Recent content by IndyIan

I'm going with my Kioti, I just need ~30 more years out of it! It's mostly made with KISS repairable stuff except the HST I suppose? Maybe they are rebuildable? Or in 30 years you just take the old one apart, 3d scan it, and the 3d print a new one with new wear surfaces?

My main tasks are the same as yours, and the only time I wanted a gear tractor was for pulling a big two furrow plow in tough sod. Low range would pull it fine but not quite fast enough to flip it completely, and medium range was geared a bit too high and was working the HST too hard for my...

I can tell you 42 gross hp doesn't run an old MF 1440 4x5 round baler very well as the humidity goes up! Did surprisingly well before then, but it was to hard on my tractor for regular use. If you want to round bale then you need to size your tractor for your baler or one you are likely to use...

Maybe do a home made torque beam on your loader arm? Like a beam torque wrench? Maybe your loader wouldn't flex enough with only 1800lbs on it? Or shouldn't the simplest way is to T in a 10,000psi hydraulic pressure gauge on the lift side of a loader arm cylinder? Then just add your own...

I do remember in grade school that a few times, we'd see the same tractor stuck in the ditch in the morning... It was something old and 2wd and the old guy would get drunk and crash it sometime during the night... He's lucky he didn't roll it onto himself. There is the odd riding mower zipping...

I think once you are into the EPA engine management stuff you might as well go bigger than 35hp for the intended uses. You can now get 48-50 pto hp in a 6' wide tractor which can run bigger implements and still not require building wide trails in the woods to get around. I like my tractor's...

I started with one of these for the tractor and its had a good size cedar tree top that snapped off in the wind fall on it, and while the cover got a few tears, the structure survived fine. This profile sheds snow very well and as long as you don't want to use the doors these silly things seem...

Time for a new view(and hole...)

For travelling some distance on snow, a modern snowmobile is like a magic carpet that does mach 1 compared to an atv or utv with tires or tracks in snow. But for flatter places with not much snow an atv/utv can still function in winter pretty well as a work machine. We do a bit of firewood in...

I do a little bit down the side roads, but never on the highway. Too many city people, or big trucks in a hurry. Even with a seat belt and a roll bar, a tractor my size will be broken in pieces if hit by a texter in an average size vehicle hits it going highway speed. We lost a good community...

Its interesting that you haven't seen this before. I guess the east side of the continent was settled for quite a while before the west coast, so there's lots of houses still standing here built with full dimension lumber, and in my area every timberframe barn built in the 1800's and early...

I have a 5' and ~32pto hp I would go 6', 6.5', even 7' if my trails were wide enough if I bought again. I don't think I've ever really bogged the tractor with grass, it just quits cutting nice if I go too fast, and only some sections of trail allow me to go much faster anyways. With the hst...

That is one way to learn for sure! But I try pretty hard not to learn some lessons from experience!

Maybe a ~4000 lb tractor with turf tires? Lifts pretty heavy things, (I picked up the front end of a car this weekend to put some blocking under it), and can run some good size implements. I like mine anyways, but I don't mind marking up the lawn if needed with my Ag tires. I can't say I've...

What is the road surface? On my hilly gravel driveway I plow with a rear blade and no shoes, so its always got some gravel exposed and then the sun melts the rest. The hills for the most part aren't shaded by evergreens and I am going to keep it that way by selecting for deciduous trees near...