OP
houska
Silver Member
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2019
- Messages
- 173
- Location
- close to Perth, Eastern ON, Canada
- Tractor
- Branson 4225h; Kubota KX-040
Returning to update, in case anyone ever excavates this thread from the archive.
The normal way to "park" a backhoe, with stabilizers and bucket down as a tripod, exceeds 12' in length. More importantly, it comes in at about 9' in width, exceeding not only a 6x12 trailer width but normal legal transport width of 8'6". My route to the shop passes a govt weigh scale and two police stations...
With the bucket and stabilizers up, it would fit widthwise and lengthwise (with a bit of overhang). However the centre of gravity is high and the backhoe doesn't balance in this position. Nothing creating a frame from 2x6s plus a bunch of straps wouldn't solve, but then I realized the weight distribution on the trailer would be off, and so I'd have to add concrete blocks or similar to even it out.
At this point I decided the writing was on the wall, put it back the tractor, and had it all professionally floated to the dealer's shop. To amortize the 6 hour 2x round-trip float time, I had them also do accumulated other small stuff that was needed but could have waited, perform the regular maintenance that I was going to do myself, and bring it back with a spanking new PTO woodchipper as an early Christmas present
Sometimes you just gotta make lemonade from lemons. And lesson learned; make sure your daily visual inspection actually looks at everything, not just random stuff.
The normal way to "park" a backhoe, with stabilizers and bucket down as a tripod, exceeds 12' in length. More importantly, it comes in at about 9' in width, exceeding not only a 6x12 trailer width but normal legal transport width of 8'6". My route to the shop passes a govt weigh scale and two police stations...
With the bucket and stabilizers up, it would fit widthwise and lengthwise (with a bit of overhang). However the centre of gravity is high and the backhoe doesn't balance in this position. Nothing creating a frame from 2x6s plus a bunch of straps wouldn't solve, but then I realized the weight distribution on the trailer would be off, and so I'd have to add concrete blocks or similar to even it out.
At this point I decided the writing was on the wall, put it back the tractor, and had it all professionally floated to the dealer's shop. To amortize the 6 hour 2x round-trip float time, I had them also do accumulated other small stuff that was needed but could have waited, perform the regular maintenance that I was going to do myself, and bring it back with a spanking new PTO woodchipper as an early Christmas present
Sometimes you just gotta make lemonade from lemons. And lesson learned; make sure your daily visual inspection actually looks at everything, not just random stuff.