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Philip Dickson’s hitch adjuster

Beef and sheep farmer Philip Dickson has invented a neat tool for remotely adjusting a tractor’s link-arm width when hooking up.

The so-called Third Arm tool drops over the link arms and has a linear actuator in the middle that shifts them from side to side to line up with the implement.

It can be adjusted to suit arms of all sizes, works with open or fixed ball ends, and has quick clamps to hold it firmly in place.

There is 150mm of mechanical adjustment to suit the width of different arms and the electric actuator can move up to 200mm.

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Power comes from the tractor’s auxiliary socket, which can be found either at the rear of the machine or in the cab, and it has a remote that means the operator can alter the width as they back up to the implement.

The County Westmeath producer came up with the design to save time and improve safety, by limiting the amount of time an operator needs to spend in the “crush zone” between a tractor and implement when hitching up.

Mr Dickson is hoping to start manufacturing and selling the device and plans to produce a small number in late spring/early summer.