Abstract: An improved quick attach system for removably attaching an implement, such as a bucket, to a front end loader includes a quick attach assembly connected to the lift arms and tilt operators of the front end loader. A pair of alignment members mate with alignment recesses on the bucket while a pair of spring-urged locking pins mate with a pair of brackets on the bucket. A common scissors-type pin retraction assembly is connected to the locking pins with a single release handle provided to move the pins between locked and release positions. The handle moves within a slot between as the pins move between the locked and release positions and a detent is provided for holding the handle, and the locking pins, in the release position. The handle is automatically urged from the detent position by a locking member on the loader as the bucket is attached to the loader, thus allowing the pins to lock into place in the bucket brackets.

Abstract: A belt transmission has a clutch that keeps both belts moving in the same direction when the transmission is in the forward mode and slackens only one of the belts during the usually brief interval that the transmission is placed in its reverse mode with the other belt moving in the reverse direction. Both belts share a common actuating lever having a lost motion coupling with one of the belts so that the lever can be placed in a neutral position in which neither of the belts is driven, even though power continues to be delivered to the transmission. The drive train that supplies such power accomplishes a substantially right-angle drive from the swingable tongue of the machine without a gear box by connecting a number of universal joints in a series that cuts across the corner between the swingable tongue and the main drive shaft of the transmission.

Abstract: Large round bales are gathered in the field with a towable implement having a long bed that may be tipped forwardly or rearwardly to the ground about an intermediate transverse axis in order to accomplish front or rear loading of the implement. Bales are successively loaded by driving laterally spaced beams of the inclined bed under the bales as conveyor chains on the beams draw the bales in the opposite direction up onto the beams, whereupon the bed is leveled out for transporting the picked up bales. Unloading is accomplished by inclining the bed appropriately and driving the bales off the beams with the conveying chains as the beams are simultaneously drawn out from under the bales. The bed may be disposed either directly behind its towing vehicle or off to one side thereof by virtue of a hydraulically controlled, articulated tongue, and bale loading and unloading is facilitated by virtue of the absence of any interfering drive shafts across the beams at their opposite ends.

Abstract: A belt transmission has a clutch that keeps both belts moving in the same direction when the transmission is in the forward mode and slackens only one of the belts during the usually brief interval that the transmission is placed in its reverse mode with the other belt moving in the reverse direction. Both belts share a common actuating lever having a lost motion coupling with one of the belts so that the lever can be placed in a neutral position in which neither of the belts is driven, even though power continues to be delivered to the transmission. The drive train that supplies such power accomplishes a substantially right-angle drive from the swingable tongue of the machine without a gear box by connecting a number of universal joints in a series that cuts across the corner between the swingable tongue and the main driven shaft of the transmission.

Abstract: The discharge end of a bale chamber may be constricted or enlarged such that bales being packed rearwardly through the chamber may be increased or decreased in density by regulating their resistance to exit from the chamber. Bell cranks at the four corners of the chamber are coupled with shiftable walls of the latter in such a way that pressure increases or decreases are simultaneously experienced by all of the walls upon introduction or release of hydraulic fluid to a pair of power devices which interconnect the two cranks on each side of the chamber. The two legs of each bell crank are of equal radial length with respect to the axis of swinging movement of the crank so that equal moment arms are produced by such legs to accomplish substantially uniform pressure around the bale within the chamber.

Abstract: The discharge spout of the pickup in a stack-forming machine is provided with baffle structure inside the spout and adjacent the discharge opening that oscillates horizontally and continuously through a stream of crops being projected into the forming body of the machine in order to break up wads and clumps of matter in the stream and to evenly distribute the stream from side-to-side within the body. One embodiment utilizes a single, centrally disposed fin as the baffle structure, while another employs a pair of such fins angled acutely with respect to one another, centered in the spout and controlled to preclude swinging of each fin inwardly beyond a position parallel to the direction of crop flow.

Abstract: A sickle drive has a sway bar that is coupled with the sickle to reciprocate the latter during oscillation of the sway bar. The latter is operably coupled with a crank drive through a special linkage employing a pair of oppositely extending, short pitman links that compensate for one another adjacent opposite ends of the sickle stroke to vary the velocity of the sickle substantially sinusoidally. The oppositely directed inertia forces of the sickle adjacent opposite ends of its stroke, made equal by the special linkage, are balanced out by a pair of superimposed, oppositely rotating weights driven in timed relationship to reciprocation of the sickle, thereby presenting a substantially vibration-free drive.

Abstract: In the stacking of hay or other crops, a windrow or swath is lifted off the ground, fed into a pile collected by a vehicle-supported, stack-forming body and the pile compressed from time to time in the body, all in a continuous operation as the vehicle is advanced across the field, by virtue of the provision of an accumulator which receives the crop while the pile is being compressed, and from which accumulator the crop so accumulated is thereupon dumped onto the compressed pile as the latter is held against expansion by a holding assembly.