Re: EarthForce EF-5 usage report
The HST transmission discussion that Harv started got me to thinking about the way the pump/motor combination in the EF-5 works and doing a little testing to check it a little more thoroughly. I got some interesting results.
First, I went to an area with really good well drained soil and tried pushing over some big stuff with the Brush Brute. On one occasion, when pushing into a 4" holly tree, I couldn't get the wheels to spin at all when I was trying to lift the tree to pull it out of the ground at the same time. I guess I had so much weight on the front axle that neither axle could spin the tires, since the transfer case locks the two together. With the pedal to the metal, wide open throttle, nothing whatsoever happened. I assume the HST pump and/or motor relief valves were popping, of course, but nothing moved. I only held it there for a couple seconds, of course, since this is a new machine. And I was able to back up, move around to the other side of the tree and push it over/pull it up out of the ground from the other side.
In a very different test scenario, I put the 1.5 cu. yd. (struck) high-capacity bucket on, and went down to the gravel pile. I was able to push gravel around and lift heaping buckets of the stone (shh - don't tell anyone - I'm not supposed to be using the high-capacity bucket for stone) easily. It lifted the heaped high-capacity bucket to full height, which is a lot higher than my
L4310 loader would, and I was able to drive it around that way, though I wouldn't, except on the flattest of terrain - the back end was noticeably lighter, so I'm sure it could've tipped forward under certain circumstances (and with the bucket 10 feet up in the air, it would be some tip!). Wheel slip was minimal when pushing all that stone around, much less than with the L4310HST in 4wd (and pushing much less stone, obviously), though I'm not sure why (I had a lot better tires on the
L4310), unless it's got something to do with the limited-slip differentials. At the same time, I've noticed that in certain circumstances the limited-slip feature doesn't work as well as I'd like it to, but I expect they'll improve as they wear in.
I also noticed that shifting on the fly from normal range to low range works quite well. Low range in the EF-5 is just a solenoid that locks the motor in maximum displacement mode, so it's producing maximum torque and minimum speed for whatever flow and pressure the pump is giving it. This worked really well in the circumstances that I found myself constantly shifting the range selector on the
L4310. For example, when moving stone, I would pull up to the pile in high or medium range, stop, change to low range, dig into the pile, back out of the pile, stop, switch back to high or medium range, and go. With the EF-5, the range selector switch is on the shuttle shift direction lever located where a car turn signal lever would be. Centered is neutral, you push it forward to go forward, back to go backward, up (toward the steering wheel ring) to go into low range, and back down to go to normal range. (Pushing it in toward the steering column beeps the front and rear horns, but that's another story...) So, with the EF-5, I pull up to the pile, dropping it into low range when the bucket hits the pile, push into the pile, then start backing out, switching to normal range whenever the load is low enough that it seems appropriate, sometimes while I'm still backing up, other times after I've started forward. As I've mentioned before, I miss the higher top speed of the
L4310, but I think overall I'll save more time not ever having to stop to change ranges than I'm losing to the lower top speed - it's not that often that I'm able to run at top speed anyway.
It's definitely some learning curve though - getting used to the difference in visibility, loader controls, etc. I'd forgotten how much had become "second nature" in operating the
L4310.
