Used my tiller today!

[dieselfuelonly]

Hey ya'll... its been a while. Thought I'd drop by and share some pictures of whats been going on.

This weekend has been a busy one. Saturday was spent at a Dodge Diesel dyno day in Durham, NC. Several thousand miles of rubber were laid on that street by the time we were done . I did not dyno my truck, because besides a beefed up tranny it is stock power wise.

I know that these pictures aren't tractor related... but I just HAVE to share them.

Check out the video below. These poor poor tires. This truck, owned by John Porterfield, cranked out 866HP, and an INSANE amount of torque, but the RPM sensor was broken so the torque isn't determined until we can get the right correction factor. The truck previously dynoed at over 1400ft/lbs. of torque. He was going to do a boosted launch in 4WD, but it kicked out of 4WD and he kept on the throttle. Someone commented, "Toyo just called and they want some of their tires back!!".



NOW... on to the tractor stuff!

Today I had off, so I finally got some seat time. I finished digging the trench for the new soil to go in, scooped up the soil which was very very rich from across the yard and brought it over here and dumped it in the trench. Then I spread some horse manure/bedding over it, and hooked up the tiller. Even though it is missing a few tines, WOW it does a great job. Its really too late to plant anything in there right now, but I wanted to go ahead and finish up the project and get it ready for next season.

 

[tony123]

Hey Dennis. Looks like fun. I'm envious of your tiller. I need one/ want one.

Unlike some folk, my tractor didn't come with all these neat implements.

 

[brickMan]

Tillers are great, but require care:

- agriculture is paying a lot of favor to no-till practices these days. I'm not sure of all the benefits, but certainly soil conservation and believe it or not, CO2 loss are a couple.

- um, er. My first use of mine was to cut some wonderful trails to play on my dirtbike. Unfortunately I didn't mind a very slight slope. So the weather moved in, this was years ago, and one of the cuts promptly washed out. Lost a lot of soil into the lower part of 1 field. Which strangled the wet areas growth and it took several years to come back. Next time I cut in that direction I'm going to roll it immediately; get it compacted so it stays in place.

On the other hand, I can put in my vegetable patch about a solid day faster using a 5 foot tiller. I can prepare a large area of dead or weed filled grass for re-seeding in no time at all. I can drop a 10 by 150 patch of wildflower seed before any sweetie can guess what I'm up to. This fall, if we get enough rain, my neighbor and I are going to see if we can loosen up his compacted gravel driveway ... not full rpm's and it will be hard on the cutting edge, but we're supposed to use these things, right?

 

[GordonR]

Brickman

All the uses you mentioned are great with a tiller, but I would use a box scraper with shanks on your neighbors gravel driveway. I tried the same thing to help a friend out and had to replace a couple of tiller blades, and a shaft bearing. What really made me mad was the fact that I have a BB with shanks and was in a hurry that day. The 25 min I saved not changing tools cost me about $150 in repairs

Don

 

[garth466]

Upgraded tranny and stock power? You did it in the right order. Most try to put 1000 lbs of torque in front of a stock tranny and it doesn't work so well.

I just had my name stuck on a tiller today. I think the dealer said it was 57" but I know it was a Frontier. I agree on the driveway use. I used my 65" box blade yesterday for the first time. Between all the rain and all the cedar droppings my driveway was a mess. I was nervous at first, having never used on, much less even watched anyone use one but it worked great. It looks like a new driveway again. I was so excited about it, I even did the first 600' of our road. Pot holes are gone and it too looks like a fresh road. Pretty brainless so far.

 

[GaryE]

I did not dyno my truck, because besides a beefed up tranny it is stock power wise.

Then why not just go with a new stock Duramax / Allison? More power and no need to beef up the trany!!!!!

Sorry, just could not resist

Nice looking truck!

Gary

 

[garth466]

Back when I bought the Dodge, I liked a lot about the GM product better than the Dodge (comfort, ride, looks, bigger back seat and not so far up in the air on the 4X4 to name a few). It just came down to the fact that I sometimes need a "Medium Duty" diesel motor and didn't want to abuse that "Light Duty" motor.

I couldn't resist either. This could be just like the typical debate that goes on in my driveway a few times a month when buddies stop by. At least after this debate, my beer fridge will still be intact.