Bucket work with clutch /shuttle Vs hydro.

[Darrellq]

I have been using tractors for bucket work for 55 years. The first was a on Farmall H with a spring bucket To me, nothing compares to hydro. The people here disagreeing, probably don't have a lot of experience doing bucket work with a hydro. You sacrifice HP to be sure, but simply by more HP to match your PTO demands!

 

[inchman]

Any clutch guys doing bucket work wish they had a hydro instead?

Not only do I not wish for a hydro, about 10 years ago, I bought a second smaller tractor for doing smaller jobs on the ranch. I thought I'd try a hydro, so that is what I bought. After a few months, I trading it in for the same model in stick. Lucky, I didn't take too much of a bath as the hydro was more expensive in the first place.
Besides I think the hydro is a little bit awkward at times, and more than once, I ended up hitting a bump or shifting my weight and the tractor did something unexpected.

 

[RidgeTopWVA]

I operated a John Deere 750 dozer with a hydro pushing coal in a power plant and it was great , experimented with it and coming down a steep grade off of the coal pile tried to force it from forward to reverse vice versa and it could not be done with the hydro it just slowed down could not push the lever hard enough to make anything bad happen this was back in the 1980's and right then I new a hydro was the way to go and I never looked back I bought a John Deere new 4400 with a hydro and I skid big logs with it lots of forward and backing 3500 hours of use and the hydro has never failed me ,infinite control of speed , no clutching , no gear grinding , no jumping out of gear , no reaching for the gear shift , set the throttle and you pick the low/med/high speed range and control the forward speed with one foot peddle in reverse just push the other peddle.Nothing much in the hydro itself to go wrong pretty basic compared to a bunch of gears in a standard. No whining noise on my hydro no noticable power loss less than one or two h.p according to John Deere specs. My hydro has held up to long pulls the same as any gear tractor that i have ever owned.. My 1st tractor that I lerned to drive on was a Farmall 140 , I have a JD X758 with about 1500 hours and it is used hard on steep banks , one time my JD 4400 quit running out in the field an electrical issue and I hooked the JD X758 up to it and was able to pull it part of the way to the barn , it ws doing some heavy lifting. I have heard people say that the hydro would not work as well on big field as a geared tractor plowing all day , from MY experience with a hydro I would find that hard to believe.
That is just MY opinion from MY experience..to each there own but that is why a hydro is my choice

 

[2manyrocks]

I'm more than a little confused by the MX5200 I recently bought. It has a 4 speed shift on the floor, a two range selector next to the seat, and a R-N-F selector. After reading the owner's manual, the best I can tell is I'm supposed to clutch between shifting any of these controls. So what is the purpose of even having the R-N-F control instead of just shifting between gears with the shift on the floor?

 

[4570Man]

I'm more than a little confused by the MX5200 I recently bought. It has a 4 speed shift on the floor, a two range selector next to the seat, and a R-N-F selector. After reading the owner's manual, the best I can tell is I'm supposed to clutch between shifting any of these controls. So what is the purpose of even having the R-N-F control instead of just shifting between gears with the shift on the floor?

The setup you have gives you reverse in all the gears where a regular stick shift only has one reverse.

 

[2manyrocks]

Thanks for that. There are some labels on the tractor about shifting. One seems to say something to the effect of being able to shift between F-R when moving slowly. Not knowing what this really means, I come to a complete stop and fully depress the clutch between F-R, but am I doing this wrong?

 

[ptsg]

Thanks for that. There are some labels on the tractor about shifting. One seems to say something to the effect of being able to shift between F-R when moving slowly. Not knowing what this really means, I come to a complete stop and fully depress the clutch between F-R, but am I doing this wrong?

You're doing it right but once you get used to it, you'll soon shift from backward to forward and vice versa while the tractor is still coasting slowly which is perfectly fine.

 

[2manyrocks]

Very much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[ptsg]

Very much appreciated. Thank you.

You should also be able to shift using the main shift lever from 1 through 4 while on the move. Not the range shift though, that one needs to be stopped or slightly coasting to help get it in gear.

 

[2manyrocks]

I think there's a label saying I can shift from 3-4, but not 1-2. I may make a picture to post in a bit just to be clear about what the labels actually say.