Questions about the PowerTrac 425

[johara1]

You should be comparing 425 class machines, i see what you base your comparison on. How much lift do you need to clean a ditch with a front bucket? If it were me i would use a rear off set angled rear blade and clean the wind row up with the bucket. Faster, smoother and with the grade and not tearing the road grade up twisting and turning on it.You need a rear 3 point hitch to do this….. I had a old 422 and i changed engines to 25 HP. and changed wheel motors for 25% higher torque and it doesn't come close to the the Steiner 440 on a slope mowing and the quality of the cut, mowing up a 30% slope is easy, the PT will have trouble just going up with the mower turned off.

 

[SpringHollow]

Personally, I would not limit my possibilities to just a 425 class machine but try the PT 1430 as well if you visit the factory. As far as cleaning out ditches, I personally use a metal blade attached to my mini hoe and do it crosswise. Since you are pulling straight back using the FEL circuit and curl, there is no tearing up of the driveway. If you were trying to use it like you were digging and dumping to the side by staying still and just turning, you would. One could also use a 3 pt rear blade attached to the FEL via a 3pt adapter or connecting to it by welding an attachment plate. You could then do some serious cleaning in the same way as the mini hoe.

There will be no one perfect tractor. All are compromises in one way or another. I went through 4 used tractors before I found the best fit for my needs, the PT1850. If I ever dig up a basketball sized diamond, then I would buy another tractor or two to complement what I already have.

Research on line like you are but ultimately try various brands and models, look at your pocketbook and then get what best meets your needs. In my case, I went used so that I could buy more tractor. (Do as I say, not as I do - I bought my PT having never seen any PT no less having tried one.) I have never regretted that decision. Because this tractor meets my needs better than any other tractor, I literally use it at least 10 x's more than any of my previous tractors. If my needs were different, then I would be saying that about another tractor.

Ken

 

[johara1]

Try mowing your yard with a 1430 or larger machine and see what happens when the ground is wet……… Working side ways to clean a ditch is slow as paint drying thats why a rear blade will do it better and faster. A grader is the perfect tool but not many will cut your grass………. lol…..

 

[SpringHollow]

I suspect most people who own a PT 1430 mow with it. I have mowed my yard with my 1850 without duals and the 1850 is much heavier than a 1430. It is extremely rare for the ground not to be damp and a little soft here. The wide tires really do a decent job of spreading out the weight. The weight distribution really is as good as my ATV when I calculated it out (jack up a front wheel, wipe the tire with a wet rag, lower the tire down onto a piece of paper to get a decent approximation of the sq. in. of ground contact. Pounds / sq in =(total weight/4)/ the number of sq. in. measured above.). If the lawn is very muddy, I can not walk on it. We do not have top soil here, just clay. A push mower leaves marks in the ground when the PT 1850 will not.

If you have miles of ditch to clean out, then you need to make a special implement for the PT or get something else. With all of my trails etc, I have about a mile of ditch but only certain spots need cleaning out so I do not even bother with a back blade hooked up to the front loader and instead use the small blade on the mini hoe. BTW, swales are much nicer than ditches whenever you have the room.

It is really hard to tell someone what is best for them. There are always competing needs and wishes with any decision and one person will prioritize differently than another. For example, I would rather have a more capable used tractor than a new less capable one. Many that I know would not agree with that prioritization.

Ken

 

[johara1]

I don't know, i've run equipment my whole life and retired from it after 45 years.i seen the mess a 422 does to my yard due to weight and the stupid wheels on the back of mower deck. Your trying to tell me a bigger machine will do less? my yard has as much as 2' of topsoil, and if somebody runs off the stone drive it leaves a rut. If you want to talk ground pressure we can do that also. PT's lack of travel power is part of the reason they can't can't get around except on fairly level areas you can't feed fluid from the front travel motors to back ones without a power loss and with no weight transfer the machine wants crawl up the lift arms and it takes the weight off the front. So when the yard get soft and the mower starts to have resistance it makes a mess and on the side of a hill it starts to crab……… been there and done that………. Maybe where you are you can run a D11 across your yard and it won't hurt it, but here it won't cut it, I have 11 courses of block under ground to be solid for the foundation …….

 

[SpringHollow]

My yard is much worse than normal. I can guarantee it s worse than yours if you have top soil. As I said, a push mower leaves impressions most of the time. I can not speak to the smaller machines since I have never owned one. And yes, the PT mower wheels will definitely trench my yard because it is soft so I raise the mower a little. I have very little flat ground here - most is at 20 degrees, some is steeper than that. The only time I have trouble with my machine is when I am pulling a trailer full of logs up 20 degrees or greater and I hit a muddy spot. More than a couple of passes and the grass gets all chewed up and it is a mess. But my CUTs could never have made a couple of passes. They could not even go down the trails without getting stuck in the mud, no less going up.

Ken

 

[sirmombo]

I use a 1430 to mow my yard, which is a 16 acre apple orchard on 14 % grade and it does virtually no ground damage even if the grass is wet. I am using the brush cutter. It doesn't cut as evenly as a finish mower, but it looks good for an orchard. We also have a Kobota 72 inch zero turn mower. That is much faster and does a better job mowing, but does a lot more turf damage. It slips a lot when the grass is even damp and is uncontrollable when there are apples on the ground.

The main reason I went with the 1430 is how little ground damage it does and the visibility being much better than a skid steer. If I mowed with a skid steer, I wouldn't have any grass left.

I never saw a steiner in person. Without a FEL it wouldn't be of much use to me. Mowing is only one job for the 1430.

 

[Xfaxman]

Slope charts:

 

[ponytug]

I'm with SpringHollow; the red machines definitely float well on soft soils.. I believe if you look through the archives, you'll find some calculations on ground pressure, and yes, the bigger machines have lower ground pressure. They are heavier, but the tire area is larger. Even lower if you run turf tires. Again, I've never driven a 4XX, so I can't comment.

All the best,

Peter

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

Thanks for all the info folks. A lot of new information. Believe me, mowing grass is the least of my worries. We already have the Huskvee, which does the job mowing, except on the two grass slopes that are 50% (per the chart posted above). Right now I do one of them with the Huskvee (downhill only, and thank God for the new road that cuts across, making a landing/turning-around space right before the 75% drop off--some pucker factor there). The other one doesn't have a good "landing place"; it ends in tall trees. No where to turn around, can't back up, can't go forward, can't turn around..... I pay someone to mow that one now. Would like to clear a landing place/turning around place there too; but if I have to, I'll let it revert to wild Frankly I don't much care about grass lawns....just a little around the house is fine and I ain't that picky. This isn't a golf course. There's only so much effort I'll put into farming something I can't eat, like tall fescue.

Really my main need is expanding the garden/orchard, or should I say "carving it out of the mountainside"; maintaining the long gravel driveway, the even longer steep road to the ponds, the paths around the ponds, and the trails all through the woods. Some of this is now just maintenance, thanks to hours/days/weeks of backbreaking work with shovel and rake. But a lot of it is making new. When I bought it, this property was a couple acres of weedy grass surrounded by 16 acres of Vietnam jungle--I'm sure you can relate. Former owners were city folks who never left the house except to mow the lawn. I want to leave a lot natural, but I'd like to be able to SEE some of it for one, and have at least a small path to walk all around it. Plus, let's face it, this is second-growth forest, and keeping some of poplars cleared out helps the hickories, chestnuts, black walnuts, come back. Not to mention our native (and rare) red pines. Can't let the poplars choke them all out. I also feel that by clearing out the ravine and spring, getting it flowing again, and creating ponds, has also created new habitat, as well as being nice to look at.