The problem with asking for advice online, I want to comment on Tristan Swartz video but resist

I have started following Tristan Swartz of Doing it Wrong Dairy. (So is every other farmer in the world) My brother even bought me one of Tristan's goofy hats.

So when he posted a video asking for information on his White hydraulics I actually watched the whole thing and read the comments. Lots of comments from people who absolutely no experience with hydraulics or even know that his DeutzAllis has a transmission and hydraulic system built by White Farm Equipment.

I had been trying to look up his video about why he doesn't use RoundUp ready seed because it kind of missed the point of why you shouldn't use it and there were so many superstitious idiots posting I wanted to show it to my friends and laugh. I kind of wanted to argue but I need to resist commenting.

But, I digress... 

There was a time when you could get good advice from people online. There was NewAgTalk, Yesterday's Tractors, and you could find pages from manuals or at least figure out what manual you needed. 

Not so much nowadays. (I enjoy using the word "nowadays")

His comment section was filled with bad advice...

Here are some basic rules... 

If you are having hydraulic problems with your White tractor, first find the I&T service manual for your tractor. White Farm Equipment put out a really good manual with trouble shooting advice. I have currently lost mine as I have issues with never putting anything back where it belongs. But I try to be the change I aspire to be.

Is the system not building pressure? Do you not have brakes or steering? Does the PTO not engage? Is it making noise?

Check the oil...

If you are not building pressure you have either sheared the splines on the PTO hub on the flywheel, your charge pump is out, the coupler to the hydraulic pump is out, you forgot to start the tractor, the little valve in the filter head that bypasses when you are starting the tractor is stuck in bypass.

Hit the filter head with a crescent wrench and see if hydraulics start.

Pull the switch on the filter head and install a gauge. If you don't have 35 or so lbs the Charge Pump is not working. (This also could be from the PTO hub splines being bad)

Do you hear cavitation noises? Is the pump loud? Is there bubbles in the hydraulic oil?

This is often a problem with the steel lines cracking which feed the charge pump. But it can be a cracked pickup tube from the sump. A completely plugged sump filter. The main pump is shot. The charge pump failed. The pressure relief in the filter head is stuck.

Do not ever mess with the compensator on the main pump. It is the little screw adjustment on the side of the pump. It might get you a couple months until you can find a new pump but it is never the problem. 

Make sure it is not a problem with the hydraulic valves. It won't be, but you should check first. Switch hoses around and switch between valves. You could put a gauge on one hose and see if you have 2200lbs of pressure. You could hook two hoses in with a t and a valve in the middle, run the valve and turn the valve down and watch the pressure.  

Change the filters. It won't help but if you ask anyone for advice it is the first thing they will suggest. Finding metal filings in the filter is not that unusual. Finding a teaspoon full is a problem.

There are two filters, the main one under the step and a sump in the bottom of the transmission. It is behind a large plug on the left hand bottom side of the tractor. This requires draining the transmission. This has a fine screen that can plug but probably is not the problem.

Do not add or remove shims from the pressure relief. That is not the problem.

Go to the JenSales website and find the WFE hydraulic service manual set or call Welters, or Maibach Tractor.

You could get the manual first but changing the oil is the first thing anyone will tell you to do. Narrowing down the issue with pressure at the filter head will also help with trouble shooting. 

The more information you can find on your own the easier it is to get advice.

After watching the Tristan video I would guess the top three probabilities are, the bottom sump is plugged because the previous owner NEVER changed the oil, cracked line feeding the charge pump, bad main hydraulic pump.

Long shots, stuck valve in the filter head, PTO hub on flywheel has bad splines and skips under load (but that would affect PTO operation), cracked sump tube for hydraulic pickup, hydraulic valve problems, bad charge pump.

Although, did not say when he runs the PTO the PTO clutch pops out. The PTO will pop off with low hydraulic pressure or cavitation. He seems to have a flow problem which makes me think remote valves or remote pressure relief on the valve body but it is probably time for a new pump.

Click here for a link to the videos on Facebook.  This might be the same reel. CLick Here

Now I must go to work as my neighbor called me to pick up filbert shells for my next ill advised project... 

 

I have had more hydraulic problems with this 2-135 then I care to remember. Actually, I kind of hate this tractor...

This is the first real tractor I bought. I abused it. Pulled it to death (several times) on the silage chopper. Baled with it, cut hay, no-tilled, great raking tractor, fairly quiet and the A/C sometimes works! Leaks a little hydraulic oil but that is how I find my way home when I get lost. Follow the trail...

Here is a link to Replacing the Hydraulic Pump on the White 2-155

Fixing a hydraulic valve

Somewhere I talk about trouble shooting a charge pump. Sometimes I fail to give usable info. You could try looking at nearby posts... 

 

 

 

I find artifacts, the oats are coming up, I am not the pinball wizzard

I plowed this field for the first time in maybe 20 years. My wife has always been disappointed that I find arrowheads and she does not. So I decided to plow. That is just basic farm management.

We found five decent arrowheads and she found part of a spear point. 

This was an old campsite along the river. You can see it when you work ground because the ground is black from the charcoal. This was probably a site where the Injuns (actual term I learned from cartoons) gathered read Albert Camas and eat the roots of Indian hyacinth and paddled their own canoes... (Sometimes I crack myself up)

Also, probably got up to all sort of high jinks which probably included singing woodland creatures and deer with really big eyes.

Mohicans and Stocking Tops no doubt... 

 

I like to think of it as grave robbing but in reality it is not illegal.

I am always amazed when the field actually sprouts. If the picture were clearer or if everything was no blurry when I forget my glasses, you could see the difference in growth/sprout between no-till and worked ground.

 

I dropped $4.25 in quarters and played for 40 minutes while waiting for Pizza. Unfortunately they neglected to tell me my pizza was ready and so not only did I lose my pocket full of quarters but the pizza was cold by the time I got home. But, such is life...

“The absurd is born of the encounter between two opposed concepts: the human need for meaning and the apparent meaninglessness of the universe.”

 

 

 

 

 

I make chicken feed and spill a ton of peas and ramble on about stuff...

 Suddenly people want feed.

I have orders for 1000lbs chicken feed, 2,000 oats/alfalfa, and 2000lbs cow feed.

I had finally emptied the barn of various bags and was looking forward to doing something else farming related. I actually put the Gator-Sprayer in the shop and was trying to figure out the charging system and how to wire the sprayer monitor without killing the battery.

Yesterday morning I actually broke down and purchased a grain from my neighbor. I have been fighting with the pellet mill making crumbly pellets and I thought doing a ton of chicken feed would be an excuse to try wheat.

My neighbor has a couple bags of oats and peas that got mixed together and he doesn't want to reclean them and I bought a ton of peas from him.

I thought I would start out with a high protein mix and dilute it for the cows by adding oats and Timothy hay.

Unfortunately, the bag sizes were such that I ended up with over 5,000lbs in the mixer grinder. This was all grain so it didn't over flow. In fact all was well until I got to the one ton of peas.

I needed 250lbs of corn so I just threw in 8 or 9 buckets out of my bulk bag. When I got the bag almost over the mixer one handle ripped... I slowly and carefully moved the bag to my bulk bin. Just as I was over the edge of the bin, but not far enough to just cut the bottom of the bag, the remaining three handles rippled and the bag hit the floor of the hay shed.

 

I love plastic bulk bags for moving and storing grain. Until the handles rip and I have to shovel a ton of peas off the ground

Nothing like standing on top of running hammer mill and shoveling straw and peas. Every so often the throat would plug and I would have to knock the hay though with the shovel handle. Did not run the handle though the hammer mill so that is a success!

This is where having a cement or a dirt floor would be nice. The hay shed floor has layers of plastic and straw over gravel. It is not fun to shovel off of. 

I finally resorted to a vacuum cleaner! Fortunately I was close enough to the mixer that I could just shovel most of it into the the mixing hopper in the back. The rest which had a lot of hay in it,  I shoveled into the bucket on the White 2-60 and then feed into the hammer mill on the mixer grinder. 

I really have no idea what my mix of peas and corn is right now but for the sake of sanity I will pretend I scooped it all up.

I have a mix that is 36 percent peas, 18 percent wheat, 18 percent barley, 10 percent oats, 12 percent buckwheat, and 5 percent corn. Total weight is 5,500lbs

If I plug the info into CoPilot it tells me I have Crude fat of 2.24 percent and Crude protein of 16 percent.

My chicken customer says her chickens are laying small eggs and wants more protein. I think small eggs mean she is not giving them free access to oyster shell or there are environmental factors, like weird chickens. We operate a home for aged chickens plus some crazy young white hens, and they lay just about every day and the eggs are good sized. Sometimes I forget to feed them, or don't let them out until I hear them yelling at me when I go by the hen house.

I would like to add more alfalfa as alfalfa seems to be an excellent chicken food. (Also, buckwheat, which I added because I think Buckwheat and Alfalfa combinations are hilarious.) However, I am out of alfalfa.

I am going to take 2000lbs and add more peas, clover seed, canola seed, and my last bale of alfalfa. I think I will take the protein to 17.5 percent maybe call it 18 percent. I have warned my customers that if they want 18 percent protein and no soy meal the price is going to have to go up. It is better to just buy a few bags of layer from Wilco Feed Store and supplement. High protein is not the point of feeding a mixed grain and alfalfa ration to chickens. 

Then I will take another 2000lbs and add oats to drop the protein to 12 percent, probably throw in 200lbs of Timothy hay or second cutting Canary Grass for smell and color. Add 80lbs of liquid molasses. This would drop the wheat percentage and make the ration more gut friendly.

I could actually have a business here, if I just, had a building with a non gravel floor. Four bulk bins that hold 30,000lbs or less. A real cooler for the pellet mill. A White 2-110 FWA (becaue I like FWA) or something Perkins powered with good hydraulics to run everything. Or three-phase electricity....

Also if I could do math, could successfully charge just a little bit more money, do marketing, remember who my customers are, develop a social media platform to promote Super Chick N, get a feed license, get mental help through drugs and talk therapy, remember anything at all, could work 16 hours a day like I used to do, and every joint in my body didn't slightly hurt every moment of the day. 

Simple things... 

 

I almost win 11 million dollars and other wise have a typical day in the life

For much of yesterday I though I had won the lottery. 11 million to do with as I pleased.

It was destiny...

I didn't feel like fixing lunch so I went to Dad's Market to get a Crunch Box. This is $5 worth of greasy chicken and deep friend potatoes. 

The nice Indian man misunderstood my order and gave me a Oregon Lottery Ticket. Since I am an optimist I assumed God above had declared me a lottery winner. I spent the afternoon in cautious optimism thinking of all the good I would do with 11 million dollars. Also tannerite, I would buy tannerite and blow stuff up! The neighborhood would have entertainment if I had 11 million dollars.

I am not sure how ordering a $5 "Crunch Box" sounds like a $5 megabucks but when heaven gives me pennies I make lemonade

My mellow was not even harshed by the unexpected visit of my neighbor's annoying uncle. It was not a good time for his semi annual discussion of if I had paid his nephew rent for three acres and a shed...

I was doing a custom order of pellets. My feed making competitor who routinely gets all my customers unless I sell pellets at pathetically low prices, wanted me to try making a chicken supplement mix into pellets. 

It was vitamins and minerals with soy and red wheat. It pulled hard but pelletized pretty well, although I had to tweak the moisture and feed rate constantly.

The other issue was that I switched the PTO gears on the Minneapolis-Moline G1355 into 1000 rpm. This dropped the engine rpm for 540 to 900 rpm. Which is fine for the G706 or U Diesel, but I was a little worried about the D585. It pulled hard and I got serious black smoke, unlike the oat, barley, corn, mix I had tested this idea with, so I bumped the rpms to 1100 which put the pellet mill up to 780 rpm.

The G1355 has a G950 PTO in it which is for an engine with lower RPM. So shifting my G1355 into 1000 PTO really drops engine RPM too far. The real reason I switched is that it seemed easier to switch gears than to take the throttle linking apart and figure out why the throttle lever won't hold steady at 1500 rpm... It is a good example of true Lazy Farmer mindset. Do more work to avoid work...

 

I have a magnet sensor for RPM zip tied to the PTO shaft so I can read rpm on this Calc-an-Acre. Very handy device. Has a little GPS puck on the roof for speed. I ended up running the PTO at 760 rpm which did not seem to produce more pellets per hour. However, when it was all said and done I did do 1,960lbs in 50 minutes. 

 

I also had this all timed so I could see lbs per hour to see if this actually would make me any money.

Then Uncle T showed up. He was doing the nice guy concerned uncle pretentious old guy act. I didn't get the our families have been friends since 1948 routine which I sort of enjoy so I had disappointment to deal with right away. 

I do have a hard time taking him seriously as I have seen him in assless chaps and he has poodles. Nothing wrong with poodles, and he had a Harley, but I think that Village People album I saw in the record bin at BiMart in my impressionable youth ruined me for biker culture.

But I digress... 

He had to ask me the annual questions. Who exactly was farming the nephew's field. Was someone cutting that grass field and doing spraying? (no for some reason the field didn't get sprayed and it has wild mustard so I will have to mow it as soon as it drys out and then put on MCPA with the gator sprayer again.) 

I said that I had been doing that field and paying his nephew for the past 15 years, although sometimes we traded work, for example, using my tractor and diesel to work up his pasture. 

I wanted to say that I had just taken it over and he should go fuck himself, but I thought about the lottery ticket and divine providence and spoke gently, assuring him that in fact his kind and wonderful nephew was getting compensation.

But I knew what was coming. I wanted to laugh or perhaps giggle just a little, I hope I didn't smirk, but I had done a terrible deed and I should have confessed. I would have but lacked the energy at the time. 

He very kindly and almost in a self depreciating fashion, had to ask the  question. Someone backed into his mid 1980's Chevy Astro van and dented the hood.

I suggested perhaps the air brakes had failed and the truck had rolled backwards? 

But, also completely accepted responsibility and offered to buy him a new hood. I mean, it was a highly collectable vehicle. If I ever wanted to hang outside a middle school with Justin Beiber CD's on a string, I would want that very White Van!

Thing is... I didn't just dent the hood slightly. 

I was backing the 1972 Ford Louisville tandem axle gutless Cat power POS truck that I store my bulk bags of grain on, into the shed in the dark. I have a block of wook that I roll up against and I was inching back in low-low (5 and 4 transmission) and I never felt when I hit the van. In fact I think I pushed it back three feet into the rear of the barn and didn't feel anything until I had pretty much destroyed the hood. I did not break the front window but probably readjusted the engine. Oh well... Should have apologized then... My bad... Probably why I was not blessed with a winning lottery ticket.

Whilst all this was going on the G1355 started pulling hard. Black smoke, dust burning on the exhaust manifold, the crankcase vent actually started working, and I didn't like the sound. So I had to adjust speed, adjust pellet moisture, and listen to Uncle T ask me meaningful questions about my home built and not real efficient pellet mill set up. 

I did not win 11 million dollars...

However, I did check the oats and they are sprouting! Soil temp has dropped a few degrees with the rain but not too bad. 

The oats are sprouting. This was a no-tilled field. It is going for hay. I am supposed to put 100lbs of N on it in the next ten days. I suspect it will be ten days before I get the truck unstuck. The rain seems to have buried the oats planted in the worked field. I am a little worried about that one.

Of course I totally misjudged the amount of rain we got and nearly got my pickup stuck on the road.

I attempted to move the fertilizer truck and I buried the front wheel to the axle. That rut is going to hurt during hay season.

Overall, it was a day... 

As they say nowadays, You can't park there...

Editor's note: Since I have lost my last pair of reading glasses and the whole writing process was accomplish with my eyes squinted mostly closed due to my macular degeneration (different from degenerationists who wear leather chaps with the butt cut out and have poodles), there may be more mispellings and random nonsensicale sentenses than usual...

 

I plant oats and we have an incredible thunderstorm

Twenty years ago I farmed twice the acres and I generally got things done.

This year has been a struggle. You would think I could plant 40 acres in a week before getting rained out.

Friday we had thunderstorms. I didn't really believe it would rain. The sunset Thursday was spectacular.

 

You think the nice weather will never end, until it rains, and then you think the rain will never end.

I plowed the 35 acre field that is getting 20 acres of alfalfa, and my nephew worked it down. I fought with the no-till drill. There was nothing wrong with the drill. Other than one little thing after another.

I have experimented quite a bit with planting wrenches and drill hardware. I can never get a reliable yield. Maybe the pH is off...

 

The extra ground plus another 10 acres is going into oats for hay. I had 3,000 lbs of Baylor oats that I got from my neighbor for feed. They were out of the bottom of the cleaning bin and were like 20 percent dust. I just rigged up a fan and dumped the bag into a bin while blowing air on the stream. This was sort of successful. Successful in covering me and the forklift with oat dust.

I figured if I had 20 acres to plant and 3,000 lbs I would set the drill at 150lb and all would be fine. I was going to put 8 gals of 10-34 fertilizer on but when I called for a price I discovered 10-34 was over $4 per gallon. 

But, we had a plastic tote with 150 gallons of greenish liquid that smelled like ammonia so I put 200 gallons of water with that and decided to pretend that was 10-34. It did make me feel better.

Of course the fertilizer rate controller would not work. I got from no-flow up to 20 gal per acre and the drill wouldn't lift. I fought with the hydraulics, switched hoses, then the fertilizer pump started leaking. Fresh rebuild so apparently I ran it dry... Ace POS pump...

Finally I checked the nozzles on the fertilizer boom. I am probably the only person on the planet who still uses a Blumhardt boom. For some strange reason I had a mix of blue pink and purple! I think the blues are drilled to purple so what ever I was doing I was putting a lot of fertilizer on. I have absolutely no idea...

I replaced with yellow and suddenly I was metering at 8 gal per acre with no issues at all. Other than the by switching hoses I manage to get the down pressure not to work properly.

I powered through.

The last four acres took most of Friday. I ran out of oat seed. Apparently there was a little more dust than I expected. I found a bag of Cayuse Oats from Derry Warehouse which was very clean. Cleaner than what we put into storage. 

I was using a dry fertilizer bin from Valley Ag to fill the drill. When I climbed up to look inside it was full of dust. So I dumped they Cayuse in to maybe dilute the mess. It sort of worked. I think I ended up planting about 250lbs per acre of the Cayuse. 

This is what happens when you don't check the seed rate. This is also pretty sad as I have a population monitor which I paid no attention until the "low seed  row 8," alarm would go off.

Oregon State University may not agree with me but, 250lbs per acre is actually an idea rate for Oat hay. I do not want thick stems. High Population should give skinny stems and more leaves. Or it will just get extremely rank and lodge and make crappy, wet, yellow, nasty oat hay which no one will buy and mill attract rats...

But, I digress... 

I rebuilt the middle valve on the stack, about four times. Finally I mixed in parts from my spare valve and it started working. But I also took the pioneer quick connect apart so who knows what fixed it.

You can almost completely rebuild the hydraulic valves on a pre-twentyfirst century White tractor without removing the valve stack. I wonder if the valves leaked from the factor... I have never seen a non-leaking White tractor.

 

I cleaned out the drill and went looking for my nephew who was rolling the worked ground. I found him just has the points came out of adjustment for the fifth (5) time on his Minneapolis-Moline Z. We put the flat roller on the White 2-155 and he took off to see his girl friend.

I rolled the no-tilled ground with the double corrugated roller as while they were calling for showers this week, I never really believe the weather man any more. I was one pass from finishing when the clouds opened up and we got rain. 

I managed to leave a trail of mud down the highway, which was promptly washed away.

My pickup was sitting in the worked field with a trailer containing a rather heavy air compressor. It took all my years of getting stuck experience to get out of that field without leaving too many ruts.

It was a nice day... 

The rainbow ends at my sort of well off neighbor's place. Or does it began?

We had a double rainbow which was complete with both ends. Wouldn't fit the iPhone viewfinder. The end is missing the shed with my pellet mill and the bags of Super Chick N that were being hit by the sideways rain blowing into my shed. Story of my life... 

 

A view I haven't seen in 20 years

Yesterday I plowed. 

I should have looked more closely at the weather forecast. It is raining today. This is the worst thing that can happen on our soil. It will turn dry and card on top and stay wet underneath. It will be a mess...

We are planting alfalfa so thought it was time to plow. There is a definite hard pan. We do have a decent four bottom rollover plow but it requires singles and a fair amount of front end weights.

I drug the old Melroe 911 plow out of the bushes for this misadventure.  When Herschel went out of business we bought a set of plow shares for the Melroe as they were the last place you could buy them. The old shares were so bad it would no longer go in the ground.

So why would we use a pull plow in the 21st Century?

Because I was too lazy to pull the duals off the White 2-155 FWA and the 2-135 has developed issues once again.  Also the 2-155 I was going to use has a leak in the lower 3 point arm seal and I don't feel like working on it. Have to keep the duals on the 2-155 I use for no-till as that is going to happen as soon as the next field drys out. 

Also, I wanted to use the G1355 which doesn't have three point but it was stuck on the pellet mill and didn't have the dual tires. 

Now that is a pathetic way to farm.

This is a five bottom Melroe 911. It is actually plowing level. Supposedly it is 5 18" bottoms but it appears to have 16's on a frame built for 18's. They are the AC bottoms which are not as good as the Moline/Oliver bottoms. It is pulling very hard in our clay soil. I went from 3.2 mph to 4.1 mph by tightening up number 3 injector line. I think fuel consumption is around 10 gal per hr. I swear I can see the fuel gauge needle slowly and steadily move towards empty...