Tractor Stuff

[foggy]

Took a few pictures today to describe a few things I feel are important to my tractor.

1. Ballast. I have a number of suitcase weights handing on my box blade and beet juice in my tires.....still the CX loaders are powerful enough to get the rear axel a bit light every now and again.

2. Grapple. I really like the 48" wide grapple over wider models. And a single lid is all that is needed. Any wider is simply overkill on a CUT for most purposes. The extra weight and bulk just don't prove worthwhile IMO.

3. Protect that grill! I added a few bars to the backside of my grapple to prevent branches from pushing thru. Also added the sold green plate below the expanded metal in my grille guard. It prevents stuff from piecing my radiator. Worthwhile improvements!!

 

[foggy]

I spent most of my day piling up logs and slash to make a new food plot out of an old log landing. The grapple is invaluable for this work. This equipment performed fantastic today.....and seat time was lots of fun. :) Used the box blade to level out lots of depressions.....and stacked timber into two big slash piles to either be burned in winter or just be a fence.

Amazing how much work that grapple can perform.

 

[Jim Timber]

I moved 4 pieces of concrete (a couple heavy enough to lift my rear end) with my grapple today. I also moved a bunch of rock and a few trees.

I need more ballast. I don't know what I'm going to do about it yet. The tractor ruts things up as it is now.

 

[tooln]

Foggy
I'm glad to see you carry a fire ext. on your tractor. Everyone should. I can see a grapple in my future. But for now I've got to cool it on the toys. Tractor, box blade, tiller, sub soiler and brush cutter all in the past 6 months almost forgot about the shipping container, to keep the tractor in.

 

[foggy]

Foggy
I'm glad to see you carry a fire ext. on your tractor. Everyone should. I can see a grapple in my future. But for now I've got to cool it on the toys. Tractor, box blade, tiller, sub soiler and brush cutter all in the past 6 months almost forgot about the shipping container, to keep the tractor in.

I hear you on the toys......errrr tools. They really do add up fast. Good implements are like money in the bank. ;)

I had a number of suitcase weights and found a few used ones at a good price. I think I got 1200 lbs handing on the 3 point. Still.....I could use more wieght. The best bang for the buck would be to fill a ballast box with concrete. Some guys puts HD caster wheels on the bottom of their ballast box so they can roll it around. Others put some tubes in the box to haul rakes and shovels and chainsaws, etc. If I find a decent ballast box......I suppose I should buy it. Sometimes I need to "cool it" on heavy loads......and it is hard on the front axel with all that weight focused there.

Yesterday I tried to pry a downed popple tree from its stump. The back-end of the tractor came off the ground and it was a bit squirelly for a few seconds. Too big of a load. It's hard to believe the lifting power of these cx loaders.

 

[j-bird]

Those grills are expensive to replace - a buddy of mine punched one once only after having it for like a month. Cost him over $100 for the thing - he said he felt obligated to do it because it was a brand new machine and that the machine deserved to be treated better than that so the busted grill had to go!

You must have one hell of a loader lift capacity if you need all that weight in the ass! Mine will only pick up roughly 800 lbs. Probably a good thing - I would just end up screwing with stuff I should just leave well enough alone :D

pretty machine there Foggy - needs some dirt on it!

 

[foggy]

Those grills are expensive to replace - a buddy of mine punched one once only after having it for like a month. Cost him over $100 for the thing - he said he felt obligated to do it because it was a brand new machine and that the machine deserved to be treated better than that so the busted grill had to go!

You must have one hell of a loader lift capacity if you need all that weight in the ass! Mine will only pick up roughly 800 lbs. Probably a good thing - I would just end up screwing with stuff I should just leave well enough alone :D

pretty machine there Foggy - needs some dirt on it!

Yep.....I think mine will pick up 2200 lbs. Some folks buy these to handle the big bales for their horses. If you puncture the grille and two radiators.....its gonna cost LOTS more than $100. Like 7 times more.

 

[Jim Timber]

I got the pleasure of seeing Foggy and tractor in action today. That little rig does a fine job of destroying stumps! :)

 

[tooln]

One of these days's I've got to take a road trip and meet both you guys.

 

[foggy]

One of these days's I've got to take a road trip and meet both you guys.

Bring your grease gun.....there's work to be done here. ;) Actually, I'm nearing the end of my timber cleaning days. Just a little light clean-up work left in my food plots and then it's mostly planting and maintenance time for me. Good thing too.....as I need more time to play golf, fish and sip a few cold ones. Getting too old for this land-clearing gig. ;)

My neck is sore from looking backwards for a couple hours yesterday while grinding stumps at my BIL"s place and that stump at Jim's. I now call Ibuprofin: "Golf candy".

 

[Gator]

I love these home made grill guards. I've been looking for a welder to do mine for me. I'd also like to get a grapple. I used a borrowed one once and it was great even without the ability to close the top lid (don't have hydraulics for it). I can only imagine what I could have done if I could have actually grabbed stuff!!

 

[foggy]

I love these home made grill guards. I've been looking for a welder to do mine for me. I'd also like to get a grapple. I used a borrowed one once and it was great even without the ability to close the top lid (don't have hydraulics for it). I can only imagine what I could have done if I could have actually grabbed stuff!!

My grille guard is actually the "deluxe" model offered by JD. BUT they leave a GAPING hole in the lower center of the guard. I think it measures 8" x 20" or so. I fabricated a piece of 3/16" steel to fit into that big hole and bolted it in place. Still able to tilt my grill to access the hood. I don't understand why JD would make such a poor guard for these tractors. These guards are MANDATORY if you operate in timber.

The guard I added is located just below the expanded metal in the pictures. It really fits nicely into the JD guard. Those branches have a way of finding the grille and radiator.

 

[j-bird]

Good lord Foggy! Your loader will damn near pic up my entire machine! My 790 stripped down to just the tractor weights a little over a ton if I recall properly. You got you a real handy machine there.

Like I said - needs some dirt on it!

 

[Jim Timber]

So mine will lift it then - in the bucket and all. The 553 with proper ballast will pick 4008# at the pins per Deere and I'd believe it. Without loaded tires or a heavy implement, I'm maxed about 2500# now because I have wheel weights. The rear will lift off just enough to slip a tire with a 2400# pallet without any added weight (something Mahindra figured out).

If you're looking for a road trip, I think I'm having a land tour in June. I need to talk to the social coordinator about when kiddo will be at camp, so I don't schedule over wifey time, but there will be happenings at my place after we can access it without putting feet in the drink (sorry again about that Foggy - the water is higher than it's been the past couple weeks).

 

[Gator]

My grille guard is actually the "deluxe" model offered by JD. BUT they leave a GAPING hole in the lower center of the guard. I think it measures 8" x 20" or so. I fabricated a piece of 3/16" steel to fit into that big hole and bolted it in place. Still able to tilt my grill to access the hood. I don't understand why JD would make such a poor guard for these tractors. These guards are MANDATORY if you operate in timber.

The guard I added is located just below the expanded metal in the pictures. It really fits nicely into the JD guard. Those branches have a way of finding the grille and radiator.

Here's the cheesy factory grill guard I have. Talk about big holes!! This is just a pic off the web but it is what I have.

 

[tooln]

Gator look at my post "brush guard modification". It wouldn't take much to beef up yours.
http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/brush-guard-modification.3176/

 

[Freeborn]

I thought I would share a few photos from this last weekend. I picked up a new tiller and got to use it tilling up 6 acres. Had a good long weekend planting corn and soybeans as well as 14 apple and 8 pear trees. Lots of work but everything went well without any issues.

I was really impressed with this tiller, it's basically a rebadged 72" KK professional line. Tractor handled it easily and it worked through the soil nicely.

Tiller in Crate:



Tiller on Dolly:



Tiller on Tractor:



Tiller in Action:



Field Being Tilled:



Nice to have equipment that workes and saves time. For a weekend warriors and remote owner lack of time is a problem for me so having the right tool makes plotting much more enjoyable and is money well spent.

 

[SD51555]

Nice set of pics, and nice rig!

 

[foggy]

Nice to see your plan come-together Jerry! Looks like you got allot done! Tillers are a plotters best friend.

I found that I didnt need to run mine as deep after owning it a while. It sure makes a nice appearing seed bed and mixes lime and fertilizer like a champ.

OH.....and I like your center-pivot irrigation system too. Grin ;)

 

[foggy]

Six acres is allot of tilling Jerry. I figure I get about one hour per acre.....and travel about 4 MPH. I till about the same number of acres.....but much smaller parcels.

When the conditions are good.....like you have in the pics.....I use my automotive-type cruise control and just let it happen. Pretty sweet set-up on those E-hydro's. I think the automotive cruise was about $100 and is all plug and play. The nice thing is that it's got the "resume" feature.....so everything is the same after making a turn. A tiller provides real satisfaction....as you can see fantastic results from your work. :)