Having a blast with our new M62

[Jchonline]

M62 owners, are you using rear tire ballast? Please indicate if it depends on backhoe. I am close on one myself, trying to fine tune the offer. Thanks so much!

Edit adding this: Just found in the owners manual.

Rear Ballast
Add weight to rear wheels if needed to improve traction or for stability. The amount of rear ballast should be matched to job and the ballast should be removed when it is not needed.
The weight should be added to the tractor in the form of liquid ballast.
When the BT1000B(L47)orBT1400(M62)backhoe is
installed to the tractor, rear ballast should be removed.

Is everyone following this? Do they mean wheel weight ballast should be removed, or do they mean liquid in the tires?

 

[mike69440]

M62 owners, are you using rear tire ballast? Please indicate if it depends on backhoe. I am close on one myself, trying to fine tune the offer. Thanks so much!

Edit adding this: Just found in the owners manual.

Rear Ballast
Add weight to rear wheels if needed to improve traction or for stability. The amount of rear ballast should be matched to job and the ballast should be removed when it is not needed.
The weight should be added to the tractor in the form of liquid ballast.
When the BT1000B(L47)orBT1400(M62)backhoe is
installed to the tractor, rear ballast should be removed.

Is everyone following this? Keeping 2 sets to rear tires

My 13 year old L39 is laughing really hard.

Wheel weights and the back hoe have been on machine for near ten years. Unless you need to keep the machine light weight, just ADD as much weight as you can.
I have 750 Lbs if inner and out wheel weights on my little tractor, plus around 500 Lbs of other stuff welded or bolted on. Just about the right weight to suit the machines capacity.

 

[Piston]

M62 owners, are you using rear tire ballast? Please indicate if it depends on backhoe. I am close on one myself, trying to fine tune the offer. Thanks so much!

Edit adding this: Just found in the owners manual.

Rear Ballast
Add weight to rear wheels if needed to improve traction or for stability. The amount of rear ballast should be matched to job and the ballast should be removed when it is not needed.
The weight should be added to the tractor in the form of liquid ballast.
When the BT1000B(L47)orBT1400(M62)backhoe is
installed to the tractor, rear ballast should be removed.

Is everyone following this? Do they mean wheel weight ballast should be removed, or do they mean liquid in the tires?

I operated an M62 using it to dig relatively small stumps out in a landscaping job. My only “disappointment” with the machine, was that the backhoe almost overpowered the weight of the tractor. This one did not have any ballast, and my instant thought was that with the tires full of Rimgard, this would make the backhoe a LOT more enjoyable (and effective) to run.

I wouldn’t let the M62 leave the dealership without full ballast in the rears.

 

[mikester]

M62 owners, are you using rear tire ballast? Please indicate if it depends on backhoe. I am close on one myself, trying to fine tune the offer. Thanks so much!

Edit adding this: Just found in the owners manual.

Rear Ballast
Add weight to rear wheels if needed to improve traction or for stability. The amount of rear ballast should be matched to job and the ballast should be removed when it is not needed.
The weight should be added to the tractor in the form of liquid ballast.
When the BT1000B(L47)orBT1400(M62)backhoe is
installed to the tractor, rear ballast should be removed.

Is everyone following this? Do they mean wheel weight ballast should be removed, or do they mean liquid in the tires?

After adding the cab I'm finding I can still move full pallets of sod without anything on the 3PH - it is a little light on the rear end though and I need 4WD sometimes. Works better in 2WD with an implement on the back.

 

[rScotty]

M62 owners, are you using rear tire ballast? Please indicate if it depends on backhoe. I am close on one myself, trying to fine tune the offer. Thanks so much!

Edit adding this: Just found in the owners manual.

Rear Ballast
Add weight to rear wheels if needed to improve traction or for stability. The amount of rear ballast should be matched to job and the ballast should be removed when it is not needed.
The weight should be added to the tractor in the form of liquid ballast.
When the BT1000B(L47)orBT1400(M62)backhoe is
installed to the tractor, rear ballast should be removed.

Is everyone following this? Do they mean wheel weight ballast should be removed, or do they mean liquid in the tires?

Yeah, I've seen warnings about wheel weights and tire ballast in operator's manuals for decades now and frankly I doubt if anyone has ever removed any form of ballast weight when swapping implements. EVER.

If anyone does this, please let me know. I'm always open to a "first". And I don't think I've ever heard of weights or ballast on the rear ever causing any mechanical problems either. You'd think that if anything, additional weight could stress the rear axles or housing - and maybe it does to some extent. But not so much that I've never heard a single case of a mechanical problem caused by wheel weights. Maybe I've missed it, but don't think so.

About the only downsides to more weight is that it isn't as effective on ice or sandy soil as it is in loam or mud where the soil can deform cohesively. And of course if the weight is in the form of tire fluid then a tire puncture or slow leak is a big deal instead of being easy.

I don't use additional weight myself. But might do so if I lived in flat country with mud and real dirt.
rScotty

 

[Piston]

M62 owners, are you using rear tire ballast? Please indicate if it depends on backhoe. I am close on one myself, trying to fine tune the offer. Thanks so much!

Edit adding this: Just found in the owners manual.

Rear Ballast
Add weight to rear wheels if needed to improve traction or for stability. The amount of rear ballast should be matched to job and the ballast should be removed when it is not needed.
The weight should be added to the tractor in the form of liquid ballast.
When the BT1000B(L47)orBT1400(M62)backhoe is
installed to the tractor, rear ballast should be removed.

Is everyone following this? Do they mean wheel weight ballast should be removed, or do they mean liquid in the tires?

Here is one member who's filled his rears, perhaps PM him...
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...926-m59-discussion-thread-10.html#post4160427

...The rears are loaded which makes a tremendous amount of stability and sooner or later I plan on foaming the fronts when funds allow. I have had a slow leak on the right front for about 3 years now but apparently it isn't bad enough for me to take the tire to the shop yet. The only time the tractor gets tippy in 3pt mode is with the loader carrying a lot of weight, as in a full loader bucket above hood height on an off camber situation with a light attachment like the wood chipper. Lower the bucket down and it settles right back down just fine. With loaded rears the M59 is more stable than I feel comfortable with, as in if my ribs are getting poked by the armrest from leaning over so far to sit vertical, I find a better approach. I have to be very careful when I get on someone else's much less stable machine and scare myself one good time....

 

[mike69440]

After adding the cab I'm finding I can still move full pallets of sod without anything on the 3PH - it is a little light on the rear end though and I need 4WD sometimes. Works better in 2WD with an implement on the back.

The times I've maxed out the capacity of my tractor where it had a hard time moving in 2 Wheel drive (Say over 3,000 lbs of boulder crammed in the bucket) my pucker factor was so high that, even if it could, I would not lift it more than a few inches off the ground. Remember it is the rear of the tractor that gives you stability.

 

[rScotty]

I've not tried an M62; our tractor is the previous model - the M59. After a ten year model run for the M59 that culminated in the M62, most of the specs seem similar with the M62 probably as good or better everywhere. The M62 lost the rarely-used foot clutch but gained 2' on backhoe reach plus some dashboard changes and nicer pollution controls. Anything else of note?

I'm particularly wondering about the range shifter. Did they fix the M59's difficult range shifter lever? The range shift feature itself is a really nice part of HST+, but the shift lever on the M59 is one difficult and inaccurate puppy to move. Apparently it's a feature they all shared; it's been mentioned on TBN lots of times. Not only is that lever hard to move, but it's situated in an awkward place to apply the force needed to shift it. Maybe it works better on the Grand L series machines.

Luckily M59ers can do a lot of work in a single range with the High/Low control. And the M59 itself is such a fine machine that we learned to put up with its single fault and compensated with the "M59 Range Shifter Shrug". The "Shrug" is a sort of seated dance move where you lean your body to get enough elbow room to pound or pull on the range shifter until it shifts.
No problem once you've learned the move.... and not quite enough of a hassle to make it worth tinkering with a fix - but still a mighty strange thing to find in a machine where all the other controls are fingertip type.

If they've fixed it in the M62, does anyone know if the fix is retrofittable to the M59?
rScotty

 

[AaronM]

'm particularly wondering about the range shifter. Did they fix the M59's difficult range shifter lever? The range shift feature itself is a really nice part of HST+, but the shift lever on the M59 is one difficult and inaccurate puppy to move. Apparently it's a feature they all shared; it's been mentioned on TBN lots of times. Not only is that lever hard to move, but it's situated in an awkward place to apply the force needed to shift it. Maybe it works better on the Grand L series machines.

Funny you should mention this. I used my M62 a lot this weekend moving dirt from a new pond we had built and I did notice that the range shifter was not as friendly as I would like. I thought to myself 'finally!... I found something this machine is not good at! ". I spent a lot of time in a range that was not ideal just because shifting felt a little harder than I'd like. You really have to push hard on the lever and I just don't like forcing things like that. I did get better at shifting by just bumping the shifter with the palm of my hand instead of trying to push/pull it. Pushing the lever almost always ended up with me massively overshooting the range I was aiming for. It might be one of those things that gets easier as it gets loosened up.. don't know.

 

[mikester]

I've not tried an M62; our tractor is the previous model - the M59. After a ten year model run for the M59 that culminated in the M62, most of the specs seem similar with the M62 probably as good or better everywhere. The M62 lost the rarely-used foot clutch but gained 2' on backhoe reach plus some dashboard changes and nicer pollution controls. Anything else of note?

I'm particularly wondering about the range shifter. Did they fix the M59's difficult range shifter lever? The range shift feature itself is a really nice part of HST+, but the shift lever on the M59 is one difficult and inaccurate puppy to move. Apparently it's a feature they all shared; it's been mentioned on TBN lots of times. Not only is that lever hard to move, but it's situated in an awkward place to apply the force needed to shift it. Maybe it works better on the Grand L series machines.

Luckily M59ers can do a lot of work in a single range with the High/Low control. And the M59 itself is such a fine machine that we learned to put up with its single fault and compensated with the "M59 Range Shifter Shrug". The "Shrug" is a sort of seated dance move where you lean your body to get enough elbow room to pound or pull on the range shifter until it shifts.
No problem once you've learned the move.... and not quite enough of a hassle to make it worth tinkering with a fix - but still a mighty strange thing to find in a machine where all the other controls are fingertip type.

If they've fixed it in the M62, does anyone know if the fix is retrofittable to the M59?
rScotty

Give this a try...use the clutch when shifting ranges.

I looked up the operators manual on the weekend again about range shifting

IMPORTANT:
To avoid transmission and shift linkage damage when shifting:
A Completely stop the tractor using the brake pedals. A Do not force the range gear shift lever.
A If it is difficult to shift the lever into L, M, or H from
neutral position:
On slopes be sure to set the parking brake before starting the procedure.
(1) Slightly depress the speed control pedal to rotate
the gears inside of the transmission.
(2) Release the speed control pedal to the neutral
position.
(3) Depress the clutch pedal, wait for a moment and
then shift the lever.

I started doing just that and it shifts way smoother.

Let us know if you find if that makes your shifting work better too.