YM1700 run a 5' tiller briefly?

[284 International]

DeepNdirt made a couple good points, especially about tilling unknown ground: hitting rocks, pipes, electric cables or whatever is a real hazard. If this garden is new to you, there may be stuff you don't know about under the soil. I wouldn't want to find it with my neighbor's tiller.

I should have mentioned this earlier: I run a 5' Shibaura tiller on my 18 PTO horsepower Mitsubishi. It does fine, although it does require slow going and a ready hand on the lift control in case things bog down when cutting deeply. It has a temperature gauge, and things never get above 155 Fahrenheit on the indicator. (I don't know how accurate the gauge is. Doing light work with lots of idling, pulling a tool car around the orchard and the like, the gauge never gets above 150 degrees, so I'm not really worried.)

As deepNdirt and California have pointed out, it seems like the US style tillers require more power per foot, and the 5 foot tiller may really work your machine. I'd still at least try it. The PTO horsepower ratings should be more or less continuous ratings for our purposes.

For the Nebraska tractor test, for instance, the data sheet for my YM240 shows that they ran the tractor at full power and maximum drawbar pull for two hours continuously, then ran for ten hours (!!!) at full power but 75% load. As long as your cooling system is up to snuff, running the engine at full power and full load shouldn't hurt anything. In fact, it may actually clean the engine out some. Like deepNdirt warned, though, overloading the engine, whether by lugging it or popping the clutch repeatedly to get going or whatever else will wear out the machine faster than using a correctly matched implement.

 

[Car Doc]

Rather than letting everybody micro manage this for ya Ginormous just try it and tell us my guess is yes it will!

I am notorious for doing things that cant or shouldn't be done so it sounds like more of a challenge than a question to me! :thumbsup:

 

[Ginormous]

BTW, another neighbor offered to let me use his disc to break up the ground before tilling. I went over to get it, and it was a bit larger than he described. I went ahead and hooked it up the 3 pt and lifted it off the ground. Before I moved, I went around to the front and lifted up on the tractor... and I picked it up. I decided it was too much and took it back off.

 

[Car Doc]

Hahaha well realizing its all within the limits of the 3 pt of course discing with the front wheels in the air wouldn't be something I would do either! :thumbsup: :laughing:

 

[Ginormous]

The same neighbor had mentioned that this same disc killed the hydraulics on his 9N, and that was fresh in my mind.

 

[deepNdirt]

The same neighbor had mentioned that this same disc killed the hydraulics on his 9N, and that was fresh in my mind.

These are exactly the kinda things I'm talking about, too much implement and not enough tractor = bad things happening, it was Wise of you not to try using the harrow, do you have any front ballast weight? if not might consider getting some of sort, if your plans are to keep the front wheels turn factory you can get wheel weights for them, or of course there are the suitcase weights as well, But then you have that turbine engine I'm sure it weighs plenty,

 

[Car Doc]

The same neighbor had mentioned that this same disc killed the hydraulics on his 9N, and that was fresh in my mind.

Yeah discs have a lot of leverage since they are so far out from the pivot.

My disc weighs about 550 lbs and my tiller is 700 or so and the disc "seems" like more weight when lifting it.

 

[Brake Weight]

Somewhere earlier in this thread it was said the American tillers have beefier tines as compared to the import of comparable size. Due to this, American tillers will work a tractor harder. Has anyone ever modified their big ol' American tiller to lighten the load?

 

[Ginormous]

Update: Turns out I was not able to borrow my neighbor's 5' tiller. I talked to him abour borrowing it. He said I could, but when I called to see if I could come over to get it, he was busy and frankly sounded like I was bothering him. I decided it wasn't worth annoying my neighbor, so I used a walk-behind tiller. I'm disappointed I didn't get a chance to try it -- and had to spend 2 hours tilling by hand instead :thumbdown: -- but the discussion on this thread helped me reach the conclusion not to push it. Thanks. :thumbsup:

 

[deepNdirt]

I have always been the one who those borrowed from, On few occasions that i might have borrowed something it was always returned in better condition then when I first borrowed it, for one example: Washing or cleaning it I borrowed my Bro-in-law small trailer one time and put him some new/used tires on it, another time I borrowed a chainsaw that was dull to the point of no sharpening, So I bought a new chain for it,
but do I get things returned better then when loan out?, heck no! actually when someone ask to barrow my tools I am to be sure the tools are in perfect working condition, I loaned out a nail gun one time and told the person he need to get nails for it... He purchase a el-cheapo Generic brand nail and when using it it would jamb, when he returned it to me he told me it was a pc of junk, after using it all day while framing his shop with these generic nails he worn the driver ram out and I had to send it off to be rebuilt,.....
So really loaning things out might gain popularity for us but sure can cost the us some major $$$ as well, it was probably for the best

I have a 36" rotor tiller attachment for my Lawn tractor it works so-so, and is certainly better than a walk behind, but my plans are by next garden season I'm going to have me a full size rotor tiller for my yanmar,:thumbsup: