New speed mover not digging in. Weights? Mods?

[bob112]

Just bought a brand new 10' speed mover to run behind by 140hp tractor. I have plenty of tractor for it and dropped it into undisturbed soils and it just drags over the ground. I am used to a 3pt box blade with ripper teeth where I can adjust the top link and rippers to get things done.

What have people done to these to make them work? It is currently raining and I am just hoping a little rain will let me do some cutting. I have some suitcase weights on my ag tractor front end that I can probably throw on but not yet sure how much weight that is yet. It really looks like the front corners of the box tend to limit cutting but I really think ripper shanks are needed but doubt my speed mover cross bar is strong enough to handle that.

I was also thinking about making custom teeth to mount on the face of the cut edge but man, I dumped some bucks in this box and just want it to work for me.

 

[DJ54]

Even scrapers have a hard time loading dirt, unless they have teeth , or a drop center bit on the cutting edge without being pre-ripped. Would you happen to have a chisel plow..?? One of those should do decent job of loosening the soil enough to be able to pick it up with what you have. Possibly making 2 passes at a 45º angles of each other would make it finer, and easier to pick up.

If you have another tractor to pull one, I've attached a couple link to cheapies in your area. One is 3 pt., the other is pull type, but has a manual lift/depth adjustment. If you have a smaller tractor, you could leave it hooked up and rip with one, and move dirt with the other. You wouldn't have to bury the chisel plow to the hilt, just go 8" - 10" deep at a time. Realistically, you'll only want to be cutting 3" to 4" at a time anyway, to make a nice even cut.

I've moved a lot of dirt ona much smaller scale, ripping with a Super C Farmall with a single shank subsoiler, and pulling an old Overland roll over scraper with a Farmall M, with 3 pt. But have also moved 100,000+ times more dirt with a Terex TS-14 scraper, with a D-9 with ripper, and as a push tractor. You don't want dirt totally loose, but loose enough to crowd into the bowl, and pick up.

Just an option to think about, that way, no need to make adaptions to your mover, that may, or may not work, or damage it.


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[npalen]

I wonder sometimes about adding a "drop center bit" as DJ54 mentions just above. I'm thinking it might be about 20% of the width of the box, mounted in the middle and extend down only an inch or two. Would need some provision for bolting it in place or perhaps mounted on a hinge up above so that it could be dropped down into place only when needed.

I still have vivid farm boy memories of a similar bit on my Dad's LaPlante Choate scraper pulled with the CAT RD6 building ponds back in the fifties. It had a bolt-on drop down and so wouldn't leave a flat cut surface which I always thought was odd. I wondered, "why not leave a nice flat surface", not understanding that it takes a lot of force to penetrate the good old Kansas clay even though pulled with a Caterpillar in low gear.

It all makes sense seventy years later.

 

[bob112]

Well.... So I own a 20' tandem disc. Never used on this tractor and proved to be too much disk without my duals so I removed the bat wing and made a 13' disc out of it, which is workout every well right now. However, I am just hating this speed mover! It has become obvious that I got what I paid for. It's too light and won't even hold onto the load that it has. further, the lift cylinder that I mentioned "was a little small" when I bought it is proving to be just that. It's just fine unless you have a real load, then it won't unload when you need it too. I had hoped it would work but if I add weight, this problem will just get worse.

I am sure I cannot return this POS so I guess it's going to get some mods to make it work right. I would say 500-1000# of plate steel welded to the back, and a bigger cylinder would be a start. I am also thinking about a modular ripper with teeth that would ride against the factory cut edge. It all just seems so silly that these don't have ripper teeth. I ran over a pile of thatch about 20x trying to move it. Each time it would load, then just hop over it and jump 2ft in the air.