Muir hills putting down the power

[ZXR17]

We had a 101 and 121 where I first worked. The 101 had a funny little angular cab that made it look like something from WW1.
I spent many hours on the 121, and as an eighteen year old it seemed huge. I used it for .ploughing , cultivating and forage harvesting. I ploughed with a 5 furrow reversible Dowdswell which made the tractor a bit wheely prone on the farm drive.
Many happy memories back then.

 

[pail of ale]

Did a lot of carting with 2 ford powered 121's back in the day. Bouncy but you just got to rock with them and drive on. Nobody lost me with much smoother tractors. Loved them. Good turning circle, view, fuel consumption and reliability. There aint much in the transfer box to zap alot of power. Maybe the last lot with gear levers on the side were syncro but only drove constant mesh models.

 

[yellowbelly]

A mate of mine, in the next village, has 3 (maybe 4?) now.
He's desperately looking for the one he had in the 70's but not had any success yet.

He has the original front wheels for this one but had to borrow the front ones from a Ford to go to the ploughing match that day.

 

[Lowland1]

We had a 101 and 121 where I first worked. The 101 had a funny little angular cab that made it look like something from WW1.
I spent many hours on the 121, and as an eighteen year old it seemed huge. I used it for .ploughing , cultivating and forage harvesting. I ploughed with a 5 furrow reversible Dowdswell which made the tractor a bit wheely prone on the farm drive.
Many happy memories back then.

Our 101 had front opening doors on its cab when we first got it dad didn’t close the door whilst driving out the shed the door swung into the wheel and was flipped off it’s hinges about ten feet in the air and back down onto the floor breaking all the glass. We then put a chain on it to stop that happening again. It also had a very fancy sliding rear window someone had made which was very cool in 1974.

 

[Exfarmer]

Ford 5000 with Farmhand F11 on the pit, View attachment 1090380
View attachment 1090381

That steel Framed pit in the background is the thing that NIAE built in 1970. It was designed so that it had some sort of conveyor to fill the pit, and then I think the idea was to reverse the convyor to get silage out again. Srangely enough the idea never caught on....!

This steel framed pit was actually built 71 or 2 when I was there. the pit had no solid walls but tensioned steel cables with a Butyl liner to hold and seal the silage
The pit was filled by trailers tipping into a dump box which fed a Gehl blower throwing the grass into the pit. This was painfully slow.
the idea being that you filled the back of the pit first and covered as you worked along. There was no attempt at consolidation. I have no idea how they were going to empty ity, but the idea was to try and replicate a silage tower with out the very high cost. Part of the idea of the steel cables were to assess the load imposed by 15-20feet of silage Via strain gauges.
I was very interested in this project as I knew my first task on returning home was to convert from Hay to silage. I believe the second year they used a front loader to fill the pit and that is how we did it in as process later came to known as a Cornish cliff. Now everybody is convinced you need to roll the piut within an inch of its life, but I am not sure the science is there

 

[Nearly]

I should have kept this.
£2k!

 

[robs1]

This steel framed pit was actually built 71 or 2 when I was there. the pit had no solid walls but tensioned steel cables with a Butyl liner to hold and seal the silage
The pit was filled by trailers tipping into a dump box which fed a Gehl blower throwing the grass into the pit. This was painfully slow.
the idea being that you filled the back of the pit first and covered as you worked along. There was no attempt at consolidation. I have no idea how they were going to empty ity, but the idea was to try and replicate a silage tower with out the very high cost. Part of the idea of the steel cables were to assess the load imposed by 15-20feet of silage Via strain gauges.
I was very interested in this project as I knew my first task on returning home was to convert from Hay to silage. I believe the second year they used a front loader to fill the pit and that is how we did it in as process later came to known as a Cornish cliff. Now everybody is convinced you need to roll the piut within an inch of its life, but I am not sure the science is there

My old man used one of those blowers to fill our put to save an extra man on the pit, it went very tight and made very good silage

 

[Exfarmer]

My old man used one of those blowers to fill our put to save an extra man on the pit, it went very tight and made very good silage

I suspect the blower at Shutts was quite small As it only had a small David brown on the front and that drove the dump box too. the silage must have been good or I would not have copied it in our own way

 

[robs1]

I suspect the blower at Shutts was quite small As it only had a small David brown on the front and that drove the dump box too. the silage must have been good or I would not have copied it in our own way

I suspect ours was driving with a red db 990 that was our scraper tractor. My old wanted a tower silo but planners wanted it half a mile away from the yard in a dip that floods in winter

 

[76masseyman]

Nice series 111 at the Lincolnshire show last year.

 

[76masseyman]

@yellowbelly mate.

 

[76masseyman]

 

[76masseyman]

Was working in north lincs up to a few years ago.

 

[76masseyman]

Not sure if this one ever did get restored.

 

[yellowbelly]

@yellowbelly mate.View attachment 1094898

Yeah, that's him
He's even driving it in your photo - he's not the driver in one of my pics

 

[e3120]

I wish I had pictures when seeing it in action, but this one and its mates tugged the dies around the Rover pressworks at Swindon. The floor was stickier than an 80s nightclub, which helped shift the 100t dead weights. Despite the constant banging of the presses/clatter of offcuts & ear defence, the roar to get the outfit moving was substantial. God knows what was happening in the clutch department.

 

[flywheel]

Neighbour had a muir hill early eighties ,bloody hell that would climb with a big hill plough bit light on the nose but she wid go ..fast on the road compared to yhe mf at 15 or 18 mph ..

 

[Oliveau]

Our 101 had front opening doors on its cab when we first got it dad didn’t close the door whilst driving out the shed the door swung into the wheel and was flipped off it’s hinges about ten feet in the air and back down onto the floor breaking all the glass. We then put a chain on it to stop that happening again. It also had a very fancy sliding rear window someone had made which was very cool in 1974.

Favourite trick when we put the cage wheels on - move a bit with the door open and they would catch on the cage wheel and flip off. Beggars to put back on your own as the bottom of the door was nearly at head level, and the top was waving about way in the air! Happy days…..

 

[Oliveau]

This steel framed pit was actually built 71 or 2 when I was there. the pit had no solid walls but tensioned steel cables with a Butyl liner to hold and seal the silage
The pit was filled by trailers tipping into a dump box which fed a Gehl blower throwing the grass into the pit. This was painfully slow.
the idea being that you filled the back of the pit first and covered as you worked along. There was no attempt at consolidation. I have no idea how they were going to empty ity, but the idea was to try and replicate a silage tower with out the very high cost. Part of the idea of the steel cables were to assess the load imposed by 15-20feet of silage Via strain gauges.
I was very interested in this project as I knew my first task on returning home was to convert from Hay to silage. I believe the second year they used a front loader to fill the pit and that is how we did it in as process later came to known as a Cornish cliff. Now everybody is convinced you need to roll the piut within an inch of its life, but I am not sure the science is there71

I’m sure you are right about filling with a blower, BUT I’m sure that the first concept was some sort of conveyor that ran up and over the clamp. That would be 1970/71. The conveyor was then meant to empty the clamp again but I think that was a dead duck.
BTW going back to the original topic, I was known as ’Muir Hill’ during my 69-71 sojourn at Shutts!

 

[Exfarmer]

I’m sure you are right about filling with a blower, BUT I’m sure that the first concept was some sort of conveyor that ran up and over the clamp. That would be 1970/71. The conveyor was then meant to empty the clamp again but I think that was a dead duck.
BTW going back to the original topic, I was known as ’Muir Hill’ during my 69-71 sojourn at Shutts!

B***** H*** I remember you well