Boxblade Road & Gutter Maintenance

[MtnViewRanch]

Rob, your place sure is nice. How many hours does it usually take to do the normal maintenance on the road? Are you able to get it done in a weekend?

Just wondering

 

[3RRL]

Thanks for the compliments guys, I was hoping you guys would appreciate the way I described our road... sort of like it is a living thing, which it is to me. It constantly changes with the weather and needs periodic grooming and care. I love that road. Roads can be beautiful too, you know, even dirt roads.

David,
I hope you get your top and tilt anyway. You'll find it invaluable with almost any other chores you use the 3pt equipment for, so IMO, it's definitely worth the time and effort to put it on. Not only that, hooking stubborn implements is made easy, especially combined with Pat's EC change system.

I'll post some photos for you and weldingisfun showing how it looks and works. In the meantime, I do have most of it documented with lots of pictures and a video in this thread:
Installing Side Tilt Cylinders

weldingis fun, here's 2 pictures of the 3pt for now.





Brian,
Thanks for the compliments as well. LOL ... there is "normal maintenance" and then there's "normal maintenance" after a storm. Sometimes it only takes a couple passes up and down just to smooth out the ruts so that only takes an hour to do. For general road grooming and maybe fixing up a gutter or two, it takes me about 2 hours max, depending how may rocks I have to get off the road before/during box blading it. Ever since the first gutters I cut, the water damage has diminished to the point where about 2 hours is the most it takes me now. But before that, it took me 2 days to rebuild the part that washed out going through our ravine.
That was a lot of work.



Here I am going through it with the Blazer to give you a perspective of it.



I been meaning to ask you too, since you're in the 4,000 ft elevation of Southern California mountains, we must be pretty close to each other. Where abouts are you located?

 

[jezorek]

Rob,

Thanks for the great post. It answers some of the questions I have.

On another note-I thought I was the only guy with a surface grinder etc at home.

Leigh

 

[3RRL]

Rob,

Thanks for the great post. It answers some of the questions I have.

On another note-I thought I was the only guy with a surface grinder etc at home.

Leigh

Thanks Leigh, I'm glad you found the thread interesting.
I'm a retired mold maker and kept some of the machinery. I have 2 mills and a 16" lathe in the garage shop and a bunch of other machines that barely fit. Also have another mill and surface grinder over at my stepson's house too! LOL ... Old machinists don't go away, they just tool and die.

 

[3RRL]

This is a good time to show another technique I've written about many times. It is using the boxblade as a bull dozer in reverse. First thing is to beef up your lower drag links so they don't bend like pretzels (like mine did) and then you have a powerful tool in the boxblade.

Besides being able to push dirt in reverse,the biggest benefit from it is that you immediately create a path or "road" where your tractor tires sit on.
Notice in this photo the immediate path created for my tires to be on, instead of a rocky, bumpy surface that could send you tipping over if you are on unstable or steep ground.



These pictures are taken in an area that I've already worked so it is not the "wild" part of my property. To see the wild part, where I did most of the steep trails using this method, go here to this thread:
Pushing in New Roads and Trails

The other benefit is the ability to "see" clearly over the boxblade and your rear tires, since you are sitting right on top of them. My property is wild so I find going forward over rough terrain is tough and bumpy and dangerous. It's hard to see over the long hood, fel and bucket. But in reverse, the path is ready made and safe, IMO.
Here is a closer view to show the resulting cut dozing in reverse.

 

[3RRL]

Now, when I work from the top of a hill down, it's scary doing it with the fel bucket. Same when pulling the boxblade down the first time for the same reason that you never know what your tires are going to run over. Compound that with a steep slope and it is a recipe for disaster. However, bulldozing down the slope backwards offers:
a) excellent vision of what you are pushing or approaching
b) a ready made road and smooth safe surface for your tractor tires to be on
c) you have the wall of dirt against your boxblade to act as resistance ... a brake, to keep you from suddenly rolling down the hill.

You can keep your eyes on that much easier than guessing if the fel bucket is filled up or not? Going forward down hill and trying to use the fel bucket, I've skidded over rocks thinking I was grabbing them with the fel bucket, and then zoom ... I'm head down hill. It is scary. Once you have the "road or trail" established so your tires have solid and level ground, you can try to do stuff going forward.
Although this is not a big drop off, this photo shows how the dozer blade in reverse makes a "road" again for the tractor. As I cut down the slope, I push dirt farther and farther down the slope and pretty soon I have a safe slope going down the drop off.



The other thing is you can tilt the boxblade sideways with one side higher or lower than the other. This means when you cut your path along a slope or diagonal to it, you can make it level immediately instead of following the tilt of the slope like when cutting with the fel bucket. You may have to back up several times to get the full width for your tractor tires, but once you do that your tractor is no longer tilted sideways in danger of tipping over. That's why guys who run bulldozers can cut those roads into hillsides. Their dozer blade is in front and can be tilted, so the rest of the machine follows a relatively level path, instead of tilted.

Bulldozing in reverse and tilting your boxblade will allow you to do similar things, only on a much smaller scale, of course. Again, I offer this information as to how I operate my boxblade and it has worked great for me. Others may disagree and that's OK too.

 

[stumpfield]

Great job Rob! Thanks for sharing. Looks like you can do a better grading job with the box blade than a dozer. I'll try to learn your technique to cut gutters on both side of my road. We still have rain almost every other week. I've to wait until the raining season is over before I start my annual road work.

Tom

 

[Highbeam]

Jeez Rob, on your second post it looks like the front corner of the sideplates on your BB are wearing down. You must really put some mileage on that box. With all the work you put into the BB, it would be a shame to wear it out.

Things are looking good there. Looking forward to more projects.

Oh and I always figured that the BB was meant to be used as a bulldozer in reverse. Isn't that why there's a blade on the back? Other than a sore neck and possible damage from using it like a battering ram, I highly recommend using the BB in reverse. It seems that the rear blade can cut more aggresively since the side plates aren't floating the cutting edge as much.

 

[dweitzel]

This is a good time to show another technique I've written about many times. It is using the boxblade as a bull dozer in reverse. First thing is to beef up your lower drag links so they don't bend like pretzels (like mine did) and then you have a powerful tool in the boxblade.

Rob, how did you "beef up" your lower drag links? I've pushed with my BB in reverse and always thought that was probably a weak part of the setup. They tend to "groan" a bit when dozing in reverse.

Was there an aftermarket drag link you purchased, or custom fabbed up something. A closer picture of what you beefed up would sure help me out.

Nice pictures. They really helped me "see" how to use this thing better.

Dave

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Rob, I wish that I was up in your neck of the woods, but I am a bit further south, down in the north east portion of San Diego County up in the hills above Borrego Springs.