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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).

Like Dave says. In fact, I bought what I am sure is the exact same ballast box that Dave shows in his photo (every little detail matches). I had some big chunks of steel left over from an industrial machine build (and these things were huge, rectangles cut from 3" thick plate). I lowered them...

You can run that round bar through a hole near the middle of a cross drawbar, and attach it to your top link. Both drawbar and top link end will be rotated 90 degrees to make this work.

I cut a through slot into the cap of a big soda bottle, and put it back on the bottle. Razor blades and box cutter blades just fit through the slot.

They do, that's kind of the problem. They don't necessarily hold onto it forever.

I have a fuel caddy tank with rotary hand pump, that I don't move around (it's on wheels but I think it'd be too heavy for me to move safely). I bought it from TSC, after one I bought on Amazon arrived badly dented and unusable. It was amazing how similar the photos and descriptions of these...

Ah! This is the clue I didn't think of! Thanks

I'm with you, pal. 65 here, and just had more neck fusion surgery, plus lower back surgery years ago. I plan on using this spine for years to come, so it isn't lifting any more implements or attachments, ever. I park my tractor in a paved bay in the pole barn, and I have an ibeam-trolley-chain...

I've looked over a couple different towed implements (a wagon and a tedder) that have a single hydraulic line running up to the hitch. What is the story with that? Are they doing some action with a gravity return, like lifting or tilting the implement? Can they operate on a tractor that has...

How do you know wall thickness? Can you get at it to measure it for all the pieces?

I do this to a slighter degree, driving maybe 2' or 3' up the pile while raising and dumping. Since it violates the idea that you shouldn't drive on uneven ground with the FEL high, it feels sketchy, so I only do it to this smaller degree. My strategic vision is to gradually do this further and...

When I got my tractor it was brand new from the dealer with filled rears. Manual said 25 for the rears, but I measured 8. This was on a low pressure gage I bought from TSC. I forget what the gage range is, maybe 30. I never got the sense that they were bulging or soft. The fronts are very much...

Yesterday the neck brace officially came off and I can drive again, which is a huge relief because I actually can't walk to any businesses other than a couple convenience stores. And drive I did! But I discovered a mountain of leaves under and around my car, such that the exhaust system is...

Any chance you could post a picture? Our grandson is going to help us with leaves today and I sure wish I had a giant bucket for moving the piles accumulated in our parking area. I got my neck worked on again and I'm not allowed to lift over 10 lbs, which severely limits what I can do, but I...

One thing I learned from this post is that diesel fumes are not ignited by the sparks in a vacuum cleaner's brushes. This isn't surprising, but for me at least it also wouldn't have been surprising if they were ignited. Whoa, wait, it would have been very surprising, if I'd been anywhere near...

I like the idea of doors opposite so equipment and breezes can travel through. It's a pain if a door faces uphill. A door pointing gently downhill is no problem. I have a high fence enclosing the back half of my lot, with my house on the fence (front and back doors open to outside and inside...

They make big vinyl heavy duty bags for gluing assemblies while using a vacuum pump to get a loading of 15 psi. I'd like to have one of these. I did laminate 3 sheets of plywood maybe 24X36", with the middle one oriented 90 degrees differently, to create a heavy "deck" for a 3PT platform lift...

I keep thinking it would be easy to make a plywood insert that fit into the standard bucket but was much longer in the forward and the forward+upward directions. Every fall we wind up with huge piles of leaves to pull out of cul-de-sacs, and I bet the biggest don't weigh more than maybe 200 lbs.

Boy, some of your pictures sure look familiar. I do a whole lot of hiking in and around White Clay Creek State Park and also Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area. Also some in ChesLen, Stroud, Brandywine Creek State Park, Ridley Creek State Park, Goat Hill, Chrome Barren, and other areas...

I agree with that. If a lining material in the combustion chamber acts as thermal insulation, that should improve thermal efficiency. It's a question of how much, and what else gets sacrificed to do it. Ceramics have thermal conductivities in the neighborhood of 1 W/(m K). The heat transfer...

I've augured big holes, suspended the post in the hole with room below, and poured concrete to slightly above grade with a rounded top surface, with great results. Mine are now almost 40 years old and look fine. It matters how you are attaching to the posts. If you are using prefabbed panels...

Well this is a bit of a head scratcher. Most significant I think is their claim that the dimples create turbulence, which allows the combustion air to burn hotter closer to the metal. I understand that to mean that the turbulence is lowering the heat transfer coefficient between the air and the...

Yes, this might have been my best option had I wanted to upgrade a little. A box blade with only one lowered ripper is still faster than the ripper plus the FEL, because you wind up with a little pile on every pass. And I did come at least somewhat close to that upgrade.

Oh, I would expect it to alter the outcome a very great deal! I would absolutely have preferred a heavier machine. I mean, I'm a normal tractor admirer, bigger is better. But, then, tuppence is tuppence, right? And I'm just small change. I had a 4 hp riding mower when I was little, the blade...

Having started this thread, I guess I'm about where I was in the first place. I thought it possible that there was some binary distinction, like FELs have to be "dig rated" or "pile rated" and I just didn't know where to look. But it's about like I was figuring when I did a big project this past...

Central Tractor was a chain pretty much like Tractor Supply, and they merged to become the present Tractor Supply in 1999.

Yes, I second this. I have one from Central Tractor, and the name has worn off in the 30 years I've had it -- I don't know if it's County Line or what, but it looks like what TSC sells today. It has drilled at least 200 holes in my awful soil made of bank gravel plus clay. My 9" auger bit is...

One problem with shaving off a high crown is your pile of snow winds up being a pile of snow and gravel, and leaves a mess to be scooped up after it melts (depending where you can put your pile).

I kind of think "front end loader" means an implement on the front end for picking up and moving loads, from a pile. I fear my little CUT bucket (with a straight edge) isn't meant for cutting into the earth, and if I try to do that, I should go easy, because I'm pushing it out of its intended...

Yes to this, they're like snagging a little branch under the lip and dragging it through the snow.

I have 3 of the Edge Tamers and also a FallLine Polyurethane Bucket Edge. Both seem well made and seem to do a good job. I bought the Edge Tamers first, when my driveway was not paved. They keep the edge from digging into the earth. I've used 3 at a time. This can be a good idea if your...

I keep noticing tire tools at each of the local Tractor Supply store. Somebody's buying them, and I doubt dealers get their tools at TSC.

I've read that being hot is what most ages a battery, and also that starting an engine while cold is the toughest test of the battery. On a hot summer day, the engine will start easily, but the battery has been aging rapidly. On a cold winter day, the battery may fail to start the engine...

I probably use about 70 or 80 gallons a year. I bought a 35 gallon tank with hand crank pump through TSC and like it very much. I also have three Eagle 5 g Safety Cans, and a carrier basket to plug into the trailer receiver on my car, big enough to hold all three cans. Making two trips with the...

I got that little oak out this morning. I'd cut it off a few feet up and was working it back and forth with my cable hanging from a FEL adapter plate. I poured a bucket of warm water, with a little soap in it, into the hole while working it around, reasoning that this would break up the adhesion...

Yes, I second this motion. A trailer on the 3pt can, for example when going downhill, cause the 3pt to rise up. The 3pt has no downforce on most tractors. You could go unstable with a trailer crowding behind you hitched 2 or 3 feet above ground level. A real draw bar (not one of those 3pt cross...

Not sure I follow. What wheel? Are you rolling just a wheel, by itself, over to the stump, putting the chain on top of it, running the chain approximately horizontally to the drawbar, and using that wheel kind of like a gin pole? Or are you wrapping the chain around a wheel on the tractor to...

That is very nice. Based on the stuff faintly visible in the background, I'd say you're pretty well equipped to build things like that.

I spent maybe half an hour trying to pull an oak a bit under 3" with my 25 hp 2500 base weight tractor, using cable grips on an adapter on the FEL. I'm wrapping a few turns of 5/16" cable around the trunk at least two feet above ground level, having already cut the tree above this level. I was...

My New Holland WM25 manual includes this step while operating the geared transmission to start the tractor in motion (their bolding): 2) Move the hand throttle lever (2) forward until the engine speed is above 1500 RPM. They don't elaborate on why. There's also a note about not lugging the...

Lotta energy stored when a farm jack lifts something heavy way high up. We might picture a giant mouse trap. "The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese." Hey, sure sorry about your thumb. Those things happen, and there's no sure way to avoid all of them.

I can imagine that PTSD and a recent barn fire might be quite a chore to manage together. It doesn't help me any when circumstances happen to intersect badly with the things I deal with! But it does sound like the way you're doing things lately is a big improvement.

So sorry. This is a good reminder to the rest of us to do something like take a zillion photos from multiple angles to help us remember if we need to. I find that when I start trying to remember, and start writing a list, the list helps me think of additional things. Also, we humans are...

Another idea for the remote latching mechanism: use a double ended hydraulic cylinder to push the latches open or closed, and use a small hydraulic pump (or motor) with a crank on the shaft to power the cylinder. Crank one way to latch and the other way to unlatch. You'd load this little system...

Another thought on being able to unlatch and latch without leaving the seat -- it's not as if the latch requires much mechanical work to actuate. There's no need for an electric motor or a hydraulic cylinder, and all the extra complication those things introduce. A simple crank, or levers, or...

I bought my SSQA pallet forks with 48" tines from "Titan Attachments" on Amazon, and I'm completely happy. I wouldn't hesitate to order another item this way. The only advice I can think of that I wish I had done is this: if you're going to buy pallet forks, get some pallet forks before you do...

I'm sure that's fine. Gear box oils are generally not very fussy choices, as long as they are thick enough, and you have satisfied that requirement perfectly. In fact, it strikes me as just a bit... fastidious... yes, fastidious of them to call out a lower viscosity grade, once they've already...

I think most of us are talking about "crushed stone", not "gravel". "Gravel" is a natural product, little stones that have been formed by water and abrasion and whatnot. It is dug up at gravel pits, and washed and sorted. Locally, much of the soil is gravel, rounded stones that are creamy...

Well, that's me, at least the first time....

Lifting and curling forward is exactly what you'd do to drop the implement if it's not pinned.

I hear you -- and I'm an actual physicist. I think there's a lot we could do to our ROPS without measurably changing the safety they provide. For example, what's one teeny little 3/32" hole for fishing a lamp wire up there going to hurt? But the thing is, there's kind of a sacred cow involved...

I think there is. I know English sizes better so I'll use those as my example. 1/4" bolts take 7/16" wrenches, 5/16" bolts take 1/2" wrenches, 3/8" bolts take 9/16" wrenches, and so on. However, there are exceptions. In my experience fastener makers refer to "large pattern" and "small pattern"...

Took down a second small oak, but a bit bigger than the one about 7 posts earlier, around the upper limit of what I will try to take down myself. It went faster. Aim was good, at most 10 degrees from where I wanted it to fall (it didn't look difficult and I didn't put a rope on it as I always do...

I think the NH CUTs have two different loader arm shapes that would affect this. The Workmaster 25 CUT has arms that have straight segments and an angle in the middle, whereas the Boomer ones have curved arms. My Workmaster arms with the angles can interfere with this line of sight, but I just...

We will see! I just ordered one. It does look more straightforward to mount than the three I have used so far (though for two of my three I needed some side to side adjustability that this one does not appear to provide). For the ones I have used so far, which might have been truck mirrors now...

I've been wondering about putting a mirror just under the front of my canopy. It'd need to be close to horizontal. I have used nice convex golf cart rear view mirrors before, though at this location a few feet away from my eyes the convexity would need to be very slight. Anybody done something...

Glad the trip went great! For future reference: I like the approach of weighing the force on the tow vehicle. But most of us don't have a suitable scale. If you just want to find the COG, you could do this using the springs of your tow vehicle as a scale. With the tractor out, measure the...

Are you saying the battery is seven years old? Or the loose nut behind the wheel is seven years old?

The more I ponder it, the more I think clamp on forks should get ruled out for a reason I haven't seen yet here: With clamp on forks, if you accidentally catch something sturdy enough on the end that you didn't mean to and you can't see it, you're at risk of bending your bucket even if...

I just got rid of an oak. It's always been in the way, and this year it died. I chainsawed it off about 5' off the ground, where it was about 5 inches in diameter -- I have plans for that lever! Then I dug around some of the roots on the surface and cut them with a reciprocating saw (I buy nice...

I have what I think is the same as the TSC, though it was Central Tractor back when I bought it (I believe Central Tractor was bought by TSC and absorbed). It has been fine for roots. As to weld quality consistency, well, no promises, but you can look at one all you want before you buy it...

Did the kids close your descent speed adjuster valve?

Having spent yesterday with a backpack blower loosening all my fillings, I am right there with you. The rub is, they're certainly expensive. And they seem to want a lot of horsepower, though even my small 25 hp tractor has more of it than the stinky two stroke on my back.

Right, I got that, but what type of fire will I be trying to control? In other words, in a barn with a tractor in it, what is likely to go wrong? Electrical fires, it seems to me, rapidly become some other kind of fire. Electrical equipment is typically not flammable, and it only combusts...

What kind of fire extinguishers should I buy? "ABC" powder?

Wow. Just, wow. If this isn't a study in the human condition, I don't know what is. This has me trying to remember every detail of how the barn is wired, and whether I cut any corners anywhere. And, on second thought, wondering how many of the rest of us are likewise trying to remember.

I like angling it up in front. Like you say, rain won't mostly drain forward that way. An added plus is that you can tell whether a branch will hit it, just go slow and if it clears at first it clears all the way.

Isn't that a bit dicey? You're adding weight by hand, beyond what would make the system go into relief using the lift or curl functions? It can't relieve itself if the cylinder is just getting loaded externally and doesn't get the chance to move itself. Keep loading it further and further that...

Inspired by a thread in "Build It Yourself" called "A cautionary tale about fiber board bench tops." I have my tractor happily stored in one bay of my barn (a wooden pole barn 3/4 of which is partitioned off and enclosed with wooden stickbuilt walls). There's a 35 gallon diesel hand-pumped...

Bad ideas. They would become your rear wheels, when they engage, and they have ZERO tread.

Dang. Didn't think of that. You're good!

Oh, come on, what fun is that? For me, it's a tossup between bucket and pallet forks as the most used. Least used would be my 3PT platform lift, which I think I have not mounted for 3 years now, and the poor thing's sitting out in the woods. But once upon a time I used it at least twice a week.

My New Holland Workmaster 25 uses a common reservoir for all hydraulic fluid plus transmission and differential. The fill port is in back near the right lift arm.

Same here, for parts of a B6200. Bought the cans from the dealer, and the result passed for new.

I bought one of those clip things you see on pet leashes, with a hook at each end and spring loaded plungers that close the hooks. One end I clipped through a hole near the edge of the PTO cover. The other end I clipped through the box end of a combination wrench sized for the jam nut. It was...

I talked in another thread here about getting air into the cylinders because of the way I left the machine after use, and fixing it by parking differently. Could it be that?

I prefer the type I used to have, which had turnbuckles. There wasn't chain involved, but I guess they would have worked just the same if there had been. Now I have the tubular ones, which seem to be sold as some kind of premium advantage, but I don't like them as much. For most implements I...

I've thought about doing this. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that forks are made of hardened steel, and thought it might be hard to do this. But I don't know why they'd be made of hardened steel, as the softest steels still seem plenty hard for this application. Is drilling a hole in a...