Breaking in my new toys... from Yeehaw! to Uh oh!

Spiveyman · Sep 4, 2007

Howdy to all of my new friends here at TBN. I found this site back in July right after I bought my tractor. It's been great getting to meet so many folks with so much experience. I've posted here and there, but most of it's been in anticipation of some new toys for my tractor.

Well, the waiting is finally over, the tractor and the new implements are now plenty dirty, but the thing that makes me truly feel like I finally belong here on TBN is that I broke something tonight!

At least I think I did, but we'll get to that in time.

First a couple of things about me that might help you all understand me a bit better. I'm an engineer as many other folks out there are. Born and raised in central KY except for a few years in Longmont, CO. About a year ago I finally figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up - a cowboy. My granny offered to sell me the family farm to help get a cattle business going raising Texas Longhorns and selling the beef. So, we took her up on her offer and bought 170 acres of rolling KY hills, pastures, and some woods. Here are some stitched shots around the farm: (OK, I can't figure out how to make these links thumbnails, 3RRL, how do you do that? Here's some links)
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/Farm01.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/Farm02.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/Farm03.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/Farm04.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/Farm05.jpg

We currently live about 40 mins from the farm, and I work about 30 mins the opposite direction, so this severely limits my seat time, although we plan to move closer to the farm in the spring. I also have a 3 year old girl and a 6 month old boy. In July I bought my first tractor. Here's a couple shots with a carryall I built. I've posted these other places already - nothing new here, just being thorough:
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/08-08-07Ford6610014.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/08-08-07Ford6610022.jpg

bravo36 · Sep 5, 2007

Dang, that's plum purdy. Seriously, a real nice lookin' place to do some cowboyin', and tractor'n.

Spiveyman · Sep 5, 2007

So, coming up to speed, once I found TBN, you folks helped me find lots of new ways to spend my hard earned money! And lots of ideas of stuff I need to do to the farm. I ordered a Bush Hog 2426 FEL, a FOPS, and bought a 7' box blade. So now I'm equipped to start tearing up my farm!

Here's what my tractor looks like now!

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07FEL-BB018.jpg

And here's some better shots of the BB:
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07BB021.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07BB022.jpg

You can see the extra bracing that they used to make this a very sturdy box.

I managed to get some seat time in last night and tonight to start wearing off that yellow paint. I will have to paint that thing blue soon, but I was too anxious to use it to wait for paint to dry!

I was on my way to a pond in the back last night and where the path crosses a little ditch there were some big ruts. I just couldn't pass it up, as the first chance to get my BB dirty!!! As it turns out I was so excited that I forgot to take a "before" picture, but here's a shot from up on a hill after pulling enough dirt/rocks to biuld it back up where it ought to be. It's not a pro job, but it'll do until I really figure out how to use this thing.

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Ditch024.jpg

Then I was off to the back of the farm. Of course I came across a bridge that had tons of dirt washed onto it from last year's rain, and now has so much grass on it that we need to mow it. Another distraction, and this time I only have a "before" picture.

Rookie mistake, but this is how much I cherish my seat time, I'm like a little kid. Anyway, I went across it and then used the BB in reverse like a mini-dozer. Worked like a charm. The dirt just rolled up and over as I pushed it. Very cool. (Imagine this bridge without the stuff in the middle for the "after" shot.)

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Bridge083.jpg

With that out of the way, I was again off to the back of the farm...

When I topped the hill just past the bridge I looked across and a pond and saw 7 deer drinking from it. I snapped these shots as they fled away:
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Deer003.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Deer004.jpg

Spiveyman · Sep 5, 2007

With all of that out of the way, it was time to really start getting dirty. We had a pond cleaned out a couple years ago and the muck is now dried and ready to be spread out nicely. I started on this last night, and went back tonight to get a couple more hours on it. AGAIN, I didn't take any completely "before" pics, but I didn't get that much done last night so it's not hard to imagine the mess I was getting into. Also the dozer guy didn't bother to spread the mound out evenly, so there are some pretty uneven surfaces out there. By the way, this is the pond from the 5th pic up there.

Here's a couple shots of the weeds on the mounds of dirt and tractor eating obstacles:
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Mound025.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07More028.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Obstacle027.jpg

Here you can see a mound that is 3-4 feet tall:
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Bottommound030.jpg

And some of the work I got done last night:
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Mound-started026.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Mound-started027.jpg

I started in working on that mound down at the bottom. I got stuck there trying to drive up it last night. It was getting dark and with the weeds I couldn't see how bad it was so I didn't push my luck. I thought I'd attack it from the top with the FEL, dig, then drop the dirt over the edge to give me a landing spot so I could start dragging that BB through it. By the way, on the BB, I have the scarifers dropped to the lowest position to get maximum engagement. Is that the right thing to do here when I really need to bust up and move lots of dirt? Just curious there. It seemed to work well. Anyway, my plan to attack from above was going OK... until my left rear slid off into hole. I don't know how much my tractor was leaning, but it felt like a good 30° or so.

Yes, I was buckled in, and that helped me keep contol of her. I immediately hit the clutch, when I let back out on her to try to drive out, the left wheel just spun.

Not good. Luckily my papaw filled me in on the little blue lever behind my right foot. The differential lock!!!

I put her in reverse, then stepped on the DL and out she came! That was cool. Then it hit me, it would have been a cool shot of the tractor dipped way over in that hole. I very seriously thought about driving it back in there to get the shot.... but I didn't. I was in the zone, adrenalin pumping from my first "almost" and just started filling in the hole, then I decided to at least get a shot of the hole before I filled it in. This is snapped from above. It won't do the whole justice, but what can you do? I marked the hole, you can also see where I was taking down the mound and where I dumped some dirt in the whole.
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Hole035.jpg

Incidentally, the last two nights out there have also taught me something else, this is my mortal enemy! Anyone ID it?
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Enemy029.jpg

I'm allergic to September, and that is why!

Spiveyman · Sep 5, 2007

Last one for tonight. I kept at it all evening, even way after the sun went down. This is the best shot I could get in the dark and I had to seriously brighten the picture to show anything.
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee183/Spiveyman01/09-04-07Gone037.jpg

The mound is gone and there is a gradual slope down to the fence line. It's not perfectly smooth yet, but it feels great to get it that far so that I can drive over all of it with no problems. That is, the lower half of the mounds. The top part still has some challenges in it, more mounds and some decent size rocks.

I'll have some questions to ask tomorrow, but there's one other thing to note tonight, the uh oh thing. When I finally threw in the towel for the night, I raised the 3ph and started off. I heard a really loud noise.

The scarifer on the far left was hitting the left rear wheel. When I got down to look at it, the whole BB was sitting at a peculiar angle. I raised and lowerd the thing, it appears that only the left arm is lifting. When it gets to too much of an angle the right one comes up too. I drive it back to the barn with the 3ph half way down to as not to tear up the tire or anything else. I tried to get the BB off the 3ph so I could look at it, but it was in a bind, it was dark, and hotter than blue blazes. So, I'll tackle that next time I make it out to the farm. Probably be next week.

In the mean time, any bright ideas out there as to what might cause the right arm not to lift? I didn't do any dozering out there, so I don't think I could have damaged it pushing stuff. I was careful to lift before I turned each time. Oh well, I'm real TBN'er now, I've broken my tractor!

EasyEd · Sep 5, 2007

Hey All,

Good story! I'm thinkin the weed looks like either a Solidago - a goldenrod or maybe an Ambrosia - a ragweed. Closeup of the leaves and flowers would help.

-Ed-

jbrumberg · Sep 5, 2007

Spiveyman:

You've been busy

! It's too bad that it was too dark to see what was going on with your 3 point hitch and your box blade. You should install some rear working lights on your tractor

! As to your uh oh

"situation"- it could be almost anything; from something out of adjustment, missing pin, or somethng more serious like broken

. I would look in the general areas: lift arm leveling assembly, both lift arm assembly brackets (top & bottom), lower lift arm, and all the cotter pins and rings and lynch pins that hold the three point hitch together. It is very possible that you lost a pin somewhere in the right side of the 3 point hitch and the apparent right sided "lift action" was more a function of your left lift arm working together with your top link. As to your mortal enemy, I agree with EasyEd- I have about 7A's of the stuff in my lower field. I will have to wear a respirator mask when I take it on with my rotary cutter later this Fall. Be careful working in the dark

. It sounds like you had a great Yeehaw experience

! We all (at least us "honest" operators

) have had Uh Oh experiences

. Keep the posts coming and I hope your Uh Oh is a small one- Jay

3RRL · Sep 5, 2007

Hi Tim,
Great thread you started. I sure like your land too.
BTW, I sent you a PM about the Photobucket posting thumbnails.

hunterridgefarm · Sep 5, 2007

Tim,

You have a very nice looking place. I see many projects in your future!

David

Spiveyman · Sep 5, 2007

jbrumberg said:
Spiveyman:

You've been busy ! It's too bad that it was too dark to see what was going on with your 3 point hitch and your box blade. You should install some rear working lights on your tractor ! As to your uh oh "situation"- it could be almost anything; from something out of adjustment, missing pin, or somethng more serious like broken . I would look in the general areas: lift arm leveling assembly, both lift arm assembly brackets (top & bottom), lower lift arm, and all the cotter pins and rings and lynch pins that hold the three point hitch together. It is very possible that you lost a pin somewhere in the right side of the 3 point hitch and the apparent right sided "lift action" was more a function of your left lift arm working together with your top link. As to your mortal enemy, I agree with EasyEd- I have about 7A's of the stuff in my lower field. I will have to wear a respirator mask when I take it on with my rotary cutter later this Fall. Be careful working in the dark . It sounds like you had a great Yeehaw experience ! We all (at least us "honest" operators ) have had Uh Oh experiences . Keep the posts coming and I hope your Uh Oh is a small one- Jay

I do have a really good working light on the back of the tractor, otherwise there's no way I would have worked past sun down. And thanks 3RRL for showing me how to do this:

I should have waited on the previous posts until I knew how to use thumbs, but what can I say? I'm a man.

Anyway, I guess I was walking that fine line between use and abuse last night. Some of the mounds of dirt were pretty high for just driving all over, and there were lots of weeds (YEP - Ragweed!!!!

) and even some small trees growing in there - mostly sycamore. I don't know what hangs down under the tractor, but there might be a hydraulic hose loose or something from driving over all that stuff.

At one point I also found out I don't really have all the clearance I'd like around my front tires. I was in a spot where my front left was on a mound of dirt, front right was hanging down quite a bit, I have the wheel cranked to the left to keep me centered as I was taking a bite with the FEL and the thing just locked up on me. The front left wheel was pressing against the lift arms of the FEL. I backed off the mound and the wheel came down so I could straighten them up.

As for the lift arms, when I lifted the BB I could hear the tractor "complaining" about it, kind of a hiss sound, like it was binding up. Like I said it'll probably be early next week before I can get out there to check it out. That's really frustrating. But I will be able to see if there's any fluid leaking all over the floor of the barn. Hope it doesn't get the carpet all dirty!

(That's for Eddie) I tried first just to unhook the BB so I could see if the right lift arm would lift at all, but I couldn't get the BB unhooked! AAArg. Incidentally, that is one heavy box! My first chore will be to get that thing off of there. There will probably be some kicking, banging, and maybe a bad word or two. The bad part for me, not being so "handy" is this likely means a call to the dealer that took 4 weeks to put my FEL on.

I'll get some pictures if I can find anything that looks out of the ordinary.