Changes in plans on the PT Purchase

[jfischer]

As all may know that were following a thread I had going about how to convert a treadle to hand control, and me looking at the purchase of a 12 year old 1430, that has all changed now.

The person I was going to buy the 1430 from decided after the last few snows we had here, he was not sure how he would be able to dig out without it, so has decided to keep it, and I told him even though I wanted it and all the attachments, I thought that was a good idea.

I called down and talked to Terry about converting a 425 (as that was all I could afford now) with a few attachments to start things off. He was not sure at first, but gave me a call back, and said they could do such for me. I basically wanted the hand control on the left side, and still keep the foot treadle for others to use it.

I go down on Monday to Tazwell to take a look at the factory, talk to them, and get a real look at the machines, as I have never seen one in person, just lots of videos, and pictures of people and their machines on here and on the net.

Read all this forum from the beginning, and did say that I learned a bit, so hopefully we will have a guy that is usually in a wheelchair be on a new machine in a week or so.

I have always had John Deere's since 1972, and still have a 318, but it might be going up for sale after I get the new machine.

I have a Hustler Zero Turn I cut the grass and leaves with, so will keep it, as I don't think you can beat the speed of them for doing the cutting of my acre lot.

Attachments I have planned now are the 4 in 1 bucket, the large material bucket, a snow blade,cutting edge and wheel kit for it, and the forks to pick a few things up. Think I will pick a blank mounting plate up also, and a hydraulic filter. That is about all I can afford now.

I mainly want the machine for cleaning up snow in the winter, I live 1/4 mile off the main road on a private gravel road, and I do all around my house so I can get down to my walk in basement, and around another road that goes to my external garage, and a few of the neighbors driveways, so they can get out. I have some ditches around the sides of my lot I want to keep cleaned out, and think I should be able to back drag them, and then pick things up that I pull out of them. (One day I hope to get the mini hoe, think that will help there). I am getting the 4 in 1 to help with limbs, leaves and other things I like to drag down into a hole I put things to compost and get rid of them, and there are a few more trees I want to have taken down, and this should help load them in whoever is going to help me cut them down.

Looking forward to joining all on here, and hope I have good luck with the machine.

Jeff

 

[MossRoad]

Enjoy your trip and let us know how it goes....

:thumbsup:

 

[jfischer]

MR, Will do, any other things that I should get besides an extra hydraulic filter, and oil filter, and a attachment plate. Would love to get a LOT more attachments, but don't have the money, or room for them right now.

 

[MossRoad]

I'd get two attachment plates. Keep one for the future, and weld on a 2" receiver to the other. You can adapt a multitude of smaller implements to a 2" receiver, plus you can toss on a ball hitch and move trailers around very quickly. I frequently put a ring in my 2" receiver and pull logs with a chain through that. And I move my car hauler trailer around with it when needed....and a boat trailer, and the neighbor's trailer, and the..... you get the idea. :laughing:

 

[jfischer]

MR, I see what you are saying. I kind of just wanted to get an extra one, so I could see if I could use it for a template, to copy a few down the road.

I was thinking about taking he stock hitch off the back, and welding a 2" receiver to a plate, and bolting it on there as I have a bracket made that holds 5 elevator weights. They are low profile, and figured they don't stick out very far, so don't think they would get hung on things if I back up. I have this on my JD now, and works well, and could use it for other things in the back, as I have a bunch of 2" hitches. The extra 250 pounds I think would keep the back down if I needed to use the forks, or for other reasons to keep the back down, as I think it has a lot more lifting in the front then the weight ratio in the rear could handle stock.
Jeff

 

[PTWannaHave]

... I called down and talked to Terry about converting a 425 (as that was all I could afford now) with a few attachments to start things off. He was not sure at first, but gave me a call back, and said they could do such for me. I basically wanted the hand control on the left side, and still keep the foot treadle for others to use it.

I go down on Monday to Tazwell to take a look at the factory, talk to them, and get a real look at the machines, as I have never seen one in person, just lots of videos, and pictures of people and their machines on here and on the net.

Looking forward to joining all on here, and hope I have good luck with the machine.

Jeff

Glad to hear that Power-Trac will give you some accommodation. I bought my PT sight-unseen, but I had about 5yrs. to think about it while I was saving for it. If this forum did not exist, I don't think I would've chanced it.

Looking forward to pics of the factory mods to your new machine,

 

[J_J]

My PT 1445 purchase was quite unusual as I was talking to a friend of mine at a landscaping company, and he mentioned he had something he thought I might be interested in.

He then said the machine was all hyd and that got my attention.

He started it up with the auger on it and I jumped on the deal we made.

The 1445 and about eight attachments , that if new today would be worth about $38,550.

Hyd Flail mower, hyd dozer blade, hyd tiller, stump grinder/trencher, hyd/chain 4 in trencher, hyd planter head auger, 24 in auger

It took less than 30 min to complete the transaction.

I have made other attachments since then.

Only replaced two hyd pumps, two hyd hose and rebuilt two cyl.

 

[jfischer]

Glad to hear that Power-Trac will give you some accommodation. I bought my PT sight-unseen, but I had about 5yrs. to think about it while I was saving for it. If this forum did not exist, I don't think I would've chanced it.

Looking forward to pics of the factory mods to your new machine,

You know it is funny, I have all kinds of cameras around here, and never seem to take pictures until after I think about it, or think that others might like to see something.

I plan on keeping this one, so should be plenty of time to take pictures as I add, or change things.
Jeff

 

[jfischer]

JJ, It sounds to me from all I have read that if you keep up with upkeep on the machine, it should last for a long time. I am pretty good at that, and maybe do things more then I should, but think it helps with keeping the machine from breaking down the road, or in the middle of a project if you find something early.

I guess that was why I wanted to get that used 1430 I was looking at, as it had 6 attachments with it. The price of the machine I didn't think was bad, it is all the things you want to add to it that seem to add up, but then in the back of my head I thought about how many times I would use something, and that would just have to be something I would have to find a place to store it. Always keep my attachments inside, on rollers of some kind so I can move them around.

But then it will give me a few projects to make things down the road, and always something to keep me busy and look forward to.
Jeff

 

[ponytug]

A possible thought for a PT upgrade is to the 1445 brakes that automatically default to ON when the motor stalls or the system pressure falls below 600psi. One less thing to think about in an emergency.

All the best,

Peter

 

[BobRip]

I have the 4 in 1 bucket and the light material bucket. I have not used the light material bucket in years. The 4 in 1 is so easy to load so I prefer it. Just my thoughts, others may think differently. Oh I also have the grapple bucket.

 

[jfischer]

BobRip, I can understand fully where you are coming from here. The reason I wanted the light material bucket is for snow, or other things around my house and driveway, before I put the snow plow on, or to move large amounts of dirt from one place to another. I have a Johnny Bucket now, and its around the same size as the 4 in 1, and I find many times that a larger bucket would let me make a lot less trips from one place to another.

I am sure down the road there will be more things I want, or need as time and money let me get them.
Jeff

 

[BobRip]

BobRip, I can understand fully where you are coming from here. The reason I wanted the light material bucket is for snow, or other things around my house and driveway, before I put the snow plow on, or to move large amounts of dirt from one place to another. I have a Johnny Bucket now, and its around the same size as the 4 in 1, and I find many times that a larger bucket would let me make a lot less trips from one place to another.

I am sure down the road there will be more things I want, or need as time and money let me get them.
Jeff

OK. I think you will find that you love the 425. It is a lot of machine.

 

[MossRoad]

BobRip, I can understand fully where you are coming from here. The reason I wanted the light material bucket is for snow, or other things around my house and driveway, before I put the snow plow on, or to move large amounts of dirt from one place to another. I have a Johnny Bucket now, and its around the same size as the 4 in 1, and I find many times that a larger bucket would let me make a lot less trips from one place to another.

I am sure down the road there will be more things I want, or need as time and money let me get them.
Jeff

I have the 60" power angle snow plow and I have the large light material bucket. In 14 years, I've only used the light material bucket to move snow once. That was last year when we had so much snow that I ran out of room to place it with the plow. As I mentioned in another post, I had a pile about 150' long, 6' high and 8's wide. It was in a strip of grass between our driveway and a neighbor's driveway that I clear. We just plain ran out of room. I had to actually move the snow from the front yard to the back yard where is sat well into April. But, I made about 50-100 trips over a couple hours and that was that. All done! :thumbsup:

 

[MossRoad]

You'll find you can stack snow much higher with the plow VS a bucket, and it takes less time with the plow because you can angle it. If I was short on cash, I'd just get the bucket as it will do an adequate job, but the plow is very reasonably priced for what you get and is better by a factor of 3 or 4 at least, in my opinion.

 

[jfischer]

BobRip, I think I will like the machine a lot, once I get it all set up so I can run it. I have done a lot with my little JD and the Johnny Bucket and digging and moving dirt over the years, but know the 425 will do so much more.

M R, I have only had a few snows that I would have liked to have had a big bucket to move, or pile things, but figure while they have the sale on, to go ahead and get it, as I live a 1/4 mile off the main road, but end up doing about 1/2 mile of 30 foot road total with all the driveways, and have to have an angle snow plow to do that. I remember years ago I didn't have a power angle on the blade and just did everything to one side, and almost ended up getting myself stuck a few times with not being able to turn around when I had a few places downhill, and with only 2wd and chains I about got into trouble, (since I couldn't get off and turn he blade to make a path to come back up the hill) The JD318 has really done well, as I have 250 in elevator weights on the back of it, and 150 on the rear wheels, and my skinny butt on it, and found it does pretty good. I hope the PT425 with bar tires does as well, as I used to try the Turfs and they just loaded up all the time, and had to have chains, but think by the print in the snow that he Tru-Power Bar tires I have now might have done the job without chains, except on ice, then they are the only thing that seem to help.

I thought about the Grapple bucket over the 4 in 1, as I have a neighbor that helps trim the trees and such on the sides of the road, and he just piles it on the side, and I back drag it now into a pile, then scoop it up to get rid of it, but that is about the only time I would see me doing that, and the 4 in 1 I figure I could reach down into a ditch, and drag it out with the front of the bucket, then to pick it up when I need to clean my ditches out, (like right now with them filled with leaves), One ditch line is about 150 foot and 2 foot deep, hope with it open that it will reach that far down to let me grab things, put them on the side of the road, then come back and be able to pick them up to take them down into my hole.

I have all kinds of ideas, just need to get it, and hope I can get used to it and be productive with it.
Jeff

 

[woodlandfarms]

I might suggest more QA plates than the two recommended. Get like 6. Seriously. What you are going to find is plenty of used but very good implements cheap locally. A simple weld and you can have the implement of your choice riding on the front of your machine. Honestly I own only one implement from PT and have 14 implements (let me think here, stump grinder, post hole digger, bucket, grapple, york rake, box blade, pickle fork, potato digger, hitch adapter, 3 point adapter, back hoe, mower, i know there is more.... ) Mower is the only thing from PT, I made 3 of my implements... rest are craigslist or third party. I just found a sickle mower in my ravine I am trying to figure out, and have a jones to build an offset to put my implements to the side instead of straight on.

anyway, you get the picture.

 

[RegL]

I have the 60" power angle snow plow and I have the large light material bucket. In 14 years, I've only used the light material bucket to move snow once. That was last year when we had so much snow that I ran out of room to place it with the plow. As I mentioned in another post, I had a pile about 150' long, 6' high and 8's wide. It was in a strip of grass between our driveway and a neighbor's driveway that I clear. We just plain ran out of room. I had to actually move the snow from the front yard to the back yard where is sat well into April. But, I made about 50-100 trips over a couple hours and that was that. All done! :thumbsup:

Moss. The plow works good for you because your driveway is flat and, I think, paved. Most the driveways I do are unpaved and or not flat. I have to use the Light material bucket. Trouble with PT plow is it doesn't have any float or articulation built in so it won't follow the uneven terrain. You can float the loader but than there's to much weight on the plow and it digs in and the tractor rides up over the loader. I bet one could convert a light weight plow designed for small vehicle that would work with non- floating loader.

 

[jfischer]

I am getting an extra plate when I pick the machine up. It doesn't look that hard to copy one, and if I can find a metal company that would cut the parts out, looks easy enough to weld together, and should be able to do it for about half the cost they want.

I am going to try not to get that many attachments, as I just don't have room to store them, and I don't leave things outside, especially if it has hoses, or cylinders on them.

 

[jfischer]

Moss. The plow works good for you because your driveway is flat and, I think, paved. Most the driveways I do are unpaved and or not flat. I have to use the Light material bucket. Trouble with PT plow is it doesn't have any float or articulation built in so it won't follow the uneven terrain. You can float the loader but than there's to much weight on the plow and it digs in and the tractor rides up over the loader. I bet one could convert a light weight plow designed for small vehicle that would work with non- floating loader.

I have learned long ago, that if a blade has any weight, or down pressure at all, they do not work with the float, unless conditions are ideal. On my JD, or any other tractor I have run, just drop it until it hits, and pick it up a hair. Alls you want is the sun to be able to get to things, and the earth's heat will have it down to gravel, dirt, or what ever you are trying to clear. Seems most want to get it too clean on the first pass, and the only time I ever had anything like that work was with a machine with lift only, and no down pressure to them.

I think M R said he puts the wheels down, then tilts the blade back a hair, that way it is a hair above all, and the pressure is on the wheels, and even that way I have found it will dig in, especially on a crowned gravel road.