How much trailer weight can a CUT pull?

[kybota]

Never seen much on this topic, but several things have me wondering about this. My CUT is a 31hp Kubota L3130hst:

Today, I had to pull my wife's car up a hill after it got stuck in about 4 inches of snow and the tractor didn't appear to strain even a little bit. I was a bit surprised by that, but maybe it wasn't as big a job as I thought it was.

Someone recently loaned me a 20' trailer to help with our move, but it was pulled with a full-size pickup. It might be possible to buy this trailor and I wondered if I loaded it with bricks or lumber would my tractor pull it. I was thinking about using one of those 3pt trailer coupler adapters.

Finally, our friends go on an annual hayride and wanted to know if we could host it, but I said I couldn't imagine my little CUT could pull them and a trailer big enough to hold 8-10 people. Especially not up an incline.

Anyone have any experience or knowldege about the safest trailer load a 30hp CUT can pull?

 

[Bird]

If the tractor wheels get enough traction, you can pull very large and heavy trailers. But perhaps more important than how much you can pull is how much you can stop. I wouldn't hesitate to pull most anything; car, trailer, etc. It's safer to pull from the tractor's "swinging drawbar" (the one firmly attached to the rear differential), but I used one of the 3-point hitches all the time. You just have to remember that you need enough tongue weight at all times to prevent the trailer from tipping backwards since the 3-point can rise easily. And you have to consider whether you can stop the trailer if you get to going too fast or downhill.

 

[MarkV]

I’ve pulled some pretty heavy loads with my tractor which is much smaller than yours. The hay ride group would not be a problem at all. Like Bird said, the stopping is the thing to worry about if you have many hills.

Just this morning I had to pull a bunch of reindeer and a sleigh up the drive after it got stuck. Nice old fat guy though so I didn’t mind. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

MarkV

 

[JackIL]

Kybota,

A general rule of thumb for safe towing of trailers or wagons without brakes is that the towed weight should not exceed the weight of the tractor. As Bird has pointed out, the proper question is not "How much can I pull?" but rather "How much can I stop?".

JackIL

 

[JJT]

You'll be fine with a trailer and 8-10 people. My tractor is slightly bigger, L3710 and it will easily out pull a pickup truck.

 

[PBinWA]

I use my 6'x10' trailer as a yard trailer (26HP tractor) all the time. I've piled it high with wet manure and pulled it up hill. I did strain the engine a bit when I tried to do it in high gear once but shifted down and took it slow and it had no problem.

I have a 3Pt. Trailer hitch adapter which is nice. I park the trailer and jack it up with three trailer jacks and then load it with poop from my neighbors horses. Then I just back up to the trailer and hook it up with the 3pt lift. It's slick and easy.

I suspect the trailer is pretty maxed out in weight with all that manure - some of it is pretty wet.

 

[DUMBDOG]

Owners manual states 3300# trailer with maximum drawbar load of 1100#.

That being said, have pulled several loads of potatoes with my NH1630 (27HP) that were 5000# plus the trailer weight of 1500#.

 

[KiotiJohn]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Owners manual states 3300# trailer with maximum drawbar load of 1100#. )</font>
Those are the very figures Kioti states for the CK25 / 30 models. Usually these figures are low in order to offer a good safety zone. John

 

[Soundguy]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( but I said I couldn't imagine my little CUT could pull them and a trailer big enough to hold 8-10 people. Especially not up an incline.
)</font>

Should be a piece of cake.

I just did a hay ride.. I used a 16' 'car-hauler' type trailer with wood deck. I added 2x4 side and front/rear rails. Trailer empty weighs 1740# via CAT scales. Add to that the rails.. about 8 65# bales of hay, and a car battery plus invertor and xmas tree lights, and 6 aduts, and 4 kids. This was pulle dby my 1952 ford 8N tractor. ( 27hp when new.. probably 23/24 now). I have one week brake and one good brake. Unit was pulled with a drawbar lock on the 3pt. I had the tractor running at just above idle.. say.. 750-900 rpm... engine never hesitated even going up good rolling hills... Your brand new higher HP machine should run circles around my antique...

Soundguy

 

[getut]

I have a CK20HST (21HP) and hauled people on hay rides for Church over Halloween. Only very slight inclines, but it was a 20ft car hauler with wood deck, edge bordered with hay bales, and anywhere from 15-20 people on each pass. I did it all in high range. It never really worked the engine but the HST slipped quite a bit before I got that resolved. It wouldn't even slip now that it is and would do fine with that many people.

 

[willfick]

As others said, the tractor will pull a lot more traile than it will stop.
If the trailer has the usual electric brakes it's easy to add a hand operated control on your tractor. I put one on my old H when it was going to pull a car hauler converted to a parade float in the little mountain town of Saluda, N.C. That old tractor has very little brakes of its own; the trailer brakes added a lot of confidence.
Wm Parading close up of controller wiring hook up
I edited one of the links - if I did things right the first try what would I do with all my spare time?

 

[kybota]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( </font><font color="blueclass=small">( but I said I couldn't imagine my little CUT could pull them and a trailer big enough to hold 8-10 people. Especially not up an incline.
)</font>

Should be a piece of cake.

I just did a hay ride.. I used a 16' 'car-hauler' type trailer with wood deck. I added 2x4 side and front/rear rails. Trailer empty weighs 1740# via CAT scales. Add to that the rails.. about 8 65# bales of hay, and a car battery plus invertor and xmas tree lights, and 6 aduts, and 4 kids. This was pulle dby my 1952 ford 8N tractor. ( 27hp when new.. probably 23/24 now). I have one week brake and one good brake. Unit was pulled with a drawbar lock on the 3pt. I had the tractor running at just above idle.. say.. 750-900 rpm... engine never hesitated even going up good rolling hills... Your brand new higher HP machine should run circles around my antique...

Soundguy )</font>

Thank you (and everyone else) for the details. I guess I have a lot to learn about the capabilities of my tractor, as I really didn't think it would suffice for this. I'll definitely test how well I can stop the trailer before I pull anyone. The hayride would be next fall so I have time to figure it all out.

As for the knowing the owner manual specifications, its been two months and five requests (and five promises) but my dealer still hasn't sent me the correct manual for my tractor after shipping me the wrong one shortly after buying my tractor, so I don't have the factory specs on hand. I'm really getting bugged about that.

 

[DaveInColorado]

I pulled as many as 10 people in my one axle trailer using my 1250lb BX1500 on Halloween! I thought the biggest danger was if too many people got on the backside of the axle and unweighted the tongue and might have lifted the back of the tractor so I paid very close attention to how the trailer was loaded. I didn't have any problem whatsoever pulling the trailer up small inclines. I had the engine just above idle speed - 3-4 mph max. It was a huge hit at the church party so I expect I'll be doing it again next year. If I do I'll borrow a different and more stable trailer and/or limit the number of people to total less than 1000 pounds. Usually it was just 600lbs of kids.

I have a drawbar hitch and chain it down.

 

[JeffSpencer]

Does anybody know what that drawbar hitch is made of? I do the Halloween Hayride every year. This year, I decided to weld a Drop down hitch (turned upside down to raise the tongue height) to the drawbar to pull the 20' trailer. The metal seemed fine while I welded. When I hooked up to the trailer, the welds came off the drawbar like it was cast iron or something. I know at least one of you will snicker and make a joke about my welding...trust me, it wasn't the weld.

 

[rambler]

Pulling any of that? Of course you aren't straining the tractor. You aren't even 1/2 way yet. A tractor is designed to trade speed for pulling, and should be able to spin itself into the ground before losing the engine, provided you use a low gear.

As others say, there are 2 things to watch for:

Stopping. This can be greatly agrivated by the other thing:

Weight (or lack of) on the hitch.

You probably don't want more than 1000 lbs or so on the drawbar. Now, if you use a 3pt hitch that moves the weight farther back, and while the 3pt might take the weight, your front end will get light, steering might become a problem.

The bigger problem with those 3pt hitches is too _little_ weight on the hitch. There is no down pressure, so if all the people step onto the back of the 2-wheel trailer, it will flip up & all fall over.

Also, if you have a big car trailer on your tractor, and put a big weight on the rear, it will lift up on your tractor drawbar. This will make the rear axle of your tractor light, and the whole trailer heavy.

You will easily jacknife the rig trying to stop this, or lose control going down a hill. The trailer will push, the tractor will skid to the side, and bad things happen.

You tractor can pull much, much more than you have.

You need some experience & thought about _contoling_ what you are pulling, and how steering & stopping will be affected.

I would _not_ start out with a load of humans, I would get a lot more seat time learning the very different feel of a loaded trailer behind me.

The whole issue will be contoling & stopping the load. It takes experience.

--->Paul