Power Trac Attachments

[duane]

I Have been Power-Trac dreaming since I first saw MossRoads first reviews of power trac months ago. I figured the buying bug would pass with time, but is has'nt so it must be real. Here is my situation:

I own 2 ½ acres of land in the state of Maine, with a 150’ paved level driveway. Approx. ¾ acre is finished lawn, the remaining property is scrubby stuff with some nice field pines and birches. My wife has done a nice job of putting in flower beds all around the house.

Presently I have a 1994 266H Toro wheelhorse with mulching deck, bagger, and snowblower. I use the tractor to mow, snowblow, bag leaves in the fall, dethatch the lawn and spread lawn fertilizer.

Some additional task that I would like to do, but my current tractor is not suited for it.
·Back yard 1/3 acre. Pull the top soil and sod off, spread some clay and then re-loam and seed. It is all sand underneath which sucks all the moisture out and will not support a lawn. (PT big and small bucket)
·Move loam and bark mulch for my wife’s flower gardens. (PT big bucket)
·Mow down the scrubby vegetation and remove stumps. (PT bushhog and stump grinder). Do some earthwork to level the dips and valleys. (PT small bucket with teeth)
·Break up the ice off of the driveway during the winter (even when snowblowing, the north facing garage will build up ice in mixed wintery precip.). (PT big bucket)
·Move some snow banks occasionally (PT big bucket)
·Pull some downed trees out of the wooded area. (PT tractor with log grapple and chain)

I'm going to keep my Toro since buying a PT snowblower is more than the worth of this whole setup. (the snowblower cost seems several increments higher in cost when compared to the other PT attachments)

My questions for fellow PT owners and test pilots:

1) Does the stump cutter do a good job?
2) Because I'm keeping my existing snowblower set-up, I was not going to order the blade. Your thoughts on this

Give me any of your other thoughts or opinions on my work plans for the PT422

thanks
Duane

 

[Carpenter]

Duane, I can't speak to your question about the stump grinder, as I don't have one. I do have the snowplow and have mixed emotions about it. Because it tilts and pivots side to side it can be hard to keep it flat if you are changing settings alot. I plow a short driveway and the parking lot of our business. Because I'm continually changing blade angles, I found one corner of the blade or the other often digging in. I went to the large bucket, and find it works much better for tight quarters. I think the blade would be great for long runs where you can set it and forget it.

Just my two cents. I hope it helps.

 

[davesisk]

I've got the stump grinder attachment with the old 1418 I just bought about a month ago. I've grinded (ground?) just about every stump in the yard (and there were plenty of them). The thing works great, it just takes a little patience. I lower it part way, then swing it side to side using the articulated steering, then lower it some more. Using it kind of like a big router bit seems to work the best (I guess that's the way it's intended to be used?).

The only thing that I don't like is that the spin direction sends wood shreds (and sometimes rocks!) flying toward the tractor (and operator, use safety glasses!). It sure seems like it would be better if the whole thing were mounted to shoot stuff away from the tractor, but to my understanding, most stump grinder attachments spin this direction. The two slots in the front of the tractors housing on mine allow wood shreds to get inside the housing where the forward/reverse treadle is, so I have to clean that out after each use of the stump grinder. Otherwise, it piles up and I can barely get the tractor to move! (I suppose I could fabricate a plexiglass shield or something, eh?)

HTH,
Dave

 

[bubenberg]

just about a month ago there were quite a few posts on this subject in various threads related to either stump grinder or stump grinder and power trac model references. i just did a search by the key word "stump grinder" and found allot of them.

personally this is my least favored attachment. but for the home owner this is more than ok. the grinder works fine but too slow for me. we will remedy this situation in that we are planning to purchase a pt hill machine , which will allow us to get a larger stump grinder attachment.

 

[pajoube]

Hans, would that be the PT 1800 series?
PJ

 

[MossRoad]

Duane,
I have the plow and the large bucket. As pointed out by others, the plow can get at an angle, so that one corner is high and the other is low and it can dig in. On the bright side, I now have a perfectly edged driveway due to my snowplowing this past winter! /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif.

I never tried the large bucket to remove snow. I suppose it would work just fine, unless you hit a crack, at which point, it would either tear up the driveway or stop you silly. One of the quirky things I found when plowing was the almost hilariously fast speed at which I could plow as compared to my old garden tractor. If you're going all out at top speed, the snow is moving pretty good off of the blade and you're smiling and then you hit a crack and wham! So I tend to leave the blade elevated about an inch for the high speed runs to remove the majority of the stuff, then go back and scrape it a safer, slower speed.

 

[PTRich]

I found this winter that if you take the time and experiment with your spacers you can make it so the snow plow does not dig the corner of the blade. I found out by accident.
PTRich

 

[MossRoad]

Then you kind of commit to plowing to one side most of the time, don't you?

 

[bubenberg]

right on ....what a machine that is ...what a noise that makes .... we probably have to go an increment at the time first the Charlie machine ..... than the BIG ONE ... am looking forward to mow this hills 90 inches at the time.

these are my dream machines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[kcook]

MossRoad, have you tried going backward, the blade should not grab that way?

KCook