M9000 FEL use OK or ?

[stevenf]

I finally have started using the new tractor and I've got a question. I know you guys swear by the tilt meters and all but my sales guy told me that he uses the clinch method and that way he has his eyes on his work at all times which seems to make sense to me. When he starts eating the vinyl off of his seat its time to stop. My question is I had a bull dozer at the ranch a couple of years back and he dozed a level site for the house he left me three piles one of them is a thousand or so yards of fill that I have decided to move it is 20ft or so tall and 40 to 50 ft around, I've started moving it but it is packed pretty good so using the tooth bar that Henro recommended (which is stout its the H&H brand) I'm pulling up close to the pile and rolling the bucket down so teeth face ground then exert pretty good pressure on bucket and teeth which in turn drives downward thru the pile, I then backup a bit and pickup a full bucket. In the process of pushing the teeth thru the pile it lifts the front of the tractor a couple of feet in the air is this OK or will it hurt my loader and hydraulics everything is done at very slow speeds. I'm not experiencing any safety concerns but I rodeo'd for numerous years and I don't scare easy and just wondered if this type of useage is apt to hurt the tractor. I know some of the folks with the smaller tractors are probably shaking their heads but this is a pretty good size tractor and I'm using it the way I intended just not sure if I could go about this differently and maybe have less chance of tweaking the loader arms or something.
Steve

 

[markie61]

I do it all the time. The only damage that will probably occur when your front wheels are off the ground is dropping them too fast. If you drop slowly and don't "slam" the front linkage, you will probably be OK.

My caveats are that you have an adequate counterweight and you keep the bucket as low as possible when carrying a load.

Mark

 

[stevenf]

Markie61
Originaly they delivered the tractor with the auger on the 3pt it didn't seem heavy enough to do loader work and it has a lot more fragile moving parts and cost 5 times as much so I pulled it off and put the box blade on it weighs about 1200lbs. This is probably my heaviest 3pt attachment and for sure the stoutest it seems to be a pretty good counterweight. Also I had all four tires filled with polyurethane which they told me would add 3,000lbs + or- to the overall weight of the machine.
Steve

 

[markie61]

Yep - that's some good ballast!
Mark

 

[RedDog]

Stevenf,

I had big piles of dirt to move as you have mentioned. I would always go into the pile with the bucket level with the ground, (keeping all four tires on the ground) and then curling and going upward with the loader. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

It sounds to me that you are going into the pile with your loader slightly in the air and then tilting your bucket down when reaching the pile, causing your front end to go up.

Try the method I use and see what you think. It also keeps your ground nice and level. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

RedDog

 

[frank_f15]

one thing u might want to try is use your toothbar to losen some of that dirt then go into the pile with bucket level or slightly down and curl and lift at the same time, while moving forward, bucket will come up full and your front will stay on the ground. Be sure to lower your bucket when traveling. just takes a little practice.

 

[stevenf]

I tried to post a picture of exactly what I'm doing but I guess I'll have to get the wife to take some more with the resolution cranked all the way down because TBN wouldn't even allow one.
I'm actually having pretty good success the way I'm doing it my main concern is that I didn't do it this way and have to write and say I'd already destroyed my new toy only to have all of ya'll say dummy you should have asked we'd a told you that that's the way everybody kills their loader or something.
Steve

 

[btolle]

I have 2 concerns: First, be careful about a pile of dirt 20' high. If you are under a vertical wall of dirt that high and undermine it you can cause a big mass of it to fall on you. That much dirt would quite possibly kill you. Please be VERY careful about that.

Also, keep in mind that many types of soil will hold together well as long as they are wet but will cave in (or sluff off) when they dry out. You may expose a wall of dirt one day and then come back the next day or 2 or 3 days later and hit it at the bottom and the whole thing may come down on you.

I worked heavy construction for many years and know just how dangerous dirt can be when it moves unexpectedly. I worked on a job one time where you could dig a 3' or 4' deep trench with a backhoe and if you left it overnight it would be completely caved in by the next morning.

Also, a heavy rain can cause a wall of dirt to collapse without warning. I saw an embankment about 200' long, 100' high, and about 6' thick slide about 20'downhill after a rain. And that was with a 6' high retaining wall at the bottom that the contractor "thought" was strong enough to hold a 30 degree slope.

If at all possible, try to work around the ends of the vertical face and let it break off in a more controlled manner. Do NOT work in the center of a vertical wall of dirt!

My second concern (not nearly as dangerous) is lifting the wheels 2' off the ground. Once you lift the wheels off the ground you have pretty much the maximim amount of weight on the bucket at 4" off the ground as you do at 2' off the ground. At 2' you have more chance of damaging the tractor if the dirt breaks off and you drop suddenly.

Suggestion: Push the teeth into the dirt and then jiggle the loader handle side to side pretty rapidly. This will cause the teeth and front end of the bucket to go up and down rapidly and may jar the dirt loose. I really flip the lever back and forth very fast when dumping dirt that is stuck in the bucket to knock it loose.

Again, please be very careful around that pile of dirt and do not let anyone else near it when you are working. People have been killed by walls of dirt 6 or 8 feet high, much less 20 feet high.

Bill Tolle

 

[bugstruck]

Steve, Bill has it nailed on working in dirt. I know when I read a description from someone with heavy equipment seat time. I watched those guys for years. It took about 5 years observing and some limited seat time to get a real handle on how dirt works. The damage it can wreak when in motion is almost incomprehensible. I'd even take some time and build at ramp into it (very properly compacted and wide) if I was at all in doubt. That pile sounds too big to be cut off at the ankles. It may be dumb as dirt but it's been smarter than me /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Keep the front end down! A few inches, occasionally, sure, but.... feet? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Take Care,

 

[stevenf]

Thanks Bill, I'll try the moving the stick back and forth that sounds like it may help. The reason for the high lift is at a couple inches I wasn't getting very good penetration because the dirt has been piled two years and if I lifted the front end it would actually go down about the same depth as the amount I lifted the front end. I'll let you know if this solves my penetration problem (gee that sounds dirty) I hope so as when the dozer guy was excavating he ran into a rock shelf 2 to 3 inches thick which will make perfect paving stones and so after I get a bucket full I'd dump it back out carefully and pick the flat stones back out I've accumulated a pretty good pile at first I thought I could use them to do rock work on the house with but the masonry gurus said it would be a little thin and since its limestone shelf rock I might have trouble with them crumbling. Your method may speed up my time ( and I'll feel like I'm being safer doing it) as not only am I digging it up I have to transport it a couple of hundred yards to use in my lake dam that was damaged with all the rain we had last month.
Steve