Gehl 970 chopper box

[Fordfarmer]

Rented one from a neighbor when the main apron in my old Forage King broke. Was impressed by how smoothly it fed out, but I've never liked wood stringers and crossmembers. Found out another thing I don't like about them. The beaters are hollow (and thin!) - the shafts are stubs. Bottom beater twisted off part way through the last load. Local dealer has one on hand, so I'm thinking this is something that happens somewhat regularly. $435!! Anyone else find this out the hard way?

 

[Don-Wi]

Yep- we've replaced 2 in our 970. ONe was replaced with a used one, and the other with a new one. Sad thing is, they used the same beater design all the way since atleast the 920 to the 980 which was the last model they made.

We also have a 920 that we just bought at auction, and the top beater was replaced with one out of a completely different make/model. Which one, I'm not sure. A local dealer has a pair of 970's, and one has 2 brand new beaters, and the other has 1.

The beater is a very poor design, but the rest of the wagon is really nice. Ours replaced an old Rex wagon. MAJOR step up from that POS.

Donovan from Wisconsin

 

[Anonymous-0]

Seem to be a popular wagon in my area, the JD and CaseIH dealers both sold Gehl. Helped the neighbor out last week, he has 4 of them and I think everyone had atleast one newer looking beater.
Work nice in corn but I remember borrowing one several years ago for haylage and I didnt feel it unloaded as smooth as my old Kastens. Also found it difficult to blow into if the top beater wasnt stopped in the right position. Then again one of the Kastens was broke down at the time so I was in no position to complain.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Go to a local machine shop and have a new one made. Simple thing to copy- local shop does that for years.

 

[Don-Wi]

That is another problem we had, so we put a 12" extention under the spout on the chopper. Got it up & over the beater no problems. The extension was originally on our other Fox, but we removed it a while ago.

Donovan from Wisconsin

 

[sammydwm]

Oh come on now, those Rex wagons were the cats pajamas.
My dad used to get a kick out of it when I would list our machinery for relatives out of state and got to "our chopper boxes are 2 old Rex.

I did like the worm drive better than the ratchets on the old H&S boxes but they could have used a 3rd gear.

 

[Don-Wi]

They were good wagons in their day, but that was more then 30 years ago... I see them in ads all the time and people are asking a minimum of $1500 for them, and they just ain't worth even 1/2 that.

Donovan from Wisconsin