I update the Gator Sprayer into the Gator Sprayer Maximum Overdrive Firetruck Potential Gator Delux (GSMOFPGD)

There are ideas, there are good ideas and there are successful good ideas. A lot of the difference is in the execution of the aforementioned idea...

My Gator Sprayer project is a grand example. 

It was a project I thought about while driving in circles and concentrated on while sitting in the Emergency room for two days. The codeine combo may have adversely affected the design. (or is it effected-I never know)

The Gator Sprayer has proved to be incredibly handy. The spacing is correct for corn rows. It works for applying hay preservative as you can turn on boom sections to do two windrows at once, it is great for spraying pipelines and ditches.

When I was employed by the Sodomite Learing University I set up a sprayer for a Mule. Due to their lack of understanding on why employee's steal stuff, they would not let me order the sprayer from my brother's business, instead they got royally screwed by a local ag dealing who I am not related to.

Probably because the University sits on stolen land... 

I then had to significantly modify the sprayer to get it to fit in the Mule and to be easy to run by whatever idiot would follow me. It does fit in the Mule and it has a somewhat rickety stand that allows one person to install and remove the sprayer. However, there is no one who can run it as apparently speed, pressure, and color coded nozzle charts printed by T-Jet are beyond comprehension. (Click here for the link) 

But I digress...

I wanted to build a sprayer from scratch. I had the Gator, I had a box of oddball MicroTrak rate controller parts, and I found this trash pump on sale at Harbor Freight, and I found a sprayer tank cheap on Ebay. So I put it all together.

This was the first incarnation with three boom sections and simple plumbing. It has gotten quite complicated since then.

 

It sort of works. The main problem is that I used a small trash pump. I would swear the specs said max output was 65lbs but I could never get more than 45lbs. High volume and now pressure does not work with an automatic rate controller.  I thought that to go to 90lbs I needed a $2,000 pump. The point of the exercise was to see if I could build a skid mounted UTV sprayer that was inexpensive. This turned out to be pointless as every farmer I know wants to build their own or buy something from the local snooty GPS seller dealer.

After a season of frustration I decided to upgrade the engine. 

I asked CoPilot artificial intelligence and was directed to a Honda Powered 92 PSI pump at Northern Hydraulics for under $1000.  Unfortunately I did not think of the difficulties in plumbing in a new pump with 2" input and output vs 1.25" in and out. 

 

It is a mess of plumbing at this point

It has turned into a plumbing adventure. With the new high flow high pressure system I went from a restricted flow set up to a bypass flow control setup. I was advised putting the filter on the output was a bad idea and it needed to go onto suction. But, my tank outlet is only 1" so I have a restriction. 

I plumbed the autorate controller valve bypass outlet into the suction line between filter and pump. It should be running a lot of bypass. I plumbed a range control/agitation line right off the pump, then the boom, then the rate controller bypass. I decided to run the sprayer wand off the boom circuit so I could still get a gallon readout. 

I finally just drew it all out on a piece of cardboard big enough I can read without glasses.

 

I got annoyed and gave up at 8:30 pm last night.

Perhaps I should get on it this morning...

But, I have hay fields to look at and fertilize, a leak on the lower the three point link on the White 2-155 that requires a serious pressure clean and transmission drain, feed to make, oats to pick up, and I need a nap already at 8 a.m.

We shall see what the day brings...