Deere & Company

Bradley Thomas Cote

Peter Alan Kosmicki

Robert J White

Scott Lisle Cook

Shawn Robert Simons

Gary Dean Johnson

Lonny Dean Tisue

Robert James White

A cutter bar is provided for trimming debris away from the wheel-track interface of a tracked vehicle. A pivot attachment is provided wherein a knife having a cutting edge is removably mounted to a bracket by way of fasteners which will shear when a pre-selected force is applied to them. The bracket is mounted to the vehicle structure so that the knife is disposed in close proximity to the drive wheel and endless track of the vehicle. Accordingly, when a piece of tough debris is encountered by the knife edge some of the fasteners will shear and the knife pivots out of the way so that the debris can pass by without causing damage to the wheel or track. The knife and fasteners being readily serviceable with inexpensive parts.

Cutter bar pivot attachment

The adjustment mechanism of the present invention is mounted to a frame and comprises an alignment cam that is pivotally mounted to the frame by a tension link pivot pin. The alignment cam is provided with an actuating arm that is coupled to a longitudinally extendible adjusting member. The longitudinally extendible adjusting member comprising a screw jack. A tension link is pivotally mounted to the tension link pivot pin. Camming surfaces on the alignment cam are skewed with respect to the transverse axis defined by the tension link pivot pin so that rotation of the alignment cam twists the tension link and thereby the idler wheel predominately about a vertical axis. Albeit to a lesser degree, rotation of the alignment cam also twists the tension link and idler about a longitudinally extending horizontal axis. Therefore by extending or retracting the screw jack, the toe-in/toe-out orientation of the idler wheel can be adjusted.

Toe-in/toe-out adjustment mechanism

Growing community of inventors

Waterloo, IA, United States of America

Bradley Thomas Cote