This is super helpful Peter. 1000hrs is a good chunk of time to put in on any machine. This gives me some hope and puts to rest the idea that I would be waiting in anticipation for the next thing to break on it, which is honestly was the biggest thing holding me back. Although, that must have been a tough pill to swallow initially with the motors.
Sounds like 1000hrs well spent. I could not imagine building my own
chipper, that is pretty cool man. I hadn't thought about using a 4in1 bucket that way, we have about 900 feet of rotted fence that needs to be pulled and reposted. Do you use the PT fence post driver?
Many thanks!!!
The motors failing I take responsibility for. Hydraulic motor manufacturers recommend for the first 15 hours of operation, do not exceed 50% throttle, and don't subject the motors to sudden pressure spikes, e.g. turning on the parking brake while in motion. I did not follow that advice, being ignorant at the time. For me it was a great ice breaker of getting over my fears of working on the PT. Just to be clear, I retrofitted a woodmax
chipper to fit on a QA plate and be powered by the PT hydraulics with a hydraulic motor.
I LOVE the fence post driver. Charlie Iliff put me on to it. His advice was along the lines of "don't let anyone else know how easy it is". It is definitely a single purpose device, although I occasionally think of adding tools to it (e.g. a wood splitting wedge, concrete busting tip, or an auger that actually goes straight into the ground.) I can put an 8x8x8 fence post in two minutes. I probably average 3-4, including all of the futzing to line things up just right. Driving the post has the advantage over the auger of compacting the soil around the post, which makes the fence stronger. You would need to oversize the hole and add concrete to get an equivalent post. I figured that each post would need 2-3 bags of concrete. So...it more than paid for itself redoing the driveway fence. I still have some side fences, the arena, and the cattle shelter to do. My $0.02 is just be careful taking it out on a slope. It has a lot of weight, a long way from the QA plate. I have tipped the tractor on its nose more than once when the driving weight slid out, when it went under horizontal. (If you can't visualize it, do not worry, not a big deal and trust me, easily corrected.)
With the PT, I did 800' of three rail fence (~120 posts), 2x6 in a week by myself (levelish ground). Used the PT to pull the posts (trailer hitch), cart away the debris(forks), put new posts in with the driver, and used the LMB to hold a generator and an air compressor to put in all of the rails. Painting was the generator, and an air free paint sprayer, and a day. It took probably twice that to put in the upper fence, due to the slope, and working around trees.
I pulled posts with the trailer hitch mostly. I wrap a loop of chain around it, run two or three wraps around the fence post, and then lift. Takes a minute or two by yourself, faster with the super talented spouse.
For leaves, you might consider using a hydraulically powered blower to blow the leaves where you want them. (Not an official PT attachment. I wish. I would buy it in a heartbeat.)
All the best, Peter
