Reversing the reversible Berta rotary plow?

[freedomlives]

I had a month of fruitless attempts to get in contact with the Berta company in Italy -- including my wife's cousin in Italy speaking with someone there in Italian who said they would respond to my email "tomorrow", but apparently "tomorrow" in Italian means something different than English. Then my father-in-law took the PTO shaft adapter and the cast iron "neck" from the plow to the factory where he works, and got it half-way adapted for my Goldoni tractor, but then there was some other problem, and finally, finally, I found a firm able to finish cutting the right size slots in the adapter, and finally today got the thing hooked up to my Goldoni.

Last night was our first hard freeze: -6ｰC/21ｰF, so at first I thought the plow wasn't cutting into the ground very well because the edge rectangle pieces were rounded over, so I took them all off and flipped them over to expose a sharp point and went to some ground that had had more sun, and still poor performance. So I put the tractor in neutral and set the PTO to low-speed, and saw the problem-- the plow was rotating backwards.

The Goldoni doesn't have a reversible PTO, so I'm stuck with the (non standard?) counter clockwise rotation direction of its PTO shaft. I presume I should be able to swap the two ends of the plow to opposite sides and then they would be cutting the right way. Are there any special tricks to doing this?

Does anyone have the manual for the Berta reversible rotary plow that they could be so kind to scan for me? I'd like to also know what is necessary for properly maintaining the plow as well. My efforts to get any response from Berta were fruitless.

 

[freedomlives]

OK, I found the manual and parts diagram on BCS America site. Looks like i should be able to swap the hubs and get things to work!

 

[freedomlives]

Though I also realize now that the rotary plow comes in three possible speed configurations, so hopefully valpadana and goldoni tractors have same speed pto.

 

[milkman]

Hope you get it working, let us know how it performs for you.

 

[freedomlives]

If I can get the hubs off! I thought that as it is a taper fit, that removing the M12 screw and lightly tapping it, it would slide off. No such luck. Gear puller can't grab onto the hub/blades due to their angles. Beating vigorously with a hammer from behind also didn't get me anywhere. Now I sprayed penetrating oil into the keyway and hope it will find its way around. We'll see tomorrow. The only other thing I can think is to heat it with a propane torch. I guess if it were installed in Italy during the summer, and now it is 30 degrees Celsius colder, then the fit becomes tighter. :-/

 

[farmerboybill]

Be careful with heat. You can burn up the seals. Did you try holding the auger and tapping the end of the shaft with a hammer and punch? Sorry I'm not much help - I've never had to convert a Berta. It sounds like you're on the right path, but I wonder if the axles will be tilted right if you only flip the hubs.

 

[freedomlives]

Be careful with heat. You can burn up the seals. Did you try holding the auger and tapping the end of the shaft with a hammer and punch? Sorry I'm not much help - I've never had to convert a Berta. It sounds like you're on the right path, but I wonder if the axles will be tilted right if you only flip the hubs.

Kids or baby woke me up in the middle of the night. I saw your post on my phone, and then lost about 30 minutes thinking about it. I realized the augers have to stay on the same side of the machine, otherwise I think they'd just be mixing the soil and throwing it back in the furrow. I finally went to sleep when I realized there are two possibilities-- either the plow has to be totally disassembled and the gear driving the augers flipped inside, or maybe the main casting of the plow can be flipped over. First think when up this morning I went outside to look, and the casting is pretty much symmetrical. The wheel assembly, cover holder, etc. can all be removed and it can be turned 180 degrees, then they get remounted. The only difference is that the oil fill hole will facing down instead of up, so it will a bit complicate adding and checking oil.

Still I have to get those augers off. Hitting with a punch doesn't work so well as I have the plow attached to the tractor to hold it while I work (and because it was a pain getting it on, because two of the splines on the adapter are slightly narrow ). At the moment, after having tried a heat gun, I'm trying boiling water...

 

[freedomlives]

So I just got one of them off! I removed all the blades from the hub, put the 12mm screw back in, washers on top of it, then crowbar across. hooked coil spring compressors between crowbar and grass cutting blades. tightened it down, crowbar started to bend and one coil spring compressor slipped a bit. i took a video at that point, thinking i needed a stronger set-up, then before loosening the coil spring compressors and giving up for the night, i hit it really hard several times in the middle on the crowbar over the screw with a 4 pound hammer and it jumped off!

 

[NibbanaFarm]

Nice puller. Those things can be difficult.

I hope you get this thing working after putting all this effort into it. Good luck. Keep us updated.

 

[freedomlives]

I got it done! This morning though, as I woke up, I realized that I probably could have used some axle stands just to prop underneath the plow blades and then tap the center without having to remove the blades from the hub.

Anyway, it works correctly. I probably need to watch some youtube videos to get a better idea of its proper use, but I made a 3 foot wide by 50 foot long bed for planting garlic tomorrow (a bit late).