Well there's a story behind that
ballast. Before I put that on there I was leaving some undisturbed soil in between the disks in some places. Thats a piece of concrete left over from when they poured the slab on my shop bldg. It was heavy - probably over 100 pounds.
I was almost finished when I heard a noise, looked back and saw that the "rock" had fallen down in between two inner disks and none of the disks would turn. After about 20 minutes of prying I finally got it out and mashed my little finger in the process. Its black and blue but fortunately it didn't break it. I would have cussed but nobody was around to appreciate it...
I'm happy with the way the disk performed. It would have taken way longer to till what I went over with the disk. Of course it doesn't pulverize it like a tiller does, but it breaks it up 3 or 4 inches and thats all I wanted. And its fast. Now I need a single bottom plow to go along with it for the garden.
By the way, the ground was not the real hard dry stuff we are used to in the late summer, so the disks dug in pretty good with the added weight. If the ground is real hard it might need more weight. Some of the ground had some vegetation on it and it did a pretty decent job on that too, especially when I made a second pass. I used the disk with the pedal floorboarded in medium range, and the 2710 never grunted at all.
The disk has 16 grease fittings that held almost 2 whole cartidges of grease before I got started.
As for the PTO shaft, I had hell with it. The plastic guard on the outside makes it virtually impossible to hold onto it while you cut it with a hacksaw. After cutting the inside shaft about 2" and trying to put it back I discovered that didn't do any good and that I would have to cut the outside shaft also - and the plastic guard. I have very sore shoulder, a slightly torn rotator cuff I think, and sawing with a hacksaw with it flopping in the breeze was difficult. Since my wife was there helping me hold it, I went ahead and let out a few expletives and it helped a lot. The bottom of the spreader is supposed to be 70 to 80 centimeters, which I guess is 56" to 60". When I started I could only get it about a foot off the ground. After cutting the shaft I got up to maybe 36" and I did the whole job that way because my hacksawing shoulder was done. So my swath was only about 25 feet or so, the book says it should cover a 40 foot swath. I plan to cut it off another 2" before I use it again. Maybe I'll let my 22 year old son do the honors since he ain't ruint his shoulder yet.
I really like the spreader and, man does it sling that stuff out there. the settings aren't accurate. I set it up the way I though it should be and it threw out 50 pounds in about 20 seconds, so I cut it way back and had enought to make second passes the other direction. I look forward to using this thing alot.
Alan L., TX
<font color=green>stan</font color=green>
