Tractor Rear Hydraulic Blade?
- Thread starter SwampCat
- Start date
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I don't have one, but since no one responded, here is my experience. I have only one set of rear ports and I got a hydraulic toplink. I have a detent control for it in my cab. I've used it with a regular old rear blade. It is nice to be able to control that one angle. I fix the other two. One with the pin in the swivel on the blade and the other with the manually adjustable side-link on my 3-pt hitch. I don't find a need to adjust the swivel angle from the tractor. You can buy hydraulic side-links just like a hydraulic top link. One more option is to buy a regular old rear blade (heavier is better in my experience) and hydraulic top and side links.
Thanks,
Jack
Thanks,
Jack
kl9
5 year old buck +
What kind of maintenance work do you plan on doing? I’d get as heavy of one as you think your tractor can handle if you’re talking about moving dirt with it. Even then I’d be skeptical about performance... it’s not a dozer. Those things work good on gravel and snow and that’s about it in my experience
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yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I have a light TSC level blade that works fine for gravel or snow. I borrowed a very heavy reinforced old 8' blade from a neighbor to crown and grade our clay logging roads. It was hugely better, but the best even it would do is maintenance level grading. For anything more you probably need a dozer.
By the way, in reference to my last post on this thread, another advantage of getting a hydraulic top and side link rather than an integrated blade package is that you can apply it to other implements. It would work for a box blade just as well.
Thanks,
Jack
John-W-WI
Administrator
I would imagine it depends a great deal on your soil type. An 8' blade is going to require a LOT of down pressure and quite a bit of HP to move the material.
I have a landscape rake that works pretty good on gravel, not sure how it would work on raw soil:
I would think the landscape rake would take less pressure/HP to work the trails, but I'm not sure it would do what you want?
(I know, not much help. I'm just thinking out loud)
-John
I have a landscape rake that works pretty good on gravel, not sure how it would work on raw soil:
I would think the landscape rake would take less pressure/HP to work the trails, but I'm not sure it would do what you want?
(I know, not much help. I'm just thinking out loud)
-John
kl9
5 year old buck +
I’m skeptical a rear blade would be able to do what you want there. I could be wrong.
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I have a 72" old heavy duty rear blade on our 43hp JD. Its not hydraulic just runs of the 3 pt. I use it for snow,gravel drive, and smoothing out the dirt horse pastures. The tractor has plenty of hp for that blade. I would measure your width of your rear tires and get a blade as wide or just slightly wider than your tires. If you have vegetation on your trails these blades wont work very good, it will just ride over it. A box blade would be better for that. You can dig a little more and carry more dirt in the "box" part. I don't know if its possible but the right way to fix that spot is to take your FEL(when its dry) and cut that crappy wet topsoil out of there. Throw it to the side and build it up like you said. Try to get the water to one spot. At this low spot put a small 6" tile or culvert here. Then put some good material in where you cut the road out. Gravel or some type of good clay,no black dirt. If you don't get rid of that soft crappy dirt it will always be a problem here.
kl9
5 year old buck +
Your disc followed by blade approach could work well. Won’t be a super fine finish but would level it most likely
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Livesintrees
5 year old buck +
I’d use the rake or as mentioned above. The disc may work just to separate the clumps in the rut. But like you said you still need to drag it afterwards.
I have one section of my trails that look the same as they do in the above picture. I have more of a terrain slope however so we dug and buried 2 pipes with gravel last year. Dried that section out. This year I’m adding two more but will also take that 40 yard section of trail and top dress it with gravel also. The terrain in the area will always leave this area a mess unless I do it this way.
My father has several machines (small dozer, excavator etc etc etc). At some point last year they were all here for one reason or another. The best thing we did for the trail in a few area with Ruts to leave them was the land rake on a borrowed tractor at various angles and then drug a harrow.
I have one section of my trails that look the same as they do in the above picture. I have more of a terrain slope however so we dug and buried 2 pipes with gravel last year. Dried that section out. This year I’m adding two more but will also take that 40 yard section of trail and top dress it with gravel also. The terrain in the area will always leave this area a mess unless I do it this way.
My father has several machines (small dozer, excavator etc etc etc). At some point last year they were all here for one reason or another. The best thing we did for the trail in a few area with Ruts to leave them was the land rake on a borrowed tractor at various angles and then drug a harrow.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
One important thing is to make sure you have a hard base underneath. That can take quite a bit of stone depending on the soil. Next, move enough soil to form a crown on the road. Surface with quarry stone if you can afford it. When wet, avoid heavy equipment (tractors/Pickup Trucks/etc) when it is wet. Even when things are slightly wet, we make our guys use 4wd and go slow rather than use it when they need it. Every tire spin and the harder you hit a pot hole contribute to road issues that need repaired. You probably can't do this in bottom land, but we dug small pits at critical spots and sculpted the road to drain into them. Daylighting roads also helped us. The faster they dry out the better. The long water sits in our clay the more problematic.
Thanks,
Jack
Livesintrees
5 year old buck +
Small section of the trail we did last year. 
Livesintrees
5 year old buck +
Pictures are out of order and some wouldn’t upload. But basically had the same ruts as you do and water would just sit there. So we cut across the trail. Sunk a pipe surrounded by gravel. Used the rock we pulled out on the two end of the pipe to prevent it from clogging with debris. Pipe has constant water flow through it and the trail is bone dry now. Best part is we moved some rock on both sides to intentionally divert the water down to the pond. Win/win
Livesintrees
5 year old buck +
What if you were to plant it? Just a thought. I’m not sure what you could use that would soak up the most water but perhaps others could chime in. I know grandpa rays sells a logging trail mix that is designed for constant traffic. I’ve spoke with a lot of people that have had excellent results with the product
There is a native sedge that grows well in this area and does help to preserve the integrity of the road. Flooding, and deer and duck season traffic is more than it can handle
