The hydraulic reversible plough is a powerful workhorse, but its job—cutting, lifting, and inverting soil—is inherently destructive to its working parts. The intense friction and abrasion cause inevitable wear, and knowing when and how to replace these critical components is the secret to maintaining peak efficiency, minimizing fuel costs, and ensuring the longevity of your investment.
Here is a guide to identifying and replacing the parts that bear the brunt of the work.
- The Plough Share (Point): The First Line of Attack
The share is the wedge-shaped, leading edge that cuts the bottom of the furrow slice. It takes the greatest amount of stress and wear.
- Identifying Wear: The share is worn out when its cutting edge becomes rounded or dull, or when it has worn back so far that the soil stream begins to hit the nose of the mouldboard or the frog (the main structural body).
- Why Replace: A dull share forces the tractor to push harder to maintain depth, drastically increasing draft and fuel consumption. Allowing the share to wear into the mouldboard leads to a costly repair instead of a simple replacement.
- Replacement Tip: Always choose high-quality boron steel shares for superior abrasion resistance.
- The Mouldboard: The Soil Shaper
The mouldboard is the curved plate that catches the soil slice, lifts it, and inverts it 180 degrees to bury residue.
- Identifying Wear: Look for grooves, deep pitting, or excessive thinning of the steel surface. The surface must be slick for soil to flow smoothly over it. If the mouldboard surface is rough, soil starts to stick, especially in clay, leading to poor soil inversion and inefficient operation.
- Why Replace: Increased friction from a rough mouldboard steals horsepower and can leave large, unbroken clods. Pitting also compromises the structural integrity, making the mouldboard susceptible to cracking under impact.
- Replacement Tip: Ensure the replacement mouldboard is the exact profile designed for your plough (like the precise components on the Shakti High Tech Mount plough, ensuring optimal soil flow.
- The Landside: The Stabilizer
The landside is the flat, heavy bar that runs along the bottom and side of the furrow wall. It counteracts the massive lateral force created by the mouldboard turning the soil.
- Identifying Wear: The landside should provide a smooth, flat bearing surface. It is worn when it becomes severely grooved or thinned, often causing the plough to pull sideways or "crabbing."
- Why Replace: A worn landside destroys the plough's stability and alignment, resulting in significant side draft. This causes the tractor to steer incorrectly, straining the three-point linkage and leading to uneven furrow width across the field.
- Replacement Tip: Landslides should be replaced before they wear thin enough to expose and damage the much larger, structural parts of the plough body, which are expensive to repair.
The Power of Proactive Maintenance
Replacing wear parts before they fail is the single greatest maintenance step you can take. Every dollar spent on new shares and landslides is an investment that:
- Saves Fuel: By reducing the required draft.
- Saves Time: By maintaining optimal working speed and avoiding mid-field breakdowns.
- Protects the Frame: By shielding the expensive structural components from abrasion.
Keep a close eye on these three critical components to ensure your hydraulic reversible plough operates with the precision and power it was engineered to deliver.
