Ballast box--how big?

[MorningViewStables]

Nice! Dare ya to paint "Jimmy Hoffa inside" on the box!

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[Underdog57]

Nice! Dare ya to paint "Jimmy Hoffa inside" on the box!

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Ha! That's a good one, but you never know, I do live in Michigan.

 

[MorningViewStables]

You will have the Feds busting it up to check!

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[Underdog57]

You will have the Feds busting it up to check!

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Yah, that's all I need, a bunch of black suburbans roaring in the driveway!

 

[juddspaintballs]

Does anyone know what one of those big concrete barrier blocks they sell for retaining walls weighs? I can buy them locally for $40 and if my 3 pt can pick one up, I'll build a frame for it and just use one of those. That's cheaper than buying concrete alone.

Concrete Barrier Blocks

 

[GManBart]

Yah, that's all I need, a bunch of black suburbans roaring in the driveway!

Not many Suburbans left from what I'm hearing....tight fuel budgets, and such. They say anything larger than an Explorer is almost impossible to get these days. Two guys in a black Fiesta, wearing dark suits would worry me though....

 

[GManBart]

Does anyone know what one of those big concrete barrier blocks they sell for retaining walls weighs? I can buy them locally for $40 and if my 3 pt can pick one up, I'll build a frame for it and just use one of those. That's cheaper than buying concrete alone.

Concrete Barrier Blocks

Those are just shy of one cubic yard (24 versus 27 cubic feet), so they weigh about what a yard of concrete would....varies with the mix, but I'd guess around 4,000lbs (I drove a redi-mix truck years ago).

 

[Underdog57]

Does anyone know what one of those big concrete barrier blocks they sell for retaining walls weighs? I can buy them locally for $40 and if my 3 pt can pick one up, I'll build a frame for it and just use one of those. That's cheaper than buying concrete alone.

Concrete Barrier Blocks

The 6' should be about 3480#. 3' should be 1740#

 

[juddspaintballs]

So one of the 2x2x3' blocks would better suit my needs for $20.

 

[Underdog57]

Those are just shy of one cubic yard (24 versus 27 cubic feet), so they weigh about what a yard of concrete would....varies with the mix, but I'd guess around 4,000lbs (I drove a redi-mix truck years ago).

Most Redi-mix concert should be between 140-145# per cubic ft.

GMan , I drove one too, up until about 5 yrs ago. Now I am a Batchman/Dispatcher!

 

[Underdog57]

So one of the 2x2x3' blocks would better suit my needs for $20.

We make them too. I think that's a good idea, if you have the means to transport it home that's what I would do.

 

[juddspaintballs]

My little trailer is good for 2200 lbs of cargo. Getting it out of the trailer without rear ballast on my tractor will be a different story. I might just have to back the trailer up to the grass and pick the tongue up with the tractor and dump the block out on the soft ground.

 

[Underdog57]

My little trailer is good for 2200 lbs of cargo. Getting it out of the trailer without rear ballast on my tractor will be a different story. I might just have to back the trailer up to the grass and pick the tongue up with the tractor and dump the block out on the soft ground.

Heck yea, the kind we have, have a ridge with re-bar hook on top and one end, and grove on bottom & one end. You can roll it around with your loader on soft ground if you have to. What is your loader cap?

 

[juddspaintballs]

I believe at full height and 500mm forward (bucket lip) it's 1850#. It's considerably higher at the pivot pins, and much higher down low. I picked up my 1300# generator the other day at full height on the front of the bucket without counter ballast and the rear was a little light even with Bio Ballast in the tires. Forks are in my near future for moving the generator around so it can be closer to the pins and I'm working on setting up ballast now.

 

[GManBart]

Most Redi-mix concert should be between 140-145# per cubic ft.

GMan , I drove one too, up until about 5 yrs ago. Now I am a Batchman/Dispatcher!

You're right...I was just throwing a ballpark out there. I always used 150lbs as an average, which would be a bit over 4K for a cubic yard. I'm actually going to use similar blocks to build a shooting backstop...five tall, 8 wide, and then backfill both sides with fill.

 

[Rhinohio]

This is critical, because the front axle of compact tractors is not designed to take the full weight that the loader can lift

Hi guys, been watching for awhile but this is my first post, thanks for having me... what a great message board!!

I found joshuabardwell comments a little troubling. Is this a fact, generically speaking? I mean, it would be irresponsible (and bad business) for engineering to provide a FEL option and not design the under-carriage to support the rated load? I appreciate the physical advantage of having rear ballast, but does not having it when doing loader work constitute abusing the machine? That could create a mess WRT to warranty issues not to mention long term reliability, just saying. I interpreted those numbers to be what the tractor/FEL was rated for.

I'm not challenging your expertise, this is my first "real" tractor and I'm just trying to learn. Thanks to all for sharing your wealth of knowledge and I welcome your input.

Mike

 

[GManBart]

Hi guys, been watching for awhile but this is my first post, thanks for having me... what a great message board!!

I found joshuabardwell comments a little troubling. Is this a fact, generically speaking? I mean, it would be irresponsible (and bad business) for engineering to provide a FEL option and not design the under-carriage to support the rated load? I appreciate the physical advantage of having rear ballast, but does not having it when doing loader work constitute abusing the machine? That could create a mess WRT to warranty issues not to mention long term reliability, just saying. I interpreted those numbers to be what the tractor/FEL was rated for.

I'm not challenging your expertise, this is my first "real" tractor and I'm just trying to learn. Thanks to all for sharing your wealth of knowledge and I welcome your input.

Mike

Welcome aboard Mike!

This is a topic that always seems to generate a lot of discussion, with little agreement. I think most folks will admit that compact tractors don't have nearly the front axle strength of dedicated TLBs, wheel loaders, or backhoes...you can look at them and tell that's true. I think most people would also agree that if a machine can lift the rear wheels off the ground with a heavy load on the FEL, it can't be good for the front axles. Even if they don't fail, it has to cause faster wear than if you add a reasonable amount of counterweight, and lighten the load on the front axle. People want to add weight to the rear tires, because it's more convenient, and they may not lift the rear tires any longer, but they're not taking weight off the front axles. Having the tractor rotate around the rear tires is the only way to do that, and you need 3pt weight to make that happen.

If you go by the manual for your Kioti, they specify an actual weight for the 3pt while doing FEL work. Going off memory, I think they spec something just over 1K on the 3pt for a DK40SE. I know that 800lbs wasn't enough on the 3pt to keep my rear wheels planted when I tried maxing the loader on my LS, but with my 1,400lb counterweight, everything stays planted on the ground.

I have to figure that if Kioti thought it was important enough to spec an exact number, and publish it, there's a good reason for it....just seems to make sense. As far as warranty issues, I suspect any damage would be considered wear, or improper use, not an actual warranty issue. I also suspect that barring pretty blatant abuse most will make it past the warranty period before problems crop up.

 

[k0ua]

As Bart outlined this always generates controversy, but I can think of one member that claimed he never used ballast and then after several years had failure and excessive wear of front end components on a Kubota. He is a proponent of ballast now. I don't think anyone is saying if you do FEL work without ballast on the 3pt you are going to pop something immediately on most of the quality built tractors, but it has got to add extra wear, don't you think?

 

[Egbert]

I recently added about 900lb to the rear of my DK50. As much as the wear issues, I found it frustrating to work without the rear weight when the tractor wanted to do a headstand.