Wrench the Load, Not Your Back

The loud drone of the silage blower pierced the clear summer air as the roar of the tractor’s engine competed for attention. The forage wagon behind the John Deere 530 was full of chopped hay. The bank of hay inside the wagon inched towards the front into three spinning beaters that prevented oversized chunks of chopped hay from swamping the cross-conveyer. The beaters ran horizontally across the front of the wagon and had several prongs on each beater to break the silage apart. The cross-conveyer steadily shot the silage into the round hopper of the silage blower. Inside the hopper, a three-bladed paddle directed the silage into another paddle that rotated perpendicular to the first. That paddle shot the silage straight up fifty feet of eight-inch PVC pipe into the top of the sixty-foot Harvestore Silo.

The Henning men had been raking and chopping hay all day. They had accumulated enough small square bales and large round bales to fill the hay mow of the large bank barn while leaving room for straw. The last cutting of hay was cut and raked to be chopped and store in one of the tall blue silos. The eighty-foot silo was set aside to be filled with corn silage. The forty-footer had been used in the past for high moisture corn but would be filled with haylage (hay silage) this year as well.

Suddenly, a loud clanking sound rang out from the gear box of the forage wagon. Caleb, who was sitting on the 530, killed the power take-off immediately and throttled back the engine. Dale turned off the blower and brought the 4020 down to idle speed. He motioned for his eldest son to turn the PTO of the 530 back on slowly to see what had happened. The wagon’s PTO shaft slowly turned as Dale watched from his place just behind the right rear tire of the 530. The beaters spun as they were expected to and the cross-conveyer continued to roll, but the flow of silage did not continue as expected.

“Okay, Caleb,” Dale called above the sound of the engine. “Turn it off.”

Caleb turned the 530 off as Dale killed the engine on the 4020. Dale pulled a small black toolbox off the box mount on the 4020 and stepped over the power take-off shaft of the forage wagon. (Please note that the tractor was off. Dale was always very particular about keeping his distance and teaching his children to keep their distance from a moving power take-off shaft.) he walked over to the gear box of the forage wagon and began removing the outer guards. Before long, the inner workings of the wagon’s gears were exposed and available for inspection. the power take-off connected to a chain that ran at an angle across the front of the wagon and into a gear box that held several sprockets and chains. Some of the sprockets ran the cross-conveyer, some of them ran the beaters, and some of them ran the floor webbing. It wasn’t very difficult for Dale to pinpoint the problem at hand. One of the sprockets was laying in the bottom of the gearbox and the chain that had been attached to it dangled from the shaft of the other sprocket.

“Well,” Dale sighed. “I guess that’s why we weren’t getting anymore silage out of this thing. This sprocket is supposed to be attached to the drive shaft for the floor wedding that moves the silage to the front of the wagon. We can run those beaters and the cross-conveyer all day and never get this wagon unloaded.”

“Can’t we put the sprocket back on the shaft?” Caleb inquired of his father.

“I’m afraid not,” Dale replied with frustration growing in his voice. “The shaft itself is broken. We have to replace the whole shaft before we can put the sprocket back on.”

 “Can we do that with all that haylage still on the wagon?” Caleb inquired, bracing himself for the response.

“No, we can’t” Dale replied. “We have to get that silage out of there today no matter what. If we leave the silage in the wagon, it’ll start molding and rotting, and then we’ll have a real mess to deal with.”

“So, do you want me to go grab some pitch forks?” Scott asked from behind Dale and Caleb. (Scott had been there the whole time watching the older Hennings work. He always seemed to take an observational position, but was available to pitch in if he was needed.)

“Well,” Dale replied weighing the options. “It’s not really a great idea to be inside the wagon with those beaters running. It’s actually really dangerous. I wonder if we can turn the shaft manually from out here?”

With that, Dale turned and walked towards the farm’s machine shop. He walked through the wide-open machinery door and made his way to the back wall. He reached the workbench and began opening and closing the drawers of the tool chest to the right until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a large pipe wrench and headed back outside to the crippled forage wagon. He fitted the pipe wrench to the broken shaft and attempted to turn it clockwise. He grunted as the shaft resisted his attempt to make it turn but eventually succeeded in gaining a half of a rotation.

“Hey!” Scott exclaimed. “It moved!”

“Yes, it did,” Dale agreed. “it’s a good thing the wagon is already half empty. Why don’t you go grab your camera? If we’re going to unload half a wagon of silage this way, I’m going to want photographic proof.”

Scott took off for the house without responding. He had recently purchased a digital camera and didn’t need much encouragement to use it. He had taken an interest in photography and had spent so much money on film that he subsequently filled with unremarkable shots of everything from the landscape of the farm to the food on his plate, that his father had recommended that he go digital so that he could save money on film. He had eagerly accepted his dad’s suggestion and took a large portion of his paycheck to Wal-Mart and purchased a digital camera that would seem rather bulky by today’s standards.

Scott returned to the silo where the forage wagon sat, unable to complete the task it had before it. He panted, catching his breath, as he pulled the camera from its vinyl case and started shooting like he was a pro. He got a couple of close-ups of the broken shaft and the sprocket that was laying on the gravel drive next to the chain. Finally, after having acquired all the pre-action shots he wanted, Dale and Caleb began the painfully slow task of cranking the pipe wrench and brining the load of silage into contact with the beaters. Dale stood on one side of the sheared shaft and Caleb stood on the other side. They took turns cranking the shaft a half turn. Dale pulled the wrench down on his side and Caleb pushed the wrench up on the other. After a couple of turns, Dale fire up the 4020 and Caleb fire up the 530.

Once the blower was operating at top speed, Caleb engaged the PTO on the 530 and ran the beaters and the cross-conveyer until the silage quit coming out of the wagon. Then, Caleb killed the power take-off on the 530 while he and his father cranked the load forward a few more turns. Then he turned the PTO back on and cleared out the cross-conveyer. They didn’t want to leave the beaters and the cross-conveyer running while they cranked because the sprockets that ran the beaters were in the same box and would be spinning. They would present a particularly acute danger to the pipe wrench wielders so they continued to inch the floor webbing forward with the power take-off disengaged and cleaning the beaters and the cross-conveyer out when everyone was standing clear.

It was a long process that took the better part of an hour. At the end of the ordeal, Dale and Caleb were fairly exhausted and Scott had a whole slew of pictures on his camera to show off. Dale and Caleb throttled back and shut down their respective tractors.

“Well,” Dale declared. “I think we’re done with silage for now. We need to get milking. I’ll put the last two wagons up after we’re done with chores.”