Hopper, Dump O/O's & Drivers

I was just being funny, there is no life sentence for a trailer from the DOT. If you ever see it you would understand. He did get stopped by the DOT and the list was long and it was put out of service. I take pride in my equipment, if something needs fixed I fix it or replace it. I keep my stuff clean the best I can it is harder to do these days hauling rock. Back on the trailer, the tarp system was worth more then the trailer. It was twenty years old and road hard, it was never washed, tires were mixed matched, gouges in the side and rear panels, spring ride and I am sure it had a broken spring because it leaned to one side a little. You might come into the elevator and see a trail of grain all the way to the pit and everyone new he had another leak. This trailer was the roughest I ever seen but he had a new electric tarp on it with remote. I can't wait and see what my trailer will look like in a year or two. You should see his truck, talk about a cream puff.

 

That sounds alot like the last old Wilson I was hauling - minus the remote. Although it had dings, dents, re-welds and scrapes everywhere - DOT would send it down the road. Now the 6 inch crack forming in the side rail..... (was the reason I never washed it - what crack officer? that's just dirt). The great part with an older trailer is not worrying about the small stuff, until someone swings a sledge hammer at it! Good times.....

 

I hooked to a hopper for the first time monday morning and have been enjoying this work. I'm really impressed from what little I've seen of the farming operations up this way. It's been 15 years or more since I did farm work. We had a mid 80's model 1420 International Harvester with a 4 row header. My grandafther bought that combine as an upgrade from the old late 60's early 70's model trouble prone gas powered, no air conditioner Massey Ferguson he'd used for more than 10 years previous. Changing headers on that SOB was an ALL DAY JOB, lol, I remember it well. Also will never forget how friggin hot that SOB would get in the cab the sweat just pouring off of you, LOL... Anyways, the "new" international only took about 10 minutes to swap headers. From the time I was 12 or 13 years old me and my older brother drove a 2 ton chevy truck with a 350 smallblock back and forth to the mill, among other things. My grandfather would have loved to see the things I'm seeing. I'm looking forward to working a full season next year, hopefully.

 

Nice looking outfit.Glad to see your enjoying pulling the hopper,rollin coal. One of my customers has a 1420 IH and it does great in corn and wheat,but has a tuff time in beans,rotor is just too small i guess.

 

Truck looks good hooked to the hopper. Glad your enjoying it.

 

Anyone watch the new reality show last week called "Harvest" about custom cutting crews? One crew was from Montana another from Nebraska and then the Kansas crew. I seen a lot of BS and made up crap but it brought back a lot of memories when I did three harvest seasons many years ago and went from Texas to Montana and back down to Mississippi for beans and rice.

http://www.history.com/shows/harvest


I think they need to do a reality show about grain hauling. Just think Highside and Wheathauler could be movie stars.

 

Yeah it would get choked up in beans if you got ahead of yourself. One of the main reasons he bought that combine though was specifically because of the rotor. We tried the canola thing when it kind of came on the scene in a big way and from what I recall the rotor on the 1420's was perfect for canola whereas the 1440, 60, 80 &JD's, etc it wasn't as good. We only did canola a couple of years though. Soybeans, wheat, corn, & alfalfa hay, wheat straw were what we always did. That 1420 was a good combine.

 

We'll call it "Hopped Up."

The biggest challenge is going to be figuring out how to make every day occurrences seem like the end of the world is coming. After a few shows, we'll bring Dave Redmond in. He'll have to wait a couple of hours to get loaded somewhere, and then he'll flip his lid, saying everyone was out to get him.