Deere + Company

John M Flenniken

Merlyn D Bass

David L Wolf

Ronald N Grimstad

An agricultural tractor includes a rearwardly extending drawbar connected to a hitch member on the tongue of a trailing implement through a hitch adapter that includes a housing mounted on the rearward end of the drawbar and connected thereto by a vertical pin extending through a vertical bore in the housing and the drawbar, the rearward end of the adapter being pivotally connected to the implement tongue by a vertical pin, the axis of which is equidistant from the front and rear universal joints of a PTO hook-up assembly that connects the tractor power take-off to the implement driveshaft. The housing has a cavity with a larger cross section than the cross section of the drawbar and a plate-like clamping element is mounted in the housing cavity and includes upwardly and outwardly diverging inclined surfaces that are engageable with the lower lateral corner edges of the drawbar, the clamp member being vertically adjustable so that when the inclined surfaces engage the edges of the drawbar they clamp the drawbar against the top of the housing while resisting lateral shifting of the drawbar in the cavity, thereby providing a simple adjustment to accommodate the hitch adapter to various size drawbars.

Hitch adapter

A forage harvester includes a rotary cylinder-type cutterhead mounted in a housing and having a plurality of knives with cutting edges that generate a cylinder as the cutterhead rotates. A sharpening mechanism for the knives includes a pair of closed housings mounted on the opposite side walls of the cutterhead housing and a support member extending between said housings adjacent the cutterhead housing periphery, the opposite ends of the support member extending through openings in the housings and into the housing interiors. The openings are substantially larger than the support member to permit adjustment of the support member toward and away from the cutterhead periphery, and a pair of flexible seals are interposed between the ends of the support members and the respective housings to seal said openings. A manually rotatable crankshaft extends between the opposite housings and worm gearing connects the crankshaft to a threaded rod in each of the housings, each of said rods being threadable in one end of the support so that roration of the crankshaft causes adjustment of the support member toward and away from the cutterhead. A carrier is slidably mounted on the support member through a linear ball bearing and a sharpening stone is bonded to the carrier adjacent the cutterhead periphery, the carrier being reciprocatable back and forth along the support member by means of handle extending through the cutterhead housing side wall, so that the stone can be reciporcated back and forth across the width of the cutterhead as it is brought into engagement with the cutterhead knives by rotating the crankshaft. An interlock between the crankshaft and a door in the cutterhead housing prevents rotation of the crankshaft unless the housing door is closed.

Growing community of inventors

Senonches, France

John M Flenniken