What do you do with your forks?

PILOON · Apr 20, 2015

One thing for sure, he should refer to his tractor as 'HE' and not 'SHE' judging by rear wheel.
Good thing that pix wasn't taken near a fire hydrant.

PILOON · Apr 20, 2015

One thing for sure, he should refer to his tractor as 'HE' and not 'SHE' judging by rear wheel.
Good thing that pix wasn't taken near a fire hydrant.

Xfaxman · Apr 20, 2015

PILOON said:
One thing for sure, he should refer to his tractor as 'HE' and not 'SHE' judging by rear wheel.
Good thing that pix wasn't taken near a fire hydrant.

Yep I also thought about a dog lifting a rear leg. :laughing:

Xfaxman said:
He just likes to lift one rear wheel off of the ground, look at his Avatar!

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See, he did it again!

Sodo · Apr 20, 2015

Xfaxman said:
See, he did it again!

Man if I had to go hook up the ballast every time a wheel lifted I wouldn't get anything done at all. And if I had to set a plastic fire hydrant for every photo,,,,,,

Where I was working yesterday I lifted a wheel maybe 10, 20 times, but it would be impossible for a larger tractor to get in there and do that work, so kind of a moot point. Small tractor is a blessing for some things, a curse for others.

I see some fellas with a large one and a small one, that's pretty handy, but it's more eqpt, more storage, more money all kinds of things. I'm still trying to justify having a (small) excavator (but winning)

.

aeblank · Apr 20, 2015

What else is on the back? In other words, why can't you hook up the ballast and leave it there?

Along the same lines, get a QH. I went from blade to trailer mover to blade to trailer mover all within an hour. It was PAINLESS.
$100 at Harbor Freight well spent. =)

Sodo · Apr 20, 2015

aeblank said:
What else is on the back? In other words, why can't you hook up the ballast and leave it there?

Not a chance ! Filled rear tires is becoming appealing
but the cost is not ($1,000 :shocked: ) and you can't get the value back at resale.

aeblank said:
Along the same lines, get a QH. I went from blade to trailer mover to blade to trailer mover all within an hour. It was PAINLESS.
$100 at Harbor Freight well spent. =)

I might have to look at QH arrangements, everything I put on back there means in a few minutes I will need something else.

Depending on size of tractor and size of trailers, maybe you can put a trailer ball on your backblade.

aeblank · Apr 20, 2015

Seems like at some point you're tempting fate (and I'm not the safety police at all). Loaded tires will help, but as you probably know a counterweight is farther back (better).

Do what you will, but none of us want to see your face on the news........if you know what I mean.

Sysop · Apr 20, 2015

aeblank said:
Seems like at some point you're tempting fate (and I'm not the safety police at all). Loaded tires will help, but as you probably know a counterweight is farther back (better).

Do what you will, but none of us want to see your face on the news........if you know what I mean.

+1 but I'd be saying also that it will increase the lifespan of the machine overall. Doesn't take much searching to see many of the catastrophic failures seen across all brands of tractors has been the front steering; almost all of which could be prevented by having not repeatedly overload the front ends. A front wheel assist tractor such as that isn't meant to propel the full weight of the machine plus load with the front axle all the time, and with the back tires off the ground there is no other way to move.

$1000 in loaded tires doesn't offload any weight from the front, but it does let you drive with the main drive axle (rear) and let the front assist just merely assist. How much are all the typical front axle components that could potentially fail? How much is preventing expensive downtime to you? I'd think of the $1000 is an insurance policy towards keeping it in operating condition.

piercedtiger · Apr 20, 2015

Sodo said:
Not a chance ! Filled rear tires is becoming appealing
but the cost is not ($1,000 :shocked: ) and you can't get the value back at resale.

I might have to look at QH arrangements, everything I put on back there means in a few minutes I will need something else.

Depending on size of tractor and size of trailers, maybe you can put a trailer ball on your backblade.

Have you considered filling the tires yourself? I bought a $9 adapter off Amazon (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B003V9T6YI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ), a 3' section of hose (free if you already have one, like a washer hookup), and used a submersible pump to pump wash fluid in my tires myself. The chart shows you how much to put in http://www.rimguard.biz/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Hydro-Flation-tables-2014-PDF.pdf I was able to fit an extra gallon in each of my rear tires above what they said, but it gives you an idea how much to buy anyway!

Also, my BB is a metal frame with plywood bottom, back, and sides. I have a couple logs in there now, with PVC on the side as tool holders. I can take the logs out and stack things in to carry everything, hang chains off it, carry shovels and rakes, etc. So it's more than just a concrete block that's not useful for anything other than dead weight.

aczlan · Apr 20, 2015

aeblank said:
Seems like at some point you're tempting fate (and I'm not the safety police at all). Loaded tires will help, but as you probably know a counterweight is farther back (better).

Do what you will, but none of us want to see your face on the news........if you know what I mean.

Ayep. We had a tractor at work that went through two front axles this winter because it had too much weight on the front axle. We put a 2000 (ish) pound weight box on the 3 point and it took around 2500 pounds off the front axle (numbers are slightly fuzzy, but adding the weight box took more than its weight off of the front axle).

Aaron Z