Homemade Front or Rear Ballast Box

[GPintheMitten]

I needed some weight on the front of my Kubota B6200 to counter the rear snow blower. But I'm going to build a fel one of these days so I may want rear ballast too.

So I built a frame that I can hang on the front and put homemade concrete weights in. I put lower lift pins on it for when I want to put it on the rear. Also included a 2 inch receiver. I haven't put the top link on yet, but have the steel to do it later.

The steel box weighs 80 lbs empty and each concrete cube weighs 40 pounds. I also have an old battery that I can strap on top that weighs another 40 pounds and if that isn't enough, I can put my portable winch on a 2 inch insert bar which would add about another 80 pounds.

So I can configure it as 240 lbs or 280 or 360 lbs. When I made the forms, I put in small blocks inside the forms to make space for the receiver and the lower lift pins. Here's a few pics.

More pics in next post.

 

[GPintheMitten]

More pics.

 

[chuck diesel]

Nice work. Well thought out.

 

[GE222]

My B7200 has manual steering.
Does yours as well?

I was curious how it steers with the load.

 

[Thomas]

Two for the price of one..nice job.
No power steering??but you can +- the weight factor for easier steering.

 

[ModMech]

WOW!!!!!

NICE WORK!

 

[glc24]

Very nicely done

Greg

 

[GPintheMitten]

Thanks for the positive feedback guys.

I don't have power steering. I had it in low and 4 wd to move it around and load it on my trailer. It was noticeably harder to steer but there was no snow either. So I think it will work fine. As mentioned I might take a block or two out. We haven't got any snow to blow since I finished this.

It was a fun and rewarding project, although a bit cold in the garage doing this, especially for painting. But the kerosene heater helped.

 

[LD1]

Just a couple of questions.

1. Are you sure those blocks only weigh 40lbs??? A concrete cinder block weighs that and it looks like you have way more volume of concrete. What are the dimensions of each block??

2. Not really a question but more of an observation/suggestion.
In its current configuration it won't work on the 3PH. You need some sort of upright to tie into the toplink, otherwise the back/reciever end will either be pointing down or dragging the ground.

But nice work though. Looks Awesome

 

[GPintheMitten]

LD1,

You're right the 3rd (top) link is missing. I'm going to add that later. I needed to finish up and take it up north to our cabin this past weekend and didn't have time to fab the top link. I will need it when I put it on the rear for the fel counterweight.

Regarding the weights, yes, I used 2 bags of 80 pound redi-mix. I also calculated the weight before I built the forms. Here's a handy formula:

An 80 pound bag of redi-mix has .66 cubic feet of volume. By the way, that is the same as a 5 gallon bucket, but I digress. 0.66 cubic feet is 1140 cubic inches. Each form was 11.5" tall by 9.26" wide x 5.5" deep which is 585 cubic inches and weighs in at 41 pounds, but the blocks I put in to create voids for the receiver and the bottom links offset the extra 4 pounds, plus when I filled the forms, the concrete only filled to 11" tall. So they are very very close to 40 pounds each.

I think blocks with voids are 16" x 8" x 8".