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I use my shirt to clean the top rear pin area on the left loader arm. For all the rest of the greased locations, I don't like giant globs of grease that build up over time (my greasing method is three pumps or when I see grease coming out, whichever comes first). The globs can fall off in the...

I agree with others it should run fine. I have awful gravel soil and the tractor doesn't struggle until I hit a big tree root. I'm talking a 9" auger, but, really, the soil is just awful.

This should work. Or, you could drive in the tightest circle your steering allows, and try both positions of the 4WD lever. If 4WD is working, you should see some skidding and scuffing, and feel more drag on the engine. Anybody can use this method even if they don't have a FEL.

Yeah, this -- glad filters are good, but couldn't a low fluid level do this? The loader cylinders have fluid flowing in and out for movement in any direction, but the 3PT just has fluid in to go up (and out to go down). Raising it would lower the fluid level in the reservoir. Just an idea, no...

FWIW I have learned that it is best to park my FEL so that there is pressure trying to retract all the cylinders. If there isn’t, air can leak in through the rod seals, and make the response spongy.

I have one too. I glued a short stack of heavy plywood to make the platform, left the back open, and bolted chains to the upright with multiple grab hooks on each chain, to secure objects on the platform.

Sounds like this isn't going to work, based on specs, and based on your experiment. I think the first thing to go wrong will be when you first try lifting the pallet. Your system will go into relief instead. But, this seems like a safe thing to try, maybe if the numbers get somewhat better...

I read somewhere that falls into septic tanks are often fatal. Naturally, this surprising tidbit was hard to get out of my mind for a while. And, now, here it is again.

Actually, Flow/Piston Area = Speed Pressure*Piston Area = Force Speed*Force = Power

I can't imagine what tractor makers were thinking when they started putting the exhaust below and in front of the operator. It constantly stinks and, worse, irritates my airways. So, I built my own vertical exhaust, which ends a little above the canopy and a few inches forward of it. It's a huge...

I had to jumper my seat switch. It was way too sensitive, and would kill the engine when I moved too far forward to reach hand controls that were down low. And I like safety features, generally -- I think I've actually NEVER moved the tractor, or started the engine, without wearing the seat...

OW! OW! OW! I'm glad that by the end of your posting it became clear you weren't asking us to come lift the bucket off you....

Truth is, I was pretty afraid I was the one missing something. So, cheers all 'round!

Or switching wheels left and right?

If by any chance your FEL is available to mount something, you could use dump/curl to control flow, like a watering can. I've toyed with the idea of doing this to dispense brine on my icy driveway. The giant watering can could have no moving parts (no pumps, no valves) and be less maintenance...

Hope this isn't too much of a hijack, but I think tractor makers have grown complacent about where the exhaust goes. My tractor and so many others aim the exhaust down and forward, so the operator is driving through it. Exhaust is kind of nasty, and older tractors usually pipe it upwards above...

That's the thing. People choosing automatic car transmissions has caused some makers to quit making manuals. I like Subaru Foresters for several reasons, and I have a manual one, but they're no longer made. No surprise. But exactly the same thing could happen with tractors.

I used a subsoiler/ripper with my 15 hp Kubota to prepare my lawn, including pulling up tree roots. More power and weight would have been helpful, would have been faster, but it did get the job done.

If it's in 4WD, put it in 2WD, unless you're just moving it in a straight line.

My tractor came stock with telescoping tensioners, and they are indeed quick to get a loose setting. But they're very difficult to make tight so the load isn't shifting side to side like a barrel in the back of a pickup. I might prefer turnbuckles, like I had on the previous tractor, but I...

Absolutely. I was hoping something around knee height would work.

Not to ruin anybody's fun, but perhaps a little mirror making it easy to see the lever would work?

There's a "Park position"???

In a dedicated, enclosed bay of my pole barn. It has a rolling door, an asphalt paved floor, and electricity with bright LED lighting overhead. Everything I use with the tractor (attachments, chain & rope, maintenance supplies, a dedicated tool box) has a place there. I have a half-ton chain...

I feel your pain. I have several herniated and considerable nerve damage to my arms, especially to the left. I've had two surgeries and my C4-C7 are all fused together into one big bone with a metal plate to boot. My tractor has a canopy which I bought from the dealer, and it's clamped to the...

...so, is it a bigger problem if they get dosed twice? or if they don't get dosed at all? If it helps, I think it's more likely that I did not add the Stabil.

Thanks everybody -- this is fascinating!

Do kerosene tractors use spark plugs, or a diesel cycle, or what? Just curious. Thanks!

I did this too, but for mounting in the receiver tube in a SSQA to 3PT adapter plate I have, or in the receiver tube in my ballast. This way I can move the vice around under power, letting it do all sorts of new things. I've been excited about how clever this idea is. However, I did this a...

Just a thought: you probably want to take the towel off before operating.

See? See??? Tolja.

I'm waiting for somebody to post where exactly on your acreage the bolts wound up. Seems impossible, but I don't know, you get some pretty tough questions answered here on this forum....

Yes, I think you're right. The Fallston incident isn't far from me. I looked on aerial photos (mapping is a bit of a hobby) and figured out that the ravine is in the center of this view...

I had a somewhat related experience a couple days ago. I started it in the morning and this was probably the coldest the tractor has ever been when starting. There was a hydraulic noise, kind of hissing and a little screechy but not extremely loud. When I raised the loader, which was a bit slow...

Yeah, same here too.

Thanks! I remembered something else. With nuts on the bottom, it's hard to get them started. Things don't line up, and the flat washers block the bolt from entering the nut. I can't move things around because there's insufficient finger room. Or because I'm clumsy, or both. Hooray for nuts on top!

I have a heavy urethane edge I put on my FEL bucket to save scraping on my asphalt driveway during snow removal. My question could be about a broader range of applications, though, for example including tooth bars or edge tamers. I can install the 1/2-13 bolts from the bottom and put the nuts on...

You can see the outer surfaces of the sides of the bucket, from your driving position? I would have to get off the tractor to see those.

I use mine pretty much any time I'm using the bucket. It's plenty useful, and I don't think anything has ever threatened it (besides the fact that it's pretty sturdy). I don't use it with forks, because I can usually see the forks themselves well enough. Though, I sometimes use forks to pull a...

A hitch on the 3PT can rise up under the trailer, so you don't have to raise and lower the trailer to match the tractor. However, the 3PT probably does not have downforce, so a poorly balanced trailer can flip the hitch upward, which can go very bad if you're on a steep downhill. A hitch on the...

Orchard tractors are cool. I need one. Haven't come up with a plausible reason why yet, though.

Yeah, this! I think it's worth figuring out more accurately and objectively where tipping starts in a nearly static situation, but if we're going too fast that all goes out the window. I don't think high speed tipping dynamics could be figured out much without computer simulations. If you want...

Seems like it wouldn't be that hard to build a lock into the pivot for the front axle. Then the balance would be determined by the two tires on the downhill side, rather than the downhill rear plus the center of the front. Are there any tractors that let you lock out the pivoting action on the...

I'm not saying it would be definitive. But you have to compare this approach with the alternative, which is eyeballing the slope and guessing. It occurs to me there is a mechanism for determining when the tractor is almost ready to trip. Uncouple the left and right brake pedals if they're...

I think this is an important question and it's a shame there isn't more information available. For example, it would be very helpful if specs for a tractor could include the slope that would cause tipping in, say, a dozen configurations (R4 vs R1 in filled and unfilled states, FEL+bucket vs FEL...

Another vote for this. My tractor lives in an enclosed bay of my pole barn. It's kind of a tight fit and works much better to back in. That puts the battery towards the front of the bay, but I don't want cables laying around the path the tractor has to drive. So, I put those cables on my...

This! There are two issues that depend on temperature. Aging of the battery is much worse when the battery is hotter. The colder the better, at least at common outdoor temperatures. The ability of the battery to turn the engine over is much worse when the battery, and engine, are colder...

I had posted more than a year ago (#32), but with the thread active again I thought of a couple more points. I think the ballast box receiver itself is probably plenty strong enough, but these boxes have a maximum rated weight (IIRC) of 800 lbs, and weigh something like 160 lbs empty. I put a...

High pressure things can be surprising. I spent a lot of my working life around hydraulically driven industrial extruders, many of which operated up around 15,000 psi. Extruders sometimes exhibit uneven flow, where part of the exit stalls and then suddenly starts moving. It's called "spitting"...

I just looked at my NH with two different ultraviolet flashlights. AFAIK I do not have any hydraulic leaks. However, we should see some fluid on the rods, at least in a ring at the extent of travel for the seals, and also on the dipstick for the hydraulic fluid. I have used only the fluid sold...

The way I remember it, my homeowner's insurance covers it for $50 per year extra, and my auto insurance covers me for liability if I road the tractor at no extra cost. Since I bundled homeowner's and auto insurance with the same company, I could remember something wrong about the distinction...

If the tractor loses this competition, at least put an old tin can over the exhaust (if it's the vertical kind). Just my two cents.

Auger scares me the most, because of PTO shaft entanglement and auger bit entanglement possibilities. I realize there are other hazards on an auger, but these are the hazards that actually strike fear in me. BTW, the car differential mowing machine is an amusing notion, but how fast does the...

You could do an experiment measuring the hitch height with a tapemeasure so your vehicle springs become a scale. You could climb up on the tongue to use your known body weight to calibrate it. Decide what tongue height indicates the right balance and then move things to achieve that.

No! That was 100% sincere! I have seen photos of people who had been caught by a PTO shaft, and it seems like a horrible way to die or to survive.

The real problem is the other person being a bender.

They're only intended for hamming?

Speculating here -- I'd be worried you converted a slipping wheel into a backflip.

Oooo... it never occurred to me that this is hazardous, but I see it now! Thanks for mentioning it! I checked in the manual and sure enough they give a serious warning about this: "WARNING Entanglement hazard! Before attaching or detaching equipment or changing the Power Take-Off (PTO) shaft...

I'm a big believer in keeping the ROPS up and not drilling into it. The ROPS stays up and the seatbelt stays on because I really get how effective a safety system that is -- and because I think 99% of accidents happen to people who expected whatever they were doing to turn out OK. As to not...

I've given up on trying to get long life out of batteries. The trouble a dead battery causes me is often ten times what I'd save postponing the purchase a year or two. I replace them every 3 years. That keeps things available for unexpected tire failures....

If it's not clear, your machine has some engine speed for which the PTO will turn at 540. Since the engine probably has a tach and the PTO probably doesn't, you have to find this engine speed somewhere, such as the manual or on a label somewhere. For my machine it's 2510, but yours will probably...

A friend told a story about an old horse laying down on the ground, so somebody sent for a backhoe to dig a grave for it. But when the backhoe started, the startled horse jumped up, and lived for another year or two. It's good to be proactive, plan your work, etc etc. But isn't this kind of...

Interesting. I hope maybe ptsg nailed it. Should be easy to test. About the photo, it shows a tall rectangular depression running vertically just aft of your lever, as if a sticker is supposed to be there referencing the lever. The sticker would have come off in your case. I wonder if...

Fun mystery! Looking online, I see what looks to me like a multiple speed PTO (though it's confusing so I'm not at all sure). Could your lever control PTO speed?

It never seems to be discussed this way, but logically I think there's the equivalent of a gear ratio for hydraulics. You could put a larger displacement pump on a tractor, which would increase the flow, but it would also decrease the pressure attainable with that engine. In other words, the...

I have a Workmaster 25 and there's a pair of spade lugs on leads tucked up behind the bar at the back of the top of the fuel tank. It's driven whenever the headlights are. I think I looked through the manual to learn about it and there's no mention. Can you find something similar?

I think this isn't good enough, because there's inertia involved too. An ordinary lawnmower (with the blade bolted directly to the crankshaft) will stall the engine if you hit something very strong and immobile, such as the edge of a manhole cover. But it may do plenty of other damage at the...

I have the County Line (not Country) and my soil is so hard I still have the problem that it won't start. I've often done the bit with water. Beyond that, I often start holes with a masonry bit in a hand drill. My soil is round river bank gravel cemented together with clay. I can jump around on...

I've seen videos of these machines operating, and they sure do look versatile! I want a brand new one. Sadly there's no way I could have one of these, even if I could do time travel. Unless....

Mine had spade terminals crimped on the wires. I made a very short jumper with mating terminals, plugged it together, and left it tied in place. It wouldn't take any tools at all to restore it to factory new condition, or at most I might have to cut a cable tie I might have added (don't remember).

I have a New Holland Workmaster 25 like you do. The safety switch under the seat is so sensitive it will shut down the engine just from me shifting around without getting out of the seat. For example, I can't reach lower controls such as the parking brake because leaning forward triggers the...

If it's really seized, impact wrenches and oil and whatnot won't really work, will they? It's become one piece of metal, welded between the threads in areas. It has to be cut off. I had an unpleasant experience with this. I had mounted my bucket edge with stainless bolts and nuts, and I had used...

I've heard the worst thing you can do is use steel wool, because it disrupts the chromium oxide layer that stainless forms, and it will never stop rusting. So, you could try a lot of other stuff, just don't do that.

The reference station does, but that doesn't matter. The fact that it is stationary and nearby means that the atmospheric errors will be almost exactly the same for both, and can be subtracted from the one you care about.

No experience with ag applications, but I got very interested in GPS as part of a hobby finding and surveying historical ruins in the woods. Mainstream individual GPS units, the kind many of us have in cars or handheld, do the best they can simultaneously calculating distance to each of the GPS...

I pull out big roots when converting woods to anything else. I've also put mine on an adapter that mounts 3PT implements on my SSQA FEL, for miscellaneous jobs that require reaching in and pulling out.

I settled on a nice LockNLube manual gun with a hose and their locking head. I pump the handle until I see grease come out somewhere, or until 3 strokes, whichever comes first. Note that the grease could happen to come out in a hidden spot; I think I'm getting grease to come out and just don't...

I was wondering if you bent your loader frame. But I like your thinking -- a dry squeaky indicator rod is a much nicer problem to have!

Actually, I'd go even further. We're also here because of our own ignorance -- the most important thing to fix!

Thank you very much! Less than a year ago I retired after 50 years in industry. I tend to think in industrial terms. In fact, not 20 minutes ago I was placing a personal order with McMaster-Carr (and anybody who hasn't checked them out should!).

Here's a detail of the counterweight, my heaviest attachment, off the tractor but ready to be mounted. I've hooked the eye nut with the hoist, and have added a spring. Without the spring, the trolley lurches as I try to move the assembly sideways, and it's a little scary. Without any deliberate...

Here is an overview. The I beam is partly visible at the top edge, with the orange chain hoist. My auger hanging from a stationary cable, my boom pole hanging from blocks and tackle, and my landscape rake just leaning on the wall, are all visible on the left. My counterweight is on the right...

I wear mine 100%. I put it on before starting the engine even if I'm immediately going to get off and do other tasks while it warms up -- I've heard worrisome stories about vehicles moving unexpectedly, even a tractor flipping backwards in the barn when it unexpectedly lurched forward and hit...

I like your chicken coop hefting setup. Gotta say, though, as a clumsy operator, I'm afraid I'd drop the backhoe boom by accident, and bury myself in chicken flickings.

I totally sympathize. A ballast box can, though, be pretty small, only sticking out back by less than a foot, and as narrow as a cross bar. I bought one and filled it with scrap steel and then concrete over it all, brought the weight up to 800 lbs. It is very little in the way. Just my two...

All mine are category 1, but my back isn't even cat 0 anymore. Maybe if they were titanium I could wrestle them, but the only titanium I have to work with is holding my head on my neck. So, I keep all my implements in the barn where the tractor is, and I have a trolley on an I beam with a chain...

My tractor's not much different from yours. I think ericm979 is right about how hard it is to pull plants out of the ground with the loader. I've made it work by putting a hitch and hook on the FEL and tying cable or chain around the small tree trunk, which I've cut off about 4 or 5 feet up...

If the people selling engines could claim that you never need to change the oil, they would. That would be a fantastic selling point. Even more so for cars, which will strand you someplace if the engine dies. Take the advice of the people who have been designing and building tractors for...

Well, maybe.... but the main thing is you've shown me exactly the kind of mounting means I was looking for. Thanks! It's now officially a possibility!

I have one from Central Tractor that's maybe 30 years old. The ones they now sell at TSC (which absorbed CT) look the same, at least superficially. It's worked pretty well. I did have to grind away at the very bottom to get the tooth to bite in. I mostly used it with a small Kubota, and my soil...

This may sound awfully picky, but all the tooth bars I've noticed for sale mount with little tabs on the ends, which looks very flimsy to me. My (straight) bucket edge is nice and sturdy and has 5 bolt holes, and it just looks to me like those would be the only decent way of mounting a tooth...

Help out one of your slower readers, here. What does "red iron" mean and why does it make ladders less safe?

I did this for the seat switch (though I didn't add heat shrink like you did). I'm all for safety, including automatic things like the seat switch. But it was so damn sensitive! Whenever I leaned forward, like to set the parking brake or get a better view of implements and obstacles, the damn...

There was a small hydraulic cylinder, maybe 3" bore, with a couple feet of stroke, on a small jib crane. Its purpose was to lift the plug once the nut was loosened, and swing it out of the way, to get access to the chamber. The nut itself was tightened and loosened by other hydraulic cylinders...

I helped design and worked with a supercritical carbon dioxide extractor. It could dissolve substances out of objects without them ever getting wet, and had a chamber about the size of a home washing machine interior. It operated at 10,000 psi. The plug closing the chamber was held in with a...

I have a FEL bucket with a straight edge, and I use it to clear snow (my driveway has a big cul-de-sac with walls and I have to carry snow out through a narrow neck). But when I finally got it paved with asphalt a few years ago, I worried about the steel edge damaging it, so I bought a bolt-on...

I figure, they made it, they get to name it.

The OP has gravel and wouldn't use the broom on snow, but, for others, this could be nice especially as a finishing step. I've read (probably here) about brooming the last of the snow after plowing, and that it removes slip hazards. I have no broom and have never done it, but it sounded good...

Some folks find a big improvement by painting or otherwise marking some of the mating parts. My SSQA and attachments are all black, and occasionally hard to see. If I just put some white onto the plates I'm trying to get between it would be easier in some circumstances. You might also do some...

Says who? The manufacturer thinks it's 4WD. I actually copied and pasted from the manual. Their brochure refers to "4WD traction and rear differential lock", "Standard four-wheel drive" on page 5 (see link below)...

Wait, wait -- there are four wheel drive tractors that are not articulated and do not have front and rear wheels of the same size. My NH WM25 can engage or disengage the front wheels through use of a "Four-Wheel Drive (4WD) lever". I think this is pretty common these days.

Thanks! So, it's not "four wheel drive"? What is the alternative to "mechanical" in this context? Unlike cars, there are no "front wheel drive only" tractors, or tractors with AWD, are they? You've got me curious now. I thought it was just rear, or rear+front, and maybe a differential lock or two.

OK, help out one of your slower readers here. What is "MFWD"? I get the "FWD" but what is the "M"?

I got a good laugh when I bought mine. Several attachments I've ordered for the tractor arrived strapped to pallets. But the pallet I bought arrived in a sturdy cardboard box with FRAGILE stickers on it.

I think attaching uprights to the pallet so they don't wiggle around would be the challenge. I'd probably try threaded iron pipe of around 1 1/2" size, or else those cast aluminum fittings for creating railings. I'd use flanges on the bottom and maybe something to spread the force, like, say, 6"...

Very nice. I bought a nice plastic pallet, and I bolt it to my forks. But there's no railing, so not nearly as safe. I do wish I had that.

I see you are showing the tractor as your trailer load pulled up on the cross drawbar and then lifted your rears. I hope the landing wasn't too rough.

The whole question of legality seems a bit loose. I live in Maryland, and in researching it what I came up with is that it's only legal to road a tractor is if it's for the purpose of agricultural business. But I also get the idea that, unless you're doing something foolish or get into an...

No personal experience with this, just wanted to say that I have seen exactly this opinion expressed here before. Seems to be the prevailing wisdom.

Damn, that might have been enough to kill somebody in the next town over.

I see the photos on their web site show people working without any safety gear. Unless you count their product, which appears to be nice grippy rubber soled work boots. No harnesses or ropes, though.

I suspect the cop's intent was a pit maneuver, which would be hard to do with the heavier and higher traction end of a tractor. But what started as a classic pit changed into the wheel climbing the side of the cruiser, as others have pointed out. Not sure whether that counts as a pit or not...

In another forum people were talking about people who work on roofs professionally as if they all wear roped harnesses and helmets and keep a minimum of 3 body parts in contact with the roof at all times. But I don't think I have EVER seen that. The roofers and repair people that I've watched on...

I looked at some store-bought 3pt blowers and they seemed to run around $3K to $6K if I remember right. They can also demand dozens of horsepower. Pretty big contrast re the backpack blower I use. If you go the home-built route, learn about fan curves, and be careful as you're talking quite a...

Tractors aren't known for acceleration and speed. But in the downward direction they do it just fine.

Did you do that with bags of concrete, or a truck? How much concrete? If you don't mind my asking, how much did it cost? I don't know much about working with concrete. I've poured little slabs and set posts and poured steps one at a time, but that's it. How do you do that job? Maybe you do the...

More on this. I glued the stack yesterday. What a mess! Parts were so bowed that not even the couple of 6" bolts I bought for just this emergency could reach. It took way longer than I planned to get the parts aligned so bolts would go through, and drawn together. I decided to apply glue to both...

I was thinking of a jackscrew where others are placing a linear actuator. I'd just run, say, 1/4" rod with a couple universal joints through eyebolts, a little like many bucket indicators. I imagine it'd be about like those awnings that extend or retract with a crank -- they might have 10 or 20...

Lots of useful recent input on this thread! I have my plywood cut for a 3 layer assembly and it has been drying for a couple weeks now. All from one sheet, all parts run the full 4' dimension of the sheet but have varying lengths on what was the 8' dimension. The worst part curled so bad I've...

Been watching this thread with some interest. Seems like I'm jumping into and out of the seat all the time. But I don't need to power these things, I only need to be able to move them from the seat. In fact, as someone pointed out, having a powered system to move them can hide the fact that...

Once upon a time, I bought some product or another that came with instructions, and in big letters at the top of the instructions, it said "TRY OUR WAY FIRST". I like that. Soooo, I thought I'd look up my NH WM25 tractor and LC200 loader instructions. Tractor (50 hour intervals): "To lubricate...

I've mostly heard, "pump until you see grease coming out", but if the grease comes out someplace you can't see this is way too much. I pump until I see grease coming out or until 3 pumps, whichever is first. I don't worry about cleaning it much. Sometimes I wipe up, as I do like it clean...

Yes, this is a very important point. The stack will try to bend when loaded, stressing the glue in shear, and if the glue can hold the stack can carry way more weight. Just think of leaf springs on a vehicle, and imagining replacing a leaf spring with a solid chunk of steel with the same overall...

I bought Titan Attachments forks on Amazon, the exact product linked below. I like them just fine. Things can always be better, but these have worked out for me and were much less expensive than some other brands. There's some possible confusion. There were separate "Titan" and "Titan...

I have a wooden equipment ramp on my barn to make up a couple feet between the elevated floor level and outdoor ground level. It used to land in dirt and sink into it, but I paved and so now it lands on asphalt and sticks up. I trimmed the bottom of the ramp, tapering the support timbers as far...

I am still enjoying this thread, and really appreciate all the contributions. My infrequent drilling is consistently working better than it once did. There are a number of posts that are easy to follow, for example not using pilot holes below 1/2", or using Tap Magic. No question how to do...

Well said. I appreciate the same things. This place is great at helping us newcomers figure things out and, especially, see trouble coming before we wind up in it.

I think kids live for free and work for free, and we don't. Fair 'nuff.

That sounds great! Do they drive the same? Are they more prone to flat spots if they're parked a long time? If you wear the tread out, how do you change the tire (or do you have to replace the whole wheel)? I suppose the foam is made of bubbles that are actually pressurized a bit as the...

It dissolves rubber, or at least soaks into it and swells and weakens it.

Mine too, I think it was 6 years ago now. It was what the NH dealer offered.

A couple years ago I started a thread somewhere about choosing solvents, but it wasn't here at TBN. I did some careful research and came up with answers. Here is my final post in that thread: I've come to a tentative conclusion. I want to set up easy preferred access to two kinds of solvent...

Nice! Question for you about drilling forks: I've heard somewhere that forks are made of some special hardened steel. I question this, as I don't see why they would need to be, and they're not very expensive for something so heavy, and besides that they have major bending done to fabricate...

I grease each point until I either see fresh grease escaping or I have pumped the gun 3 times. I am for once per 8 hours of use, but it's a soft judgement -- more if I've been in wet or gritty conditions, less when for example using the pallet forks when the loader arms stay clean and dry. And...

There's one like that about turning an orange into a peach. You start out with a towel wrapped over the orange, and twist it tighter and tighter. Of course, your hands are doing all the twisting on the orange end, so you have to hold the other end somewhere. Finally, you say, "Ain't that a peach?"

Absolutely! In fact I've been toying with the idea of getting a bigger one. Though, I am slowing down.... Oh, I have. Once it's on the ground.

Lots of great advice here! Thanks to all! Wanted to point out: I'm a big believer in chains for rough things, especially involving ground contact. And wire rope too, for some things. What (regular) rope is good for, it seems to me, is: Long lengths -- I've run it 100' to the thing I need...

Hmmm, point well taken. Perhaps it should be mounted on a more vertical plane? I mean, so you could mow the floor or the wall (so to speak) or anywhere in between, and full dump position would still leave the operator above the plane?

For general purpose use, which I think includes moving large objects (maybe with snatch blocks in the mix) and pulling trees over, I like braided polyester arborist's rope. It has the right mix of properties, in the rope world of compromises. What kind of (non wire) rope do you use? While on...

Help out one of your slower readers here -- why? The operator's not going to be in the plane of the spinning blades or in the discharge path, are they? In fact the operator has some height and distance as added safety margins. What hazard am I not seeing here? Operating a push mower on the lawn...

Giver me the most intense orangish yellow, somewhere between Minneapolis Moline and Yanmar. Safety! And it suits my personal taste. What I have is NH blue, which looks professional enough I guess, but doesn't do anything special for me.

I've contemplated ways of making a sprayer convenient and foolproof for the purpose of brining my driveway in winter. I was thinking about a tank that would mostly fill the FEL bucket, and having a PVC pipe assembly to cover the spreading width with drilled holes in a cross piece. My idea was to...

I did do this. One difficulty is that to do this you need an accurate hole location. Depending on the part geometry this can be pretty challenging for those of us who aren't professional machinists. In my case, because I had drilled a pilot hole, and because my part was flat on both sides with...

I usually use 5/16" or 3/8" chains with a grab hook on one end and a slip or choker hook on the other. I also have premade 3/8" cable chokers that feature a slip hook with a socket for the small lug on the end of the cable, which makes it easy to pass under a log. And, I also have 5/16" cable I...

It is going to depend tremendously on conditions such as terrain, as others have said. You made me curious so I just looked it up: pulling a train at low, railroad yard speeds, on flat straight track, takes 2 to 3 lbs per ton of train weight. Rubber tires on dry pavement achieve a coefficient of...

Ahah! That's the sort of thing that's important to know, but which hadn't occurred to me. Or better to say, if you had asked me if I thought FELs are built for side loads, I would have said I guess not, but it just didn't occur to me that that's exactly what I might have asked it to do. Thanks!

Yes, see? Small capacity things like this can be really useful, and might be all that somebody needs. In a similar vein, I've wished for a small hand powered winch with a capacity somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 lbs, for jobs like lifts that are too awkward for a human, like lifting things...

EXCELLENT discussion and topic! I don't think the question is what we would like to see in Cat 0 on this forum, I think the question would do better in a forum for people that do not have tractors. But there's no such thing as a "No Tractor By Net" forum, so bring it on. The point is that some...

O my yes, 14% is steep! I figured I could drop the FEL if everything else goes wrong. I might even tie rubber onto the bottom of the trailer stand to make it grab better. Not sure the trailer will have brakes - do they all, even the small ones? The tiny little utility trailer I had didn't.

Fair 'nuff. The tractor is a NH WM25 with LC200 FEL that is 3400 lbs dry, plus 500 lbs for filled R4 rears, plus 800 on the rear counterweight if I use it (which I probably would unless the spaces are too tight). The trailer, well, I haven't chosen or bought one yet. I'm thinking, roughly...

We have been toying with the idea of getting a travel trailer. If we did, the best place to store it would be in our back woods, which are fenced in. There's driveway and gate and space between trees sufficient to drive multiple cars back there and turn them around. But I doubt I could get a...

To have made a difference is reward enough for me.

Just my vote: given that there needs to be a running chainsaw up in the air, it's much smarter and safer to be several feet away from it with some steel here and there between you and the saw, than to be up there holding onto the saw with your arms. Which are, after all, made of meat (as long as...

Just a vote for McMaster-Carr supply company. They have an incredible variety available. 16 different grades and classes. Tensile strengths from 150 psi to 180,000 psi. Thread sizes from 0000-160 to 2 1/2-8, and similar range in metric. 15 different materials (of which steel is just one). They...

Well, yeah! If the coil wasn't functional, I would have used the WD40 just once.

I used it frequently on one old car and never had anything happen.

They are lead oxides, along with white lead. Red lead is litharge, PbO, and it's an important industrial substance. I have worked, years ago, on components for litharge processes, though I admit ignorance as to what litharge is used for. Yellow lead is massicot, also PbO, and as far as I know it...

On a spline that doesn't move much, like the FWD one, how do you get grease or lube into it in the first place? You're not disassembling it to lube it, are you? Just squirting what you can in at the end of the sleeve?

But you might want to keep an eye out for rams.

It's ALREADY in cologne or perfume form. Happy spraying!

So I have found. I grabbed it by mistake for the hedge trimmer!

If this is a statement about what it is claimed to do, what it is sold for, what its purpose is, I think this is factually incorrect. I have here a can of WD-40 "multi-use product", which is the stuff in a blue and yellow spray can that is not labeled with any special use. On the back of the can...

The world seems to default to WD40 for all spray lubricant applications. But I don't think it was even supposed to be a lubricant, it was supposed to displace water (I read that they were trying Water Displacer formulas and the 40th trial worked really well, hence WD40). I'm going back to LPS1...

I don't have a lathe, but I sometimes use these for hand drilling a wee bit into a centerpunch mark so I can feel the mark, before using the drill press. Obviously this isn't taking advantage of the larger point of the bit, just the pilot. But another tool that's good for this particular task is...

Actually, I think it's the other way around. If the edges aren't balanced, only the one that sticks out further does the cutting, and it won't chatter. An extreme example of this would be the large diameter stepped cone drill bits for drilling large holes in sheet metal. They have only one...

Wait, wait. Drilling a pilot hole was part of the problem, and I suspect the biggest part. When there's a pilot hole, only outer parts of the two edges will cut metal, and they can take turns advancing, which makes chatter. I used pilot point bits when it worked right, and they're different...

I looked at your title for a while before I realized "MF" stands for "Massey-Ferguson". I mean, it does, right?

Erie. Is that what you were asking?

[...] [...] [...] This is exactly what I'm talking about. But it sounds like you've done way more than I have with it. I've tinkered a little and that's it. In industry, the inductive nature of induction motors is an expensive problem because it causes extra current to circulate in the lines...

Just to add an option, I *think* you could make this work by getting other motors and adding them to the circuit, starting them one at a time. Even better if you add the right amount of capacitance across those motor's terminals to counter their inductance -- this is the amount of capacitance...

I have exactly that Titan box (though the red version) and filled it with steel and concrete to bring the total weight up to 800 lbs. And I have used its receiver exactly as you describe, with a hook inserted, to pull. As far as the strength of the receiver itself, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be...

I had the best hood ornament I could imagine, and I lost it! It was a solid cast iron turtle head, weighing probably 3 lbs, complete with a couple inches of neck. The end of the neck was flat with a big blind tapped hole. It came off a Snapper mower that looked pretty old in the '60s when I...

The doctor helps with that. I have several good friends who are transgender, some of whom have had the surgery, and they're all good people. Nobody gives me a hard time when I need surgery, and I wish they could say the same. Besides, one of them is a good mechanical engineer who designs some...

https://makezine.com/article/digital-fabrication/machining/drilling-square-and-hexagonal-holes/

Yes. Actually this seems pretty interesting to me. There are special drill bits you can get for drilling square holes and hexagonal holes. The square hole bit has 3 edges, and the hex hole drill bet has 5. The flutes are straight, no twist. They mount in a special adapter that leaves the bit...

Revisiting this old thread. I needed a couple 15/32 holes in half inch steel today. It was a mounting plate on a 2" hitch, so I suppose inexpensive mild steel. I drilled them with a new DeWalt cobalt pilot point bit from a set I got on Amazon, with Tap Magic EP-Extra fluid, at 140 RPM, on my...

I do this. I have a nice plastic pallet on pallet forks, with four U bolts clamping pallet to forks. I operate the machine by myself and use a ladder to get up there. My machine has low hours and lives indoors, and I'm a pretty light load compared to the machine's capacities. For me it's a...

They cancel each other as far as making one side of the machine heavier than the other. But, they will probably lower the center of gravity. It is very likely that for tipping purposes you could model the mass of the tractor as being at one point somewhere around the middle and higher than both...

Hey... I really LIKE this idea! I foresee that this will become my next little attachment.

A numerical consideration: you want the combined area of all the holes to be smaller than the area of the cross section of the pipe interior. This will make the holes work approximately the same, rather than having the earlier holes spray more than their share of the water.

To lose horsepower between the engine and either PTO requires converting mechanical energy to some other kind, which of course would be heat in this case. It's hard for me to imagine there are things generating thousands of watts more heat along one drive chain than along the other. For one...

I have pallet forks from Titan Attachments and I think they're great. I got the 48" tines. I also bought a nice plastic pallet that just fits into my station wagon. I can have Lowes or Home Depot load it with about 700 lbs (concrete, gravel bags, pavers, etc etc), then move the whole thing out...

I hosed it off, wiped things down, cleaned the mirrors and the instrument window, and generally dressed things up. Then I started the engine so the heat would help dry things out. This blew a bunch of sooty water out of the exhaust stack and all over everything I had just cleaned.

Interesting, never heard of the lever being that low. I think there are so many times it's definitely better to be either in 4WD or 2WD, you want to be able to do it easily. I don't see leaving it in either position. Unless you can get by with a cheaper 2WD only tractor from the start! Not to...

Two neck spinal fusion surgeries here, C4-C5-C6-C7 all fused into one piece. Also a tumor removed from the base of my neck, and a lower spinal surgery just to round things out. I had to make accommodations, and they turned out well. For one thing, I bought very big glass golf cart mirrors...

Oooohhh. Nice.

Uh... yeah... turns out the FEL bucket can give the barn corner quite a backhand even without noise cancellation air pods. Though, the air pods would probably have improved my auditory experience.

Good advice all -- thank you!

My old County Line auger's drive shaft is missing the safety cover, and I'm not so sure about the bearings as it went many years without greasing. If I wanted to replace it, what information would I need? I'm guessing the tractor end of it is pretty standard, at least for Cat 1, right? The...

Agreed. And that's the thing -- it kind of has to start with us. That's one of the things I like about Safety forum discussions. This is a great place for us to get knowledge and insight.

It's not just erroneous repeated reporting of the same few cases. 9400 children per year are injured by lawnmowers: https://www.aaos.org/aaos-home/newsroom/press-releases/lawnmower-injuries-remain-prevalent-for-children-despite-increased-awareness/...

I saw the site of this today. It was a coordinates 39.882102, -76.381522, 1200 feet north on Furnace Road from the Otter Creek Picnic Area. The road is steep, the tractor was traveling downhill, and the curve turns sharply to the right as the tractor was traveling. The embankment was steep, and...

I'm not either. And I didn't feel like trying to bum a job off of the people I know who are. I found a machine shop near me that was happy to do a welding job for me, which they did pretty quickly for $60. It was a very good experience, and now I think "well, I could get it welded" whenever I'm...

Somewhere here I posted a question about whether any tractor 3PTs had downforce. There were a lot of replies with examples. But your point is well taken, they are very much the exception. Most absolutely ARE single acting. I like the idea of being able to lift the rears that easily. I certainly...

You're way ahead of me. But I can add the following: It is REALLY nice to have a chain hoist on a trolly on an I beam, so it can lift anywhere along a line. I have that. At 65 I need it more than you, but you're thinking for the future, right? Better still would be if the I beam could travel so...

This looks like a MUCH better way of attaching it than the tabs on the ends I've seen on other tooth bars. Does anybody know why they're not all attached this way? There are through holes in the edge of my bucket, and I guess maybe the edge is a harder grade of steel. Do most buckets have holes...

I understand Titan Implements, also known as Titan, was the better one, and Titan Attachments was lighter and lower quality stuff. It's a shame Titan Implements had to change their name, apparently, to avoid being confused with Titan Attachments. That said, I have pallet forks from Titan...

I have one I bought from either TSC or Central Tractor. They merged in '99 but I think I probably got it more like '95. Still works great. I have 9" and 6" augers, and wore out the 9", the screw tip and cutting edges just rounded completely over, just replaced that auger last year. Nowadays I...

Is that really separate disks? It looks more like a length of corrugated culvert tubing filled with concrete (which could be excellent).