How Hard Can a Tractor Pull?

   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull? #41  
Come-alongs are very very slow to use!

Try getting some pulleys, you can then double/quadruple etc your pulling power very easily. (If you have a strong nearby tree to use as the fixed point).

That is what I do when I need to pull something real heavy with my largest tractor (JD 4120 with loaded R1 tires). One snatch block, a big tree, and some 1/2” wire rope can work wonders.

I resently pulled down a big old timber framed barn, that my great great grandad built in 1883,
3796D241-CCB3-4BBC-9EF0-53602A0FBD9F.jpeg


6A309239-EBA4-4D36-81A9-34EB3952D454.jpeg

like it was made of toothpicks and those are 9” and 11” square hand-hewn beams.
 
   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull?
  • Thread Starter
#43  
No comment without a pic of the rock and how you were pulling on the rock. Suspect you didn't know how, and my clue is in the subject line.
That's a comment, and a pretty useless one.
 
   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull?
  • Thread Starter
#44  
You should take some hi-rez pics of that "rock" and correspond with a local University Geology Professor. Maybe send a sample. That rock doesn't look like anything normal for Florida. It might be a mineral replacement, fossil, of some sort of large organic original. To me, this does look organic in shape.

In my area, these rocks are all over. If you look at them closely, part appears to be limestone, and part seems more like flint. The flinty parts chip like glass. I think these rocks are called chert, but that's a guess based on Googling.
 
   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull? #45  
Man I used to sculpt in marble and limestone. That piece already has the look of a prone leopard in my mind. Would just have to remove all the stone that doesn't look like a leopard.
 
   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull? #46  
for Florida that is a huge rock, for New Hampshire it is a stone. 2 ton Comalongs will be nearly useless. Easiest way I have found to move large rocks without a backhoe is a rock sledge, or some say sled.
Get an old pick up hood, using bars, chains, whatever you may have, roll the rock on the hood and pull the hood with your tractor.
 
   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull? #47  
I tried to pull a big rock out of my yard with my Kubota L3710 and got nowhere. Today it occurred to me that I should think about getting a come-along.
If you have the room, and a fulcrum (a nearby big tree?), and a long oak beam and some chain or steel cable can multiply your power enormously.
Alternately if you can lift a corner you can maybe put a roller under it and lessen the friction.
Mud also lessens friction.
you can crack it into pieces with a hammer drill ( a real one you might have to rent it) and some steel wedges and a 5 pound mallet
 
   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull? #48  
In my area, these rocks are all over. If you look at them closely, part appears to be limestone, and part seems more like flint. The flinty parts chip like glass. I think these rocks are called chert, but that's a guess based on Googling.
Maybe calcite deposited in the limestone.
 
   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull? #50  
If you have the room, and a fulcrum (a nearby big tree?), and a long oak beam and some chain or steel cable can multiply your power enormously.
Alternately if you can lift a corner you can maybe put a roller under it and lessen the friction.
Mud also lessens friction.
you can crack it into pieces with a hammer drill ( a real one you might have to rent it) and some steel wedges and a 5 pound mallet
I have moved a number of rocks that size and much larger with an old 3/8 winch cable, a couple of chains, and snatch blocks from harbor freight. By running the cable through a number of the pulley blocks, you multiply your pulling power.
Check out this video

Also I use my feathers and wedges on the monsters I need to make more manageable. They work sweet.
 
   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull?
  • Thread Starter
#51  
It’s actually a very good reply based on original information given.
Well, six of us thought it was a waste of bandwidth at best, but opinions vary.
 
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   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull? #55  
Just pulled this one over yesterday with a bobcat CT230. I topped it and tied on to the stick about 25 feet up and over it came, it didn't even notice the load
 

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   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull?
  • Thread Starter
#56  
How did you get up there?
 
   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull? #57  
If my 70-year-old Case SC (roughly 30HP) couldn't pull a rock out, I wouldn't bother even trying with come-alongs. My Case can rip a set of typical "2-ton" come-alongs apart without even grunting.
Now, that's a no nonsense tractor right there!
 
   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull? #58  
My neighbor used to pull up rocks and stumps with his pallet forks. Now one fork points down.
Well, it's probably good to have one for each direction! No?
 
   / How Hard Can a Tractor Pull? #60  
How did you get up there?
That 28' orange ladder in the background. The pine tree it is leaning on is coming down next, you can see where I limbed it up to about 30 feet. I'll top it, then drag the stick over same as this one.
 

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