Compact Tractors are Designed All Wrong

[gladehound]

Back in the early 2000's we had 60 yards of moon dust (granulated limestone) delivered to our little league park. They dumped it at the back of the park. It was to replenish three diamonds and build a new T-ball diamond. I volunteered to move the moon dust with my PT425. On work day, I show up with my machine and this guy starts laughing at me and saying we'll never get done, throws up his hands, gets in his truck and leaves. So I start moving it. About an hour later, he shows up with a Case 580 and says something about the right tool for the job. He scoops up a big old bucket full of moon dust and realizes he can't fit through the gate by the dugouts. So he drives all the way around the diamond, opens the double wide center field gate, drives over to the center of the infield, and dumps his load. He's looking pretty smug. I wave him down and say "Nice!", and give him the thumbs up. Then I point behind him. He's left two huge ruts about 10" deep all the way from the fence to about the shortstop position, ruining the turf. He said he'd fix it later and goes and gets a couple more loads. First time he comes back and makes the ruts deeper. Next time he tries a different path and makes a second set of ruts about 20' over. I got several parents together and they begged him to stop. He got mad and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to fix the ruts as he backed out of the diamond. He couldn't fix the ruts because the machine kept sinking, and he only moved three scoops of moon dust. Right tool for the job.... uh, no. :laughing:

I ended up fixing the ruts, putting in many yards of black dirt and reseeding it, and watering it twice a day for a couple weeks.

It took me Saturday to move most of the dust over three diamonds and a few more hours on Sunday, then about 3 hours of dragging with a chain link fence and cement blocks to get it all level. Looked real nice. The guy even told me it looked good and was surprised at how fast that little machine could move that much material. He ended up coaching my kid in softball and we got along real well. Good guy. :thumbsup:

So you can go through a gate. How does that make it better than a CUT? I must be missing something, but that is a really, really long time to spread 60 yards of stone. You got the job done without doing damage and that's what matters. But why couldn't a CUT do the same thing?

 

[MossRoad]

So, they dumped belly dump loads of lime on my daughter's softball fields. I moved and spread the lime with a Farmall H and this (they came out perfect):

View attachment 574250

Right Tool for the Job...

Nice! :thumbsup:

They couldn't get the semi's onto our fields.

 

[MossRoad]

Antonio Cararro has a bidirectional compact in the TT series... they're just horribly limited in North America. Currently, I only know of one dealer in western Kentucky. Not sure about Canada or Mexico.

If my next purchase is a new tractor, it will definitely be an AC TT series.

I see those in orchards in SW lower Michigan.

 

[MossRoad]

So you can go through a gate. How does that make it better than a CUT? I must be missing something, but that is a really, really long time to spread 60 yards of stone. You got the job done without doing damage and that's what matters. But why couldn't a CUT do the same thing?

They are slower at that particular task.

 

[gladehound]

They are slower at that particular task.

I'm having trouble understanding why you believe this. It took you over a day to move and spread 60 yards of stone. It typically takes me about 30 minutes to do a triaxle load with my CUT with a 1 yard bucket up front and 8 ft power angle blade in the rear. Maybe the distance you were moving it was a lot farther than I realize. But I just don't see why a CUT would take longer.

Back when I used to spread a triaxle load with my 19hp CUT with 1/3rd yard bucket and 6 foot blade it took about 90 minutes and never over 2 hours. I'm guessing 60 yards was 3 tri-axle loads.

 

[4570Man]

I don’t believe it either. The articulated machine might be a little better at loading trucks in a tight spot, but moving dirt over a long distance the advantage is gone. Since he can’t even load a truck that advantage is also gone. ( probably the biggest grip I have about the PT. The NH tractor it was compared to earlier beats it by 25” ) And I don’t know of any compact tractors that have a 1 yard bucket from the factory. The bucket on my JD 310 is 1.3 yards and it’s a lot bigger than any tractor bucket I’ve seen. Spreading tri axel loads in place is pretty fast. Moving the pile any distance at all takes a lot of time.

 

[gladehound]

I don’t believe it either. The articulated machine might be a little better at loading trucks in a tight spot, but moving dirt over a long distance the advantage is gone. Since he can’t even load a truck that advantage is also gone. ( probably the biggest grip I have about the PT. The NH tractor it was compared to earlier beats it by 25” ) And I don’t know of any compact tractors that have a 1 yard bucket from the factory. The bucket on my JD 310 is 1.3 yards and it’s a lot bigger than any tractor bucket I’ve seen. Spreading tri axel loads in place is pretty fast. Moving the pile any distance at all takes a lot of time.

My 1 yard bucket is not from the factory. I can use anything that fits SSQA. Actual specs from Loflin say 0.986 yd3. Close enough.

 

[MossRoad]

I'm having trouble understanding why you believe this. It took you over a day to move and spread 60 yards of stone. It typically takes me about 30 minutes to do a triaxle load with my CUT with a 1 yard bucket up front and 8 ft power angle blade in the rear. Maybe the distance you were moving it was a lot farther than I realize. But I just don't see why a CUT would take longer.

Back when I used to spread a triaxle load with my 19hp CUT with 1/3rd yard bucket and 6 foot blade it took about 90 minutes and never over 2 hours. I'm guessing 60 yards was 3 tri-axle loads.

Yes, spreading it isn't the problem. It's the distances I had to haul it and the obstacles I had to go around just to get to the gates to get onto the infields. The loads were dumped at the back of the park, not on the infields themselves. They couldn't get the trucks onto the fields. I had to haul it in at 1/3 bucket at a time, so about 180 trips. Some routes were well over a hundred yards in each direction. It was a really poorly run and poorly laid out Little League well before we got there.

 

[MossRoad]

I don’t believe it either. The articulated machine might be a little better at loading trucks in a tight spot, but moving dirt over a long distance the advantage is gone. Since he can’t even load a truck that advantage is also gone. ( probably the biggest grip I have about the PT. The NH tractor it was compared to earlier beats it by 25” ) And I don’t know of any compact tractors that have a 1 yard bucket from the factory. The bucket on my JD 310 is 1.3 yards and it’s a lot bigger than any tractor bucket I’ve seen. Spreading tri axel loads in place is pretty fast. Moving the pile any distance at all takes a lot of time.

Once again, you're comparing a much larger JD 310 to a 1500# PT425 or a NH TC21D.

 

[Xfaxman]

I don稚 believe it either. The articulated machine might be a little better at loading trucks in a tight spot, but moving dirt over a long distance the advantage is gone. Since he can稚 even load a truck that advantage is also gone. ( probably the biggest grip I have about the PT. The NH tractor it was compared to earlier beats it by 25 ) And I don稚 know of any compact tractors that have a 1 yard bucket from the factory. The bucket on my JD 310 is 1.3 yards and it痴 a lot bigger than any tractor bucket I致e seen. Spreading tri axel loads in place is pretty fast. Moving the pile any distance at all takes a lot of time.

My 1 yard bucket is not from the factory. I can use anything that fits SSQA. Actual specs from Loflin say 0.986 yd3. Close enough.

My 6' wide, 1 yard SSQA bucket is from Bobcat:

With 17 feet of lift, it has no problem loading a truck.