Two Wheel Earth Moving Pans

[Gale Hawkins]

I have a lot of dirt that I would like to move about 800' to make a major fill so I can at some point built a shop near the house.

I have the backhoe and 16' flat bed dump truck but saw a two yard dirt pan but the seller states one needs 90 HP tractor to fully load it and I only have 60 HP (heavy 265 MF).

Any experience with smaller earth moving pans?

Not really interested in dumping another $2K into equipment that might only work so. I found a few other threads but they were several years old.

 

[pjbci]

If you heavily ballast your tractor you shouldnt have any problems loading the pan. I pull a 9yd pan. Dont disk or loosen the soil in any way before you run your pan. The pan needs hard compacted soil too work properly and fill completely. When you get started its gonna be kinda frustrating to run but once you get the grass and topsiol stripped off it should be smooth sailing.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

If you heavily ballast your tractor you shouldnt have any problems loading the pan. I pull a 9yd pan. Dont disk or loosen the soil in any way before you run your pan. The pan needs hard compacted soil too work properly and fill completely. When you get started its gonna be kinda frustrating to run but once you get the grass and topsiol stripped off it should be smooth sailing.

Thanks. I think the name on it is Reynolds and did not think two yards was too much but he said he uses it with at 90 HP JD 4020 but I thought had less than 90 HP but there must have been different versions of the 4020 over the years.

The 265 MF is very heavy with filled tires, rear wheels doubles as extra weight and the front has ballast to keep the front end on the ground well when using the very heavy 7' bush hog when turning on hill sides.

He said he bought it off a farmer north of Sikeston and pulled it to KY with a 1/2 ton pick up just fine so it must not be too heavy on the hitch.

 

[pjbci]

I've pulled a six yd reynolds with a 4020, no problems.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Well we make a 100 mile round trip to see it this afternoon.

It was a dog in a briar patch.

It was a Reynolds but was once red in color and not any model new enough to be covered in any old parts catalogs nor could find a picture like it on the web.

I would guess it to be about 40 years old. Major cylinder leaks, rotten hoses and tires. Missing dumping spring on one side.

To get it or not was left up to the kids (age 14) before we actually saw it. They did a great job of finding reasons to leave it where we found it.

They picked up on the bends, welds, missing parts, standing water in the pan. In fact the daughter was turned off before we ever saw it because he had a ton of equipment scattered around in bush and briar patches.

Looked like maybe the seller had had a serious health problem and touched nothing for a several years but he was not interested in selling the old 7.5' Ford Flex I Hitch disc that I am in the market for and I bet it had not been moved in five years.

I guess we will just stick with the BH and dump truck plan which should work fine and I can put that $2K into them if required over the next year.

When Dad would move hills like this he only had a flat bed dump and a box blade for loading the dirt. He would disc hard before a rain and it helped speed up the loading/hauling process.

A scraper pan would be nice in some ways but not a requirement for our task at hand. If one pops up now at least I can move fast if it is a Reynolds because I know so much more about them and where to get parts.

Personally I would not have given $500 for the one he was selling for a firm $2000. All the hydraulics needed to be replaced and some other moving parts.

 

[sandman2234]

I had it in my head that I wanted a dirt pan also, but after looking at some of the junk people had for sale at HUGE PRICES, I have pretty much written that one off. Thought about taking the time to build one, but don't really have enough justification for it, so I just put it on the back burner and dream.
David from jax

 

[gabby]

If the seller says you need 90 hp you will wear yourself out trying to get by with 65 hp. Trying to pull a dirt pan with too little hp ain't no fun.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

If the seller says you need 90 hp you will wear yourself out trying to get by with 65 hp. Trying to pull a dirt pan with too little hp ain't no fun.

Thanks but after seeing the scraper I do not trust anything the seller said.

If I ever run across one worth pulling home I will check out the HP requirements better. Reynolds rated it for 60-100 HP tractors so I was on the MIN side for sure.