD 4755  (175 HP).  We have pulled it with a 4450 JD as well.  The drill fill auger on the back of the drill will not be selling with the drill, but the harrow (in the "up" position in this picture) will be a part of this drill.

This drill has a 20' Wingfield drill harrow mounted on the back.  We used this harrow only when drilling soybeans.  It did an excellent job of knocking down corn stalks after drilling the beans.  It would also help cover up any beans that might not have gotten planted deep enough.

Another picture of the harrow.  This harrow can be adjusted at four points along the front and four points along the back, which allows you to adjust it for different residue flow conditions.  The harrow easily folds up with a winch.

We have heavy duty Progressive markers on the drill.  They are showing some wear and one side has a patch to fix the arm when it got caught in a ditch and bent.  These have been good markers for us.

This drill is set up to apply liquid fertilizer on all 32 rows.  There is also a valve that can be turned off to apply fertilizer only on the front gang.  We used this setup once to drill 15" milo (back gang) and apply fertilizer (front gang).   The fertilizer tubes are from Schaffert Manufacturing and they bolt on to the seed lock wheel arm.  This applies the fertilizer on top of the seed and before the cast iron press wheel closes the seed trench.  We have tried MANY different ways to apply liquid fertilizer and although none are perfect, this is the best that we have seen or used.

A picture of our front fertilizer manifold (a separate manifold line supplies the rear rank).  We run the heavy-duty 1/4" nylon semi-truck brake line hose from an Autolock connector on the manifold all the way down the opener arm and out the end of the fertilizer tube.  We use a 3/8" rubber hose as a "sheath" to help hold down and protect the 1/4" hose from catching on stalks.   We had a 300 gallon tank on our tractor and were just using a 12 volt pump to deliver the fertilizer.  This is orificed to apply between 6 and 12 gallons of product per acre

The following three pictures show a little known or talked about problem on 750 and 1560 drills.  What you see above is the mounting hole for the seed boot.  After four or five years, the hole where the seed boot mounts (middle hole) becomes egged out and allows the seed boot to pivot too much and leads to pre-mature wearing out of the boot (wrong angle in the ground), poor seed placement, and can allow the back of the boot to "tip up" into your seed lock wheel.

The solution to fix this problem is to drill out the hole (from 7/16" to 5/8") and put a hardened sleeve (7/16" ID) in.  The tricky part is to get the holes drilled straight enough and square enough so that the sleeve fits tight.  We had a drilling jig (photo above) made to ensure that our drilling was straight and true.

Here is the hole drilled out and the hardened sleeve installed.  This brings the seed boot mounting hole back to its new diameter and makes a huge difference in the way the boot performs.  We did this on all 32 row units in the August of 2005, so the sleeve has very little wear on it (one wheat season)

We also added an adjustable seed lock wheel stop to the arm of the seed lock wheel.  This helps prevent the seed lock wheel from running down on the seed boot when going over terraces and through ditches.  This helps extend the life of the seed lock wheel.  You can also see the new carbide extended wear seed boot in this picture that we put on in 2005.