What I did this winter...

   / What I did this winter... #1  

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I've enjoyed seeing all the pictures you guys up north posted of your snow plowing this winter. Down here in Florida, we don't get any snow, of course, but I thought I'd post a few pictures of what I have been playing with.

This part of Florida is completely flat (I'm at about 45' elevation 20 miles inland from the gulf!) but the houses must be raised about 4 feet since we have to have evaporative septic systems (the water table is less than 2 feet). When you first build a new house, or in my case a main house and guest house/workshop, all the budget seems to go into getting the house finished, with none left over for grading and lanscaping. I'm now at the point where I can finally start filling in the dirt around the house and building a concrete driveway. The problem is, fill dirt must be dug from borrow pits and trucked in. Each pile in the pictures is 20 cu yd, and costs about $120. These two are going under a 20' x 36' pad I'm pouring behind my workshop to park my trailers and attachments on. I'll eventually put up a lean-to roof to cover it.
 

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   / What I did this winter...
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#2  
These are the first two of six that will fill in in front of the workshop.
 

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#3  
4 in 1 loader bucket, hands down the best attachment I have. It is so much fun to raise the bottom of the bucket and play bulldozer with a big pile of dirt. It is a lot harder to control than the box blade, however. The joystick is too sensitive, and the blade is too far in front of the tractor compared to the 3 pt hitch. Sure is fun, though.
 

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#4  
Line em up and knock em down.
 

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#5  
First pass. Can't see it in the picture, but this will become an L shaped driveway that slopes down from both the workshop and the main house garage on the left. It slopes about 30" up from the lower right corner. I sure have a lot more respect now for the guys that do this for a living.
 

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#6  
I needed more counterweight to offset my loader than just my box blade, so I added a 3 x 5 steel bar to the rear edge. It weight about 245 pounds and transformed the box into a real cutting animal. No more bouncing across the ground. Now it cuts just like a 1000lb Gannon.

I see a lot of posts about having to modify attachments to work with quick hitches. I have a JD I-Match and love it. You can (sort of) see in this picture where I welded two 3/8 x 2 tabs on to the top of the hitch to pick up a new top link pin lower and a little in front of the existing holes. This is pretty typical, and took less than an hour, including paint. One thing I noticed is that the quick hitch has a little play in the pins, even though I use the adapter bushings, which lets the box blade change angle very slightly. I think for final grading I'll take the I Match off and mount it solid (now that I'm a pro and can hold .01" final grade!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif)
 

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#7  
36 x 20 parking area pad. There's about 46 yards of fill in there. The left edge is about 16" higher than the grass. Spent two days grading right next to the front and rear of the garage and never hit it once /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Guess my wife will let me keep the tractor.
 

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#8  
Quick pic of my baby the day I brought it home. Don't know if I'll ever get it that clean again. There's dirt in every nook and cranny now.
 

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   / What I did this winter... #9  
Isn't it amazing how that much fill disappears so fast? What kind of tires are those on your tractor?

Grant
 
   / What I did this winter...
  • Thread Starter
#10  
They're the standard size R4's. The rears are fine, but I think the fronts are way too small when carrying a full loader bucket. Deere lists oversize R4's, but they don't seem to be very common.
 

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