What will I need too...

[crashz]

...tear up my driveway. My driveway is a blacktop drive, only two cars long, pitches towards the house and is very lumpy. But not so broken up that I can tear it apart with a shovel. So I'm thinking of hauling my tractor out here (rather than rent a machine) and tear up the drive, haul it to the locate material yard or crush it up with a sledge and reuse it as a base below a thick layer of gravel.

The blacktop is anywhere from 1 -3 inches thick from what I've seen. My tractor definately couldn't rip it up with the loader, toothbar or not. But I was thinking of a single shank ripper on the 3pt hitch. TSC has these for relatively cheap (which fits my budget nicely) and I thought this would limit the stress on the tractor.

I'm looking for opinions here, and feel free to suggest anything that may do the job. I'd like to bring the tractor here to also help spread the gravel, but considering that its a 300 mile round trip haul, maybe it would be more economical to do something different?

Thanks!
Leo

 

[Woodworkerman]

Hi. I wouldn't count out your loader without at least trying it first. I just peeled up a large area of blacktop at my home and I did it without a tooth bar. That would have made it easier, no doubt. With my blacktop, I was able to just peel it back one or two large pieces at a time. It went fairly fast. I also had a crew come to do some blacktopping for me. Their only tool for removing blacktop was a skidsteer with a toothbar. Best of luck with your project.

 

[Bird]

Leo, I think you have the right idea with the 3-point single shank ripper.

 

[jsboening]

I've used my old 4100hst with a 60"hd bucket and no tooth bar to remove the 4-6" of concrete from my previous house. The concrete covered an 20'x40' area. It did very well considering the 410 loader only has about 800lbs of lift. For the most part I did the whole job from the seat. I only got off to break up the concrete up by the garage and the few thick pieces I couldn't lift with the loader. It would have been nice to have the tooth bar on the bucket or a set of pallet forks to get under the pieces. I think asphalt is quite a bit softer and lighter than concrete. Shouldn't be a real big deal.

 

[crashz]

Thanks for the replies!

My loader is not the most robust that JD has built, and has a hard enough time scraping hard-pack gravel. And I don't have toothbar. So I sort of ruled that out due to cost and effectiveness.

Another thing I was concerned with is that my machine is gear drive, and the constant micro-movements of peeling the blacktop up with the bucket would be hard on the clutch. I thought the longer pulls using the ripper might be easier.

 

[Sherweld]

I've ripped up quite a bit of asphalt with a little Kubota B7100 (gear) with FEL. It's not like cutting into hard pan or crushed rock, once you get it started, the bucket just slips under the asphalt layer and pops it up, most of the time just crumbling into chunks. The one to three inch layer you describe should be easy pickins.

 

[EdC]

I have a Rankin medium duty ripper and while I have never ripped up asphalt I have had pretty good luck ripping through 3 inches of dirt and about a foot of lava with it. That is how I laid most of my irrigation line. It is important to go slow but it should work on your asphalt.

 

[MossRoad]

If it is only two cars long, what is that? About 35'. I'm assuming you have a truck and trailer to haul your tractor. 300 mile round trip. That's 600 miles after you take it back, isn't it? Lots of gas and wear on your truck.

I'd just start at an edge, bust out a piece with a sledge hammer, then use a long pry bar to pop out pieces that are about a foot square and toss them into the back of my truck or on the trailer. You could knock it out in two easy days by hand. I think I could do it in one long day and I'm not in that great of shape.



If you want to use your tractor you can do the same thing and knock it out even faster. Once you get an edge opened up use the bucket to pry up pieces of it that the loader can lift. It should go pretty easy.

You could also look into renting a mini excavator locally. They are pretty reasonable for a weekend rate. Probably less than the gas money you will spend to retrieve your tractor.

 

[crashz]

Thanks for the advice!

I'm gonna try breaking it up with a sledge like Moss mentioned and I'll see how it goes from there. As it turns out, I have another consideration with bringing the tractor here: We've been having a rash of home and vehicle break-ins. So I'd rather not risk the loss or vandalism of my tractor, to save my back some much needed excersize.

I haven't checked what the Home Despot charges for their little excavator. That might be an option too.