Plan Has Come Together To keep Me Busy In Retirement.

[WM75Guy]

Congratulations on your retirement!!!!

You're a few steps ahead of me, but the goal is the same. I got the bigger tractor, now I need the bigger truck and trailer. I'm terrified of all the smog issues on new diesel trucks, but I don't want to deal with wrenching on a pre smog diesel truck either. Eventually I'll have to make a decision, I just don't like any of my options.

Did you license the truck and the trailer as Farm Except so you could haul 20,000 pounds with a Class C?

Yes, it is farm tagged, along with my new dump trailer. Headed over to Discount Tire in Gun Barrel City to get the TPMS sensors installed. I had to get new rims for both trailers, the valve stem holes in the stock rims are too big for the sensors.

I don't plan to be too hard on trucks now. Any road trips are in the wife's Cadillac XT6. I added an additional 5-year service agreement on the 3500HD, so now it is 10 years before I have to worry about anything. That shouldn't be an issue as they get traded in at 10 years. My daily driver 2017 GMC 2500HD just turned 57,000 miles.

I am starting to like this retirement life.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Nice looking dump trailer. There are times I really wish I had one. I always worry about over filling them at the job site, and then not being able to dump it (dump won't lift due to excess weight) at the dump site, when I don't have any equipment there to unload it.

 

[EddieWalker]

What do you use the dump trailer for? My neighbor has one for his place. He uses it like a dump truck to move dirt from one are to another, but that just lasts a few days and then it sits for a year at a time.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

What do you use the dump trailer for? My neighbor has one for his place. He uses it like a dump truck to move dirt from one are to another, but that just lasts a few days and then it sits for a year at a time.

That's the main reason I never bought one Eddie, most of the time it would sit. But those few times you need one, they sure are handy to have. Would probably get used mostly for bringing loads of wood to the house to be split and stacked later for firewood.

 

[EddieWalker]

I wonder how that will work for you. I've tried splitting it out in where it fell and hauling it back, or just cutting the rounds out there and hauling them back, and then splitting next to where I stack my wood. Right now, I'm hauling the log to where I split by the house with my grapple, then cutting the rounds there and splitting there. No matter what I do, I'm handling the wood way too much, but I think hauling the logs with the grapple seems to be the fastest way to get the wood stacked with the least amount of handling it. The biggest downfall to this method is the mess that I make by the house that I need to clean up and haul off.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

I guess it would depend on where/how the site location is situated? Some sites, they want you to not leave anything behind, and some don't care. Right now, if I'm looking at very large rounds, I have to cut them small enough at the site to be able to dump them in my truck bed (8' bed) and then I struggle to get them out at home. Either sling lifting them or dragging them out the rear of the truck bed. So far my back window on my pickup has led a charmed life, but...

I can't put them on my flatbed trailer, as I need that to haul my tractor home. When I lived next to a neighbor with a sizeable tractor, he could come over and take them off my flatbed, then I'd go back and pick up my tractor and haul it home. That part was easy, but my old neighbor and I were constantly doing things to help each other.

But now, none of my neighbors have any tractors of any size that could unload my flatbed for me, and don't really have that relationship with any of them here anyway. So, just "spit balling" about having the dump trailer that I could drop off to fill on site, then haul each trailer home and just dump the wood on the ground where I can use the tractor to move the logs around to work them down. I've also been mulling over buying an old grain truck with a hyd dump bed and just using that to haul the flatbed with the tractor on it, using that to fill the grain truck bed with logs in one shot, and just hauling it all home in one trip. Not sure I'm looking to buy something that has the potential to turn into a money pit with constant repairs.

Trying to come up with ways to reduce the amount of manual labor involved in just getting the wood home to process it here. And here is where the log splitter and IBC totes reside for processing and storing. Often times "free wood" has been a lot of work in the past, which current health has kind of put extra limits to.

 

[hosspuller]

Hauling logs on a flatbed ... attach a cable to the backend of the trailer. Lay the cable on the trailer before loading, excess over the front... Cable length to be double the trailer length plus enough to go over the logs. load trailer with logs about 8 feet long across the bed ... . When at destination, either pull the cable or attach cable to anchor and pull trailer away. Cable pulls logs off trailer... Then go back to get your tractor.

 

[WM75Guy]

I have to haul in dirt to fill in around the stables on a frequent basis. Horses going in and out of the stalls plus erosion from the rain. Plus fill for the arena, dirt and mulch.

 

[Renze]

Not sure I'm looking to buy something that has the potential to turn into a money pit with constant repairs.

Here, when we give up on the truck parts, we strip the front end and beat the frame rails into a V towbar.

 

[Bearsixty7]

I wonder how that will work for you. I've tried splitting it out in where it fell and hauling it back, or just cutting the rounds out there and hauling them back, and then splitting next to where I stack my wood. Right now, I'm hauling the log to where I split by the house with my grapple, then cutting the rounds there and splitting there. No matter what I do, I'm handling the wood way too much, but I think hauling the logs with the grapple seems to be the fastest way to get the wood stacked with the least amount of handling it. The biggest downfall to this method is the mess that I make by the house that I need to clean up and haul off.

Sounds like a use for IBC totes. Split and load the firewood into the totes where ever you want then use a tractor and forks from then on to move the firewood.

 

[dodge man]

Nice truck and trailers. I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying retirement, I retired 3 years ago. I like it.

 

[WM75Guy]

Took my first road trip today, 200 miles round trip to get tires put on the TC40DA. All of the fancy electronics sure make it nice towing, knowing what is going on with the vehicle and trailer and that I will get an alert if something happens to a tire or lights. The Heads-Up display, along with the navigation voice, makes driving very pleasant. The top number is the adaptive cruise control setting, the middle is my speed, and the bottom is the posted speed. I especially like that the TPMS display for the truck and trailer is always displayed.

With 470 HP and 975 feet of torque, I didn't hardly notice the trailer and tractor behind me. On the way home I dropped the tractor off at the NH dealer to get it serviced and look at some minor leaks. All of the NH tractors are on the other side of the truck. They also sell Kioti and Deutz-Fahr tractors.

 

[nisaacs]

Nice rig!

How well does the exhaust brake work? I noticed your brake gain appears to be set at 10? Is that what is available or your setting? I normally run 4 empty and 6 loaded on my dump trailers and '21 Ram.

I don't think you need 470hp, how about loaning me some MY SO Ram is 370/850

Even my tuned up '01 Dodge, only has 400/900. Way back in the day, my log trucks only had 400/1200. The pickup truck power now days is amazing.

 

[EddieWalker]

I had no idea that you could see what the tire pressure was on a truck, and I REALLY didn't know that you could see it on a trailer!!!!!

What kind of deal did you get on your tires that was worth driving so far?

 

[WM75Guy]

Nissaacs,

Exhaust brake works really good. I set the trailer brake gain by doing the 20 MPH test till it stops without skidding the tires while empty. Ten is the max gain allowed by the truck. Three of my trailers maxed out. All are new trailers and have self-adjusting brakes so I hope they tighten up some. My older trailer is at 7.5.

Eddie,

It wasn't so much as a deal, it was more availability. I called tractor dealerships and tire shops in Athens, Tyler, and Fort Worth. The tractor dealerships don't do tires and the tire shops don't do tractors or could not get any Titan tires. Even the Goodyear commercial tire shop in Tyler was no help, even though there are Goodyear tractor tires made by Titan.

I went to the Titan website dealer locator. Bold Springs Tire in West is a Titan dealer. It was either them or the dealer in Sulphur Springs. They called first and said they could have them in 2 days from the San Antonio warehouse, plus they would install them while I waited. And I got to stop at the Czech bakery and get kolaches, which West is known for. The guy in Sulpher Springs seemed more of a one-man tire service truck business. Prices were comparable between the two and driving distance about the same.

 

[WM75Guy]

TPMS was mandated in 2007 on single rear wheel vehicles less than 10,000 GVWR. GM puts them on 3500HD dual rear wheel trucks as well. My 2017 2500HD has it, as did my 08 2500HD. I had to have the TPMS sensors installed on the trailers and then programmed to the truck. Discount Tire did it for me. On two of the trailers I had to get new rims so they would accept the sensors but that was no big deal. The valve stem holes in the stock rims were too big and sensors only come in one size. Plus I got stronger rims in the deal.

 

[EddieWalker]

I haven't bought tires in awhile, and the two places that I went to before have closed down. I needed new tires for my little tractor and ended up buying them off of Amazon and then figured out how to install them myself. I bought tire irons off of Amazon too!!!

It's kind of amazing that it's so hard to find a place to buy tractor tires.

 

[ericm979]

I had no idea that you could see what the tire pressure was on a truck, and I REALLY didn't know that you could see it on a trailer!!!!!

If your vehicle has TPMS sensors in the wheels you can get the data via ODB2. I do that on my Toyotas with a third party device (ScanGauge III). It shows tire pressure and temp. I also have the ScanGauge set to display transmission temp, gear, torque converter lock state, speed and engine coolant temp.

Some cars (VW for one) have "TPMS" with no sensors. They use the ABS wheel speed sensors to detect a tire that's lost so much air that it's rolling circumference has changed. I have not tried to get that data via OBD and it's probably pretty useless anyhow. It satisfies the letter of the law but it's not a useful system in real life.

 

[Bearsixty7]

I had no idea that you could see what the tire pressure was on a truck, and I REALLY didn't know that you could see it on a trailer!!!!!

What kind of deal did you get on your tires that was worth driving so far?

Yep, Ford has it too but I never added TPMS to any of my trailers, they get checked before use and during every trip.
Our F350 is supposed to have 60PSI front and 80PSI rear for maximum Load capacity. But for a better ride when driving it around empty for a long period of time I prefer to lower rear tires to 60-65psi, problem was the TPMS would indicate low tires (It has to be within 10PSI of Target pressure). I was able to download a program and via the USB2 link I set the rear tire target pressures to 70, now I can run anywhere from 60 to 80PSI and it remains happy.