Finding an outfit for leveling roads and sites

[MF85]

I have a Massey Ferguson 85 with a three point pull-behind box blade (float, no rear wheels) that is narrower than my tractor tires. (The Massey needs an owner who knows how to work on tractors and that ain’t me). I’m sure you can see my problems in trying to keep my RV Park and Campground sites and roads level. (While the roads are mostly flat ground, I have slopes to work with on the pull-through RV pads between roads; i.e. drop off of high road onto the angled site, level site, drop off site and onto low road when leaving).

Anyway, short of a brand new 40-45 hp tractor and Grouser belly blade for 30,000.00 + bucks, what can I do? I saw one Farmall with mid-mount blade on Ebay ($3,000.00) but it’s in Oregon. I know some guy is within a one state region of Colorado somewhere and just looking for my money, but I can’t seem to limit the search engines to limited areas. If I punch in “belly blade” or “mid-mount blade” and “Colorado” I get some site with a belly blade for sale in Maine and separate ad for a horse trailer in Colorado, if you get my drift.

I’ll take any suggestions on what I should be getting and how I should go about getting it. Thanks in advance for any help.

P.S. Most of what I pull is #7 road mix/base and I like the box blade over the plain blade.

 

[Darren]

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that a lot of owners have problems with their back blade. While you may not prefer a back blade, I find they are extremely effective if they're heavy enough. The lightweight blades aren't even worth looking at in my opinion with the possible exception of snow removal. Otherwise I think they're a waste of money.

With a belly blade you're converting your tractor into an extremely short wheel base grader. That goes against the design of actual graders which is to use a long wheel base to make leveling operations easier. I suspect that even with a belly blade, you're not going to be satisfied with the amount of work needed to accomplish what you want.

If you're still sold on a belly blade, there's plenty of old graders that are available cheap.

 

[MF85]

The problem with my pull-behind is that, even if weighted down, the float is the float, and it's all I will get. While the three point will lift the box high enough when my front end goes up, the box can only go down so far when the front end goes down. When my front end goes up hill, the box digs if I don't lift it up. When my front end goes down, the box dumps no matter how low I try to drop it or how much it is weighted. Thus it ends up amplifying the problem. I can see the same thing happening (in reverse) with a push blade.

I'm not totally sold on the belly blade (I'm open to critique) but it's been explained to me from a physics stand point that makes sense. With an axel on both sides of the blade, the dig and dump factor is reduced considerably. In fact, the closed the wheels, front and back, to the blade, the better (so long as material build up doesn't interfere with the wheels).

In fact, I've been told that a pull-behind or a push blade with an axel and wheels behind/in front of it, respectively, works much better than plain float.

Also, my neck is getting mighty tired of looking back all the time and constantly adjusting the hieght of the box every few feet just to scrape and fill.

I am no expert though, so comments like your are welcome and I'm trying to learn.

Most of the graders I've seen are huge and wouldn't make it around the campground too easy. If I could find a small used one for reasonable price, I'd snatch it up. Of course, a front end loader and other options is the nice thing about tractors.

Thanks.

 

[Mark4510]

MF85,
Great description of the problem..... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

If you box scraper has TopNTilt I dont think that there is much you cant do with that and a Front end Loader (FEL).

I just put in a small pad for a cover to store shavings. It's a cut and fill job on the side of a hill and I did that with the loader and box scraper. I am also fixing up a bunch of gravel road (4 Truck and transfer loads) and doing it all with my box scaper.

If you have TopNTilt you can lift the box scraper with the 3 point, tilt the box down in the back and then back up. This allows you to drive over the newly smoothed area thus getting rid of the up down problem. In addition to the weight of the box scraper the rear blade on the boox scraper digs into the ground. (TBN'rs......can someone say this better than I am? I am not sure I am clear.....)

It takes a bit of time to get used to it but I find most of my good smoothing is done by backing up.

I hope this helps.
Mark

 

[beenthere]

Don't be so rough on yourself, as it is not an easy task for anyone to do with what you have. Minimum would be to get a wider box blade, and look for something with gage wheels.

I'd look seriously at a skid steer for the pad work, and maybe the front grader blade (Bobcat has one) for the road work. These are things that require a certain amount of equipment, and there are few shortcuts. A skidsteer allows you to see what you are doing without turning around.

If getting the equipment isn't in the picture, then look to hire it done. A skilled skid steer person can do wonders on the type of work you want done.

If mine, I would use it as an excuse to get the right equipment. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Egon]

The type of grading your looking at would give even the best of operators some problems even if they were on a small articulated grader. Suggest some gauge wheels on the box blade as the cheapest try. Then perhaps a wider box blade. Meanwhile just keep at it.

Egon /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[RayDiers]

Maybe this piece of equipment would work for you.

http://www.hoelscherinc.com/prod_grgrader.htm

Ray

 

[Kingranch]

At a recent equip. show I saw a product that mounted on the front of a front loader (replaced the bucket). It was made of square steel tubing and varied in width depending upon the tractor. It measured approx 48 inches deep and looked like a large rectangle. It had crossing members which ran across the inside. In principle it was used to level nearly anything and the video showed it doing so. Frankly, I was amazed by its simplicity. The guy selling it was from somewhere in NW Ohio. He had a small farm and an eng. degree, he had the same problem you discribed and became tired of multiple trips with a box scraper. Anyone who has ever attempted to grade a road/lane understands the frustrations you are dealing with. It might be listed somewhere in the internet. I am away from home but will see if I can find his name and product name. Good luck.

 

[Darren]

Look on the internet for a Huber Maintainer. One in working order shouldn't be that expensive and it should do the job for you.

 

[MF85]

I want to thank you all for the input.

My box blade goes up and down but does not have the TopNTilt feature. Though I have done a lot of work cutting backwards and it does help when I’m fine tuning the roads. There is a lot of back and forth doing that (this stupid Massey Ferguson gets gallons-to-the mile instead of miles-to-the-gallon L).

I’ve also thought about hiring it done and I have a name to call if it comes to that. Maybe one good day with a pro at the start of each season and I could do the up-keep for the rest of the year (we have occasional rain blow-outs and winter snow melt does some damage (though the road mix has helped compared to the native decomposed granite that I started with). It would be nice to have my own equipment though, since I am remote and impatient when a job needs tending to.

The “gage wheels” on a wider box blade would be light years ahead of where I am now and probably the least expensive route.

That Hoelscher looks good and basically has the gage wheel set up I need and the extra weight needed to keep the whole unit from sliding sideways when the blade is angled (as I’ve been warned about anyway). I’ve seen a “Brown” too but the Hoelscher looks like it has more blade positions/movements. I wonder if it has bolt-on box ends for the blade. I’ll find out tomorrow when I call them. At $4,500.00, they ain’t cheap.

I found a picture of a Huber Maintainer and that looks good too. Basically a belly blade situation. The one I saw had a front blade also. If I could figure out how to narrow searches to a two-state radius it might be easier to find one. I see several of them back east.

Now that I have some other brand names, I’m going to some of the internet auction sites to see if there is anything local.

Again, thanks to all.