Reversing Auger

[MikePA]

I was reading through the Owner's Manual for my Leinbach Post Hole Digger and ran by the following statement. Has anyone actually done this?

If by chance you get the auger stuck either in wet clay, roots, or stones, DISENGAGE PTO and with tractor lifting, use a large wrench on PTO shaft and reverse digger; one complete turn of the auger will usually free it.

 

[wichiwichi]

Yes. Here in this wonderful black clay they call dirt it will screw in like a corkscrew.Usually its several turns though.

 

[MikePA]

What size wrench do you need?

 

[Old_Wanker]

You want a big pipe wrench. The bigger the better. You can get 36" or 48" pipe wrenches although there not cheap. Ive used a 36" for just this job and it worked very well. You could also use a shorter one and the old trick of putting a piece of pipe over it for better leverage. It just needs to have a big enough set of jaws to get around the shaft on the auger.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Mike, I screwed my auger into the ground a few times with the help of some roots. Rather than use a big pipe wrench (which I don't have) I made an adapter to use the mechanical advantage of the gearbox to un-screw the auger. I welded a 4" section of 1" steel pipe to the end of a 6" section of slightly larger pipe (to fit over the gearbox input shaft) in the shape of a tee.

To use it, the shear bolt is removed and PTO shaft slid off at the gearbox. Nothing else needs to be disconnected, although the tractor should be turned off. The adapter goes on in place of the PTO shaft with the shear bolt through both the shaft and holes in the adapter pipe. I insert a steel bar through the tee pipe and unscrew the auger with a 3 or 4 to 1 mechanical advantage. Works great and took less time to make than going out to buy a pipe wrench.

I found that with a little practice, I may never screw the auger in again. The "trick" is to go slow, never letting the 3pt adjustment lever much ahead of the auger position. It is a natural thing that when the auger is not digging quickly because of a rock or root to push the 3pt lever much further than the position of the 3pt. This will not help anything and allows enough 3 pt travel that the auger can suddenly screw itself in.

Andy

 

[beenthere]

Andy
You sure hit the nail on the head, and the 'wrench' you built seems like a great, handy design. And after doing this same thing a few times, I too learned not to leave too much 'slack' in the 3pt, so the auger couldn't screw itself into the ground. A couple times it lifted the front end of the tractor into the air very quickly when the auger screwed itself into the wet clay.

 

[bubenberg]

yes, with my sophisticated danhuser auger, that does not reverse. Drilled a hole in three minutes through clay, shale and clay again and got stock ....goood.

it took me many hours to digg the auger out ... many month later i hired a guy even older then i am and he should me the trick with the pipe wrentch.

here comes another plug for power trac, when stuck just reverse the hydraulic hoses and off you go to dig another hole.