BX25 DiscOrama

[Artisan]

The BX25 Full Cage is winding down, time to look ahead.
I am wanting a Disc Harrow so I went shoppin' and found
a barely used Leinbach B245-20-18 for $400.00 . It still
has paint on the discs, the worst wear is from rain...

It is too big for a BX25, butsomehowever, I look at it and see it
is a fairly simple machine and modifications will not be rocket science,
either drop 4 or 8 discs from the outside of the gains.

The BX25 manual says, under IMPLEMENT LIMITATIONS / Disc Harrow =
300 Lbs & 54" wide.
The Leinbach website[/URL] says my new (used) B245-20-18 weighs 575
Lbs w/ a max width of 6'-9" so looks like
I am going to be dropping 8 Discs, 2 from each gain and run 4- 3 Disc gains.
In essence I am making a B245-12-18 :-).

The weigh, well, I am guessing it will be a tad over 300 Lbs.
That is OK per the IMPLEMENT LIMITATIONS of the tractor,
so long as conditions permit (PG 14 NOTE bottom). Looks like a
Tiller or a Box Blade has an allowed weight of 375 LBS
under IMPLEMENT LIMITATIONS so I am sure we will be A-OK.

[boggen]

there is a difference between implements. and that is how far back, they stick out behind the tractor. further the weight is out behind tractor the more "tetter totter" effect will happen. were front wheels come off the ground.

you need front weights or FEL or something on front to help counter balance the disc.

everything might seem ok, when you have the disc in raised up on 3pt hitch on flat level ground, but when you need to raise it and hit a bump with front tires, you may end up doing a wheely.

a light weight end of tractor, becomes a bear to try and get tractor to turn, even when using rear split steering brakes. and 4wd or MFWD does not help you when the front tires are not touching the ground.

[jenkinsph]

Artisan,
I considered buying a small disk such as you have pictured for my x749 but decided to see if I could use my smaller tiller instead. The smaller tiller is a 60" Howard HR4 rotovator with 4 tines rotors, weighs about 400 lbs with slip clutch. This smaller tiller won't dig as deep as the JD 673 but will still till about 5 to 6" deep. I had originallly thought about buying a 48" King Kutter or JD647 because I thought the old tiller was a 66" and just too big. Best thing was I had the tiller already.

My past experience with small 18" disk blades is that it takes too many trips across the field to get to a good working depth. The larger and much heavier disks seem to do a much better job and are a more efficient use of time and fuel. At any rate when I bought the Howard to use with the 820 (31 pto hp) I felt it was a better way to go than with a 3PH disk. Years ago my dad and I tilled about 190 acres with the small disks, so I have alot of seat time and experience with those rascals. It was a remarkable improvement when we were able to upgrade to 4020's and 3020's for field work with much heavier disks and chisel plows.

Today I work much smaller sized properties and find that the scut and cut tractors with their higher hp to weight ratios work better with tillers. While tillers appear to be slow moving they can easily be pulled at the correct speed to maximize available hp for a given tractor. With a small disk you have to make several passes to achieve what a tiller can do in one pass, that means more hp and fuel to drive the tractor across the field several times and more compaction too. Since a forward rotation tiller (most common) is pushing the tractor forward in use they will also be able to get in wet spots where traction would be a problem with a small scut.

The more compact tiller with the weight closer to the rear of the tractor would be easier to handle for both lifting and use in gradual turns and after tilling a few small lawns I have to say I have had good results with the x749 and Howard tiller. The larger 4520 and 673 (6ft) tiller are much faster and can till deeper but won't always fit in the small plots as well. Ideally I would have a JD647 or KK tiller with less width and larger diameter rotors but that would be more money.

I mention all of the above because I think you will have to do more to the disk above than remove blades to get to a weight the BX can handle well enough. I would suspect you will need to cut the gangs down and remove the extra spools to reduce the weight by 175 lbs. Before I did that I would consider getting something that was a better fit for your tractor.

[Artisan]

Certainly a lot to take into consideration. I would love to buy a tiller
and should this fail I will be doing just that. The possibilities of
dual rear wheels are in thought. I think i will make what I will
with it and see how she goes, including I need to hook it up
AS IS and gauge what that does.


How about a Disc out front on float, followed by a tiller in the rear? :-)

[hank193]

I think I'd want something like a piranha type sharp tooth bar to shear off brush,small trees and a bucket grapple to deal with any logs or debris you come across and need to move away.
On the 3pt ,a 1 or 2 disc Dearborn type plow would cut and roll up a dirt windrow fast as you can pull it. That is, more speed and adjusting the depth will almost "spray" the dirt well out to the side. Cut a section and then turn around and make a second pass to double the break. If you aren't actually fighting a fast moving fire, you could leave a gap of natural and prevention burn it between to create an even wider space, devoid of much fuel.

[Scooby074]

You can get away with more than 300# at the rear.

My modified BB is close to 800#.. And I can pull it with a full box using the BX. It is closer to the lift points than a disk however.

The 20-18 is 575#. Before I modded it, Id try it as is. Wont hurt.

[Freakingstang]

You can get away with more than 300# at the rear.

Before I modded it, Id try it as is. Wont hurt.

Having just sold a lightweight 48" disc.... Use it before you take it apart. Mine didn't work well at all. It needed lots more weight and bigger than the 12" discs I had

[Artisan]

Having just sold a lightweight 48" disc.... Use it before you take it apart. Mine didn't work well at all. It needed lots more weight and bigger than the 12" discs I had

Did you try adding weight by any chance?
What brand / model was it?

[Freakingstang]

Yeah... With an extra 300 lbs or so of suitcase weights it did better but still wasn't great. I'm not sure of the brand, it looked similar to a brinly