Hydraulic Flow & Fence Post Auger Possibility

[brownbr]

I've been looking to get a 20-30 HP tractor. I've been leaning towards a reconditioned Yanmar.

I just bought a 48 acre farm (10 in pasture, 38 in till) last November in Texas. I plan to fence it first and the build up everything in some sort of pasture for cattle next. I plan to buy a small tractor now and a larger tractor later.

Small tractor needs to do:

• finish mowing for the yard (have bought a 5' H.F. finish mower already)
• some pasture mowing
• light duty tilling for lawn and vegetable garden
• most important, capability to auger holes for a lot of fence building

I recently set ~30 8" fence posts to fence off what will be a yard. After breaking many shear bolts in clay, I gave up on the 2 man auger and rented a skid steer with hydraulic fence post digger attachment. With down force capability it definitely is the right tool for the job. I was able to do them all in a few hours. I want to be able to recreate this with a hydraulic auger attachment that will bolt onto a compact tractor FEL.

I have been eyeing a Danuser 8300. The smaller model says it needs 5-10 GPM and 1500-3000 PSI.

I'm curious if there is sufficient GPM and pressure in the hydraulic system in these small Yanmars? (It would need to run a FEL and the auger)

Anyone know what the flow rate would be on a YM2310D?

What about this Koyker 140 Loader as a possible candidate for this setup?

Perhaps I could build a mounting plate that attaches to the Koyker Loader Quick Detach, and then with some quick connect couplers repurpose the bucket dump cylinder supply lines to run the auger hydraulic motor?

Would I need to replace the main hydraulic pump with a larger one? Or increase the diameter of the supply lines?

Or maybe I would even need to go as far as building a secondary system with a PTO mounted hydraulic pump? (I'm guessing this could get expensive)

Perhaps a used HST drive tractor would be a better choice for this specific use?

Any thoughts or advice?

thanks
-ben

 

[winston1]

How about a rear 3 point pto drive post hole digger. Believe it or not the auger being sharp is a key to these things going down regardless of ground conditions. I have tried both ways drilling through red clay/rock and was amazed at the difference. Cost between hydraulic and pto driven in $$. Just a thought.

 

[normde2001]

Why do you need down force? If you are breaking shear bolts down force is not going to help.

 

[winston1]

"(Have bought a 5' H.F. finish mower already)" Interesting Harbor Freight has not listed that mower for a couple of months. I'm pretty sure the same mower is sold by Northern Tool and blades are available there too. NorTrac 3-Pt. PTO Finish Mower 5ft. Mower, Model# 1104S079 | Trail Mowers | Northern Tool + Equipment

 

[TheGoose]

If you've got the same soil I've got (gumbo clay soil) post hole digging can be an adventure.

I have a hard time not breaking shearpins. No down force is necessary with my auger. Bad part is that sometimes it screws itself into the ground and won't actually dig. You have to let it go a little bit, then pop it out. Repeat. If you get it too deep and feel the tractor binding simply push in the clutch (one thing I really like about my 3400 HST) and stop it. Disengage the PTO, hop off the tractor and manually reverse the auger a few turns, then try to pop it out using the hydraulics.

I built a 300' fence before I got my tractor and rented a skid-steer with hydraulic auger to do the posts with. Best part about the hydraulic auger is the reverse. If you get too deep you just reverse the auger a little, with a PTO auger there is no reverse so I can see why you want the hydraulic auger.

IMO this is where a HST tractor really shines. When doing those holes it's really important to get the auger right on position. I also have a gear tractor and find it extremely difficult to get the auger in the exact position that you want, and then you have to shift F-R a bunch to get it lined up. Also while digging you need to bump the tractor forward (and sometimes reverse) so that your hole is straight. While your digging the auger always tends to go to one side as you go down.

I find that adding a little bit of water to the starter hole can help some. Also I talked to a dealer about a new auger bit and he said that I'm using the wrong bit and that there are "double fluted" bits that can handle our clay better than the typical auger. We'll see, I might try one this year.

Good luck.

 

[clemsonfor]

"(Have bought a 5' H.F. finish mower already)" Interesting Harbor Freight has not listed that mower for a couple of months. I'm pretty sure the same mower is sold by Northern Tool and blades are available there too. NorTrac 3-Pt. PTO Finish Mower 5ft. Mower, Model# 1104S079 | Trail Mowers | Northern Tool + Equipment

Hes the dude who posted on here when the HF mower was brought up a few months back when it was like $300 or whatever. He is the guy who bought one and said how good it was packaged and he did not even have a tractor (actually he bought one after the thread starter said he got one, i think). Then another guy looked for it on the site and said no longer availible and joked that he got the last one.

 

[brownbr]

Thanks for the comments. Some more info below as to want is encouraging me to investigate this.

The shear bolts breaking was just what motivated me away from using a 2 man auger. I special ordered a larger 12" auger bit and got it to fit onto the little gas powered auger I got from tractor supply. I needed the holes large enough to tamp in the posts I was setting. As soon as we got deep into the sub-soil and hit clay with that rig, the bolt would shear. And with harder grade bolts, it threw us around, and then still broke the bolt. :laughing:


I was also thinking that the right bit would be pretty important. This is the type of bit that I got and tried on the little 2 man auger.

It is supposed to be good for clay. It was much heavier than the one that came with the unit. It probably is a good bit, I think that it was just too much torque for that manually operated auger.


As for the downforce, I didn't realize that this would be an issue until I had rented a mini skid steer with auger attachemet. I dug several holes and most of them were a pleasure to dig. But, I ran into a couple holes that were crazy difficult to dig. This is similar to the unit I rented. It is capable of putting downward pressure onto the bit while drilling.

For most of my post holes I had a good loose loam and slightly more compacted sub-soil. However on a few holes they were nearly impossible to get dug out to the full depth. I had to make the little skid steer lean all its weight on the bit and still beat on it for a long time before I was able to eventually break through.

Inspecting what came out of the hole it was sheared off chunks of relatively dry, hard packed clay. These are the holes I'm worried about. If I happen to need to set a corner post in a spot where there is more of this clay in the sub soil, I anticipate a fight on my hands. And with plans for setting hundreds of posts, the odds are I will encounter this several times.

So any thoughts on attempting to build a hydraulic fence post auger setup with a Yanmar?

Has anyone else tackeled a project that requires significant hydraulic flow rate off of thier Yanmar?

If so how well did it work?

Or did you have to imporve the hydraulic system before it would work?

thanks again
-bb

 

[brownbr]

Hes the dude who posted on here when the HF mower was brought up a few months back when it was like $300 or whatever. He is the guy who bought one and said how good it was packaged and he did not even have a tractor (actually he bought one after the thread starter said he got one, i think). Then another guy looked for it on the site and said no longer availible and joked that he got the last one.

That's right. I've got my finish mower already, still no tractor. I am soon to buy the tractor. I'm trying to make sure I get something that's going to be able to tackel the jobs I have planned, in case it infulences which one to get.

 

[clemsonfor]

Thanks for the comments. Some more info below as to want is encouraging me to investigate this.

The shear bolts breaking was just what motivated me away from using a 2 man auger. I special ordered a larger 12" auger bit and got it to fit onto the little gas powered auger I got from tractor supply. I needed the holes large enough to tamp in the posts I was setting. As soon as we got deep into the sub-soil and hit clay with that rig, the bolt would shear. And with harder grade bolts, it threw us around, and then still broke the bolt. :laughing:


I was also thinking that the right bit would be pretty important. This is the type of bit that I got and tried on the little 2 man auger.

It is supposed to be good for clay. It was much heavier than the one that came with the unit. It probably is a good bit, I think that it was just too much torque for that manually operated auger.


As for the downforce, I didn't realize that this would be an issue until I had rented a mini skid steer with auger attachemet. I dug several holes and most of them were a pleasure to dig. But, I ran into a couple holes that were crazy difficult to dig. This is similar to the unit I rented. It is capable of putting downward pressure onto the bit while drilling.

For most of my post holes I had a good loose loam and slightly more compacted sub-soil. However on a few holes they were nearly impossible to get dug out to the full depth. I had to make the little skid steer lean all its weight on the bit and still beat on it for a long time before I was able to eventually break through.

Inspecting what came out of the hole it was sheared off chunks of relatively dry, hard packed clay. These are the holes I'm worried about. If I happen to need to set a corner post in a spot where there is more of this clay in the sub soil, I anticipate a fight on my hands. And with plans for setting hundreds of posts, the odds are I will encounter this several times.

So any thoughts on attempting to build a hydraulic fence post auger setup with a Yanmar?

Has anyone else tackeled a project that requires significant hydraulic flow rate off of thier Yanmar?

If so how well did it work?

Or did you have to imporve the hydraulic system before it would work?

thanks again
-bb

After reading this i just had a thought come up. If your only fencing 10 acres do you really need to dig hundreds of holes? I know your corners will have 3 posts to pull off of and your pull posts every 5 or so, but are you going to use T-posts or all real posts. Id personally go the T-post rout as its easier to do and cheaper/quicker. But it dosent look as nice.

 

[TheGoose]

Did you try adding a little water to the holes or quickly dropping the spinning auger? Sounds like the bit was not starting. My 3-pt is pretty heavy at the end, also I have seen some that you could set weights on just for this reason.