Min tractor size for repairing long gravel driveway with potholes?

[nrosario]

When I first bought my farm I only had a riding mower, no tractor. I used to drag a railroad tie behind my riding mower to smooth out my 100' driveway and my indoor riding arena. It did okay but took forever and prematurely wore out my rider. When it came time where I could afford to buy something more suitable I bought a CUT.

Appreciate you sharing that experience.
I was in a similar situation years ago.
Using a wheeled barrow, shovel, etc.
Then got an small compact tractor and haven't looked back since.

Now I'm in the process of acquiring 20+ acr, and I'm not looking at an upgrade just yet.
But I know I will be needing at least 50hp @ pto, 3000+lb of dry weight machine, and multiple implements and attachments.
I'm sure I will be asking you guys for advise.

 

[JWR]

JWR,

You own both a Kubota BX2200 and a Kubota B2150. Perhaps you can give your firsthand experience about the difference in their capabilities, and what You would recommend?

View attachment 708952

Sure. I do own B2150's (both HST and stick) and a BX2200. Also maintain another BX2200 and have bought a couple and debugged them for other people. I already recommended (for this Albany NY OP) something in the 40hp range, definitely 4WD with a good 5ft snow blower and front end loader. BY THE WAY what all of us have tried to pass on to the OP is reasoned experience on what we feel is OPTIMUM, not required, not have-to, not thou shalt. Not "go buy this." That is up to him.

Being almost as wordy as my wife says I am, I will elaborate:

1. The BX2000 is way too small for the OP's circumstance. It lacks the clearance for snow (I've had mine hung in the snow several times in an area FAR less snowy than Albany!) One could find a snow blower to mate with it (front driven) but they are rare and not good for a 1/4 mile driveway. A BX2200 would drive a 4ft rear snow blower but even with 4WD it lacks adequate traction for doing a comfy job of that. Small is not exactly the right adjective -- it lacks clearance, traction and weight to do a common sense job for his snow issue and the grading of a hard/gravel/dirt 1/4 mile driveway, thinking of putting a crown on it is ... well absurd.
2. The B2150 (I've owned at least one for more than 30 years) is the best compact tractor ever made in my opinion except for the unsynchronized std trans which is a PITA for gear scraping. That is why I just got an HST version last month to try out. These are robust 4 cyl very reliable diesels. Less likely to overheat than the BX series. Ideal creeper speed low range for doing snow blowing. I use a 5ft snowblower (3pt) in the mountains [picyture below] and it will move serious snow 30 or 40 ft to the side with great ease. All that said, I have had the B2150 hung in very deep snow a couple of times (30" or so with some hard packing involved.) If I were the OP I'd want something with more clearance mainly, plenty of weight (like 4000 to 5000 lbs instead of 3000lbs.) and AG tires or at least industrial R4, not turf tires. I swapped my turf tires out for AG tires a few years back.
3. As for the land plane/box scraper business, I have only tried that with a much larger (81hp 9000lb size) tractor. Even with the larger tractor if your scarifier teeth dig in at all in hard ground it takes a larger machine to pull it. I find an hydraulic top link to be essential for that work no matter tractor size or else you go nuts being on/off the tractor adjusting teeth and angles all the time. That means you need hydraulic remotes. You do not have hydraulic remotes on the BX series and often not on even the 25-30hp landscaping sort of compacts. All the more reason to go up a tad to -- as I said 40hp sized small utility tractor with at least one remote, more clearance and ability to handle the likely tasks.

Again the best term is optimum -- not that he can't do SOME stuff with too small a tractor, not that he can't over do it with some 3 or 4 ton machine or a dozer -- rather I urge trying to be reasonable, optimum.

I added a FEL to the B2150 after the snowblowing pictures below. HUGE help in that you can then do productive work both directions.
Blowing snow often results in spinning (esp with turf tires) which means instant ice under the wheels and going nowhere. The need for more weight, more clearance and AG tires becomes obvious. I do not like chains (and do not have the clearance for them either!)

A blade in deep snow with this size tractor (B2150 above, in the mountains) is just not the right tool...yes I got hung several times.

Speaking of the wrong tool... this is my BX2200 below (at home) with a small 4' blade on the rear and the std FEL bucket on the front. We rarely get much snow here in Southern MD but this was in Dec 2009 when we got a lot. I cleaned 10 or 15 driveways with it because no one else had any means of removal.

With the MMM off, the little BX has fairly decent clearance for light, infrequent snowfalls.

 

[airbiscuit]

Btarb24, you just heard from someone who owns a BX, that the BX is really too small for your needs. Your money, your call, but you can't say you weren't informed.

For scale, here is a garden tractor that has about the same size rear tires as a BX.

 

[Williy]

If you have a Yanmar dealer near by you might want to
check out the SA324 or SA424

willy

 

[paulfun9]

You don’t seem to want to listen and understand, most here are giving you advice from both thier own and thier friend, family and aquaitences experiance.
My little JD stays parked 99% of the time and only gets any real run time around Halloween doing short hay rides for the kids in the family or when getting into a space is limited. Like this example- My great niece asked if I could dig for the power line to thier new swimming pull to help save her new hubbys back. They can’t even get a car or truck into thier back yard and he had to use a wheelbarrow to take all the sand back for the pull. Hence why the small tractor went for this job.
This has been the only time this summer that it started since before winter last year when I used it to push the coal into the bin when I found my new dump wasn’t able to get all the way in. If it wasn’t going to be parked in front of the coal bin I would have used a bigger tractor for that chore also. Heck if I could have got the coal in without moving it it may not have started all year. Every task/job done here has been done with a 40 or larger HP tractor.

Can I do some or even most of those chores with that small tractor yes. Are the results the same quality based on size of the task at hand when we did do more with the small tractor? most times not! Why was it because it wasn’t capeable? No, But rather it was absolutely impractical and required so much more time that it just wasn’t worth it. It was much quicker to do a quick fix to get by until I could get one of the bigger tractors out to this property. Heck I even borrowed friends bigger tractors at times to avoid the excessive time needed to do some things right when it made more sense to get all the details right from the get go.
Good luck with whatever you decide, go small go big it doesn’t matter to me but if your stuck on small why ask then try to argue without taking the time to understand the advice your getting from the experianced folks here.

 

[btarb24]

I'm not failing to listen or understand your suggestions of a bigger tractor. I'm just not getting anyone that has the particular experience that I'm requesting to hear about. Telling me stories about how great of a job your big tractor does is wonderful and all, but what i really want is to hear about times you've used a subCompact and failed to pull a box blade or drive a blower. If you read through the 100+ replies i think you'll find that there aren't many that actually address that concern even though I've tried to politely recenter the discussion several times and explicitly state the question at hand.

Do you perhaps know of any videos or stories of a subcompact failing at the snow blowing or box blade tasks?

Does anyone happen to have any real life experience with trying to use a subCompact to do their box blade work?

I'm really hoping to hear from someone that owns a scut and may be able to comment on their own box blade experience with it.

I think i've come to the conclusion that this simply isn't the right forum for that information. At no fault to any of the members, the community just hasn't ran through the particular tasks that i'm trying to gain information about.

As an aside, continuing to belittle or be condescending toward me does not really help with the discussion. If you don't have experience with the topic at hand then one option is just to skip over and move to a thread you do have some experience with.

 

[IndyJay]

I'm not failing to listen or understand your suggestions of a bigger tractor. I'm just not getting anyone that has the particular experience that I'm requesting to hear about.

I once had a small compact utility tractor that did everything that I wanted. I don't really see a need for a bigger tractor. /s

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

I just want to say when you are looking at gravel driveway maintenance you might want to consider a land leveler (aka grading scraper) in addition to a box blade. It is way easier to use and gets outstanding results.
View attachment 707585
The relatively short blades on the scraper collect material quickly and then the small stuff floats and pours over the top of the rear blade in a nice even layer. When you hit a dip or pothole the larger stones which stay at the bottom of the blades drop into the holes. My driveway has never been this smooth.

Of course, I am not sure I have seen one of these smaller than 6ft so it will take a heavier tractor.

I laid one out for my brother and he welded it together. It adjusts each way. Im over 50 now and it takes a lot to impress me. The box grader impressed me greatly. Hydraulic top link makes it humm. I figured it will carry 2 1/2 yards of dirt. Gravel just foes over the blades and lays smooth. But it will cut into a hard gravel parking lot in August here in the south. None of our other implements would touch it.

 

[airbiscuit]

You do get that JWR owns and has experience with Kubota B an BX series tractors? That gives him a very unique and grounded insight. HE HAS EXPERIENCE WITH A BX as well as with a slightly larger model. You might want to reread his thread above

If after that, you feel you have nothing to learn in this forum - (reconstructing your own words) - "You are failing to listen or understand other's suggestions of a bigger tractor".

 

[JWR]

btarb24 -- one missing factor in the thought process is: What is the hardness/type of driveway surface and base? Is it gravel over plain soil? Is it hardbaked clay or softer stuff? Where the potholes are -- is that mainly stone or sand or ? Could you dig in it with an ordinary round point shovel or too hard for that ? Lots of excess gravel and/or sand or not much ?