Patent ID: 7730701

Claim:
A drive apparatus for a mower-conditioner mechanism in an agricultural harvester, the harvester having a tractor for propelling the mechanism across a field of standing crop and a hydraulic power supply, the mower conditioner mechanism having a forwardly disposed cutterbar mechanism and a conditioner mechanism having conditioning rolls disposed rearwardly therefrom, the drive apparatus comprising: a first and second cutterbar driver for providing rotational motive power to the cutterbar mechanism; a conditioner driver for providing rotational motive power to the conditioning rolls; and a hydraulic fluid circuit for conveying a flow of pressurized hydraulic fluid from the hydraulic power system through said at least one cutterbar driver and said conditioner driver, said at least one cutterbar driver and said conditioner driver being serially connected in said hydraulic fluid circuit, said first and second cutterbar drivers being connected to said fluid circuit in a parallel arrangement and said conditioner driver is connected in series with said first cutterbar driver.