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

[jbrumberg]

Spiveyman:

Glad you are recovering from the "bad links". Food poisoning is serious. Even better is that your other links appear to be operational now as well. Nothing stresses me out more than having a piece of equipment that was working all of a sudden cease to function within the parameters of performance expectations . JC-jetro and jinman, and sandman2234, and of course roy "the hat" jackson and others as well represent what is good about TBN and its membership. We all want to help out fellow/sister members. We are all in this together. I really wish TBN was around 20 years ago when I got my first tractor . Use your tractor safely and well . Jay

 

[JC-jetro]

There you go JC-jetro, I put in full size pics. However, when I click them I don't get the full res. Maybe photobucket shrinks the one's that are too big. (Edit: Hey JC-jetro, just curious, but you are clicking on the pictures aren't you? Those are just thumbs that should launch a bigger picture. I re-uploaded all the pictures at full resolution 3456X2304, but they aren't coming across that way. Not sure if the linked pics are too small, or if you were just looking at the thumbs.)

So maybe I should stay away from the dam???

Tim,

My bad. I did not realize those pics were embedded thumbnail. Any how I opened the pictures up and had a close look and have too agree with Jinman as this was the case of " honest operator error" which is just fine, cause no damage was done,and more importantly no one was hurt. I do not have a BB with my setup and can not comment a lot about them but theory and physics of the operation is exactly as Jinman said. I mentioned it before that the 3 point does not have a down pressure force and hyd safety pop off should deploy far before you destroy the rockshaft unless you are rocking your about 9000 lbs tractor forward and backward trying to free sacrifier teeth that are stuck good and deep in something nasty. At that point something got to give. By the way I can see your attempt of leveling the 3 point on the right crank arm by observing more oily thread exposed. That's good.

The only word of caution that I have is " always, always beware of stored energy in implement before you get the big hammers and such when you mount or dismount implements. Release of stored energy from spring, binding load can be very quick and violent.... just need to be careful.


Very glad all worked out , and Jay on behalf of the rest of the guys I accept your compliment. What you said is exactly the kind of things lured me to TBN.

JC,

Ps. personally I stay from the dam for now till at least I become a bit more comfortable with the operation of my rig. Just my 2 cent.

 

[Spiveyman]

jinman,
Howdy, thanks for the input there. I by no means would ever rule out operator error. In fact, that's a virtual guarantee with me! My brother refers to this as an "I.D. 10-T" error. When you put that closer together you get Id10t, or more simply put, Idiot. I've certianly been known to qualify for that one. Ha!

I'll try to answer your questions here:
1.) Yes, correct in assumptions. I did try to level it with the hand crank before removing the BB, but it was so tight I could not get the crank to budge.

2.) Toplink was slightly extended, nothing dramatic. I tried adjusting it to see how it would affect the bite of the scarifers, but didn't change the overall length very much at all. I also had the top link in the highest hole on the tractor, which would have some affect on the thing. When lifted, the rear of the blade was lower than the front, yes pulling the scarifers closer to the tires. When lowered, the longer top link seemed also to allow the front end of the BB to be lower and get a deeper bite out of the scarifers.

3.) Yes I have stabilizers.


4.) I do not know what the stock tires were for this tractor. These are 18.4X34's. They are pretty big. I've noticed other implements have interference issues as well. When I put a bale on a 3ph spear the tires rub the edges of the bale some times.

5.) Don't know about the rims either, but the tires "seem" normally mounted to me. Of course, that may not carry much validity.

6.) Certianly those things could have played into the problem I ran into. However, here's a picture I took of the BB lifted before I started working back there.



It is reasonably level and though close, not interfering with the tire. Something happened while I was working, maybe the hand crank slipped with the force being put on it any time I lifted the BB or the nose of the tractor dipped. I hear what you are saying about the adjustment being out so the left side lifted before the right, but it was a pretty exaggerated angle.

Hopefully I'll never know, which means I never have another problem with it, but I suspect I'll eventually find out. We'll see.

 

[VABlue]

"Release of stored energy from spring, binding load can be very quick and violent."

And unpredictable... You might think you know where an arm will go, but it may well have a different idea.

You should be okay on the dam, especially if it's a good sized, mature (read: compacted) dam. I've driven F350's with kennel bodies over many dams without any problems - its done quite often. The trucks weigh well over 10,000#. I wouldn't worry about your tractor.

 

[Spiveyman]

The only word of caution that I have is " always, always beware of stored energy in implement before you get the big hammers and such when you mount or dismount implements. Release of stored energy from spring, binding load can be very quick and violent.... just need to be careful.

Point well taken. There was actually some considerable "pucker factor" there. I was being as cautious as one can be doing that. Very small adjustments, I changed the level of the box blade with the floor jack several times trying to get a spot where there was at least some play in the lift arms. I was bent over behind the A-frame part of the BB just in case something did pop off. I do hear you though on that stored energy thing, however the stabilizer arms were in the slotted position so there shouldn't have been a bind side to side, and the lift arms should have been "floating" even if they were not adjusted level, right? It worked out, so maybe my luck's not so bad afterall!

 

[Spiveyman]

personally I stay from the dam for now till at least I become a bit more comfortable with the operation of my rig.

You should be okay on the dam, especially if it's a good sized, mature (read: compacted) dam... ...I wouldn't worry about your tractor.

I'm not worried about driving the tractor off into the pond or anything like that. I'm trying to clean up around the pond, level out the dirt so that we can mow around it and have it look nice. It's a small pond and it was cleaned out a couple of years ago, before I bought the farm so I don't know how good of a job they did compacting the dam. Here's some pictures of the pond/dam. I don't have great shots of the dam itself:



And here's some of the muck below the dam I want to clean up. You can see on the far right a tiny sliver of dirt where I've started cleaning it up. I want to level out the dirt all the way up to the dam, just don't want to do something stupid and mess up the dam.

 

[jinman]

Tim, I didn't mean "operator error" in the true sense of the phrase, but rather a lot of things coming into play at the same time that you didn't notice. When I look at the picture of your new boxblade on your tractor (especially the one I posted) it looks like the scarifier is very close to the tire.

What I meant about the rim is not that it is non-standard, but just the opposite. Consider a rim that could be adjusted as wide as you want. With a tire mounted, as the rim gets wider, the tire would spread and it's outside diameter would decrease. If your tires are designed for a wider rim, then they could be a little larger diameter.

I'm glad to see you have stabilizers, especially since you use the boxblade in reverse. Without stabilizers, the main lift arms take a lot of stress.

Maybe the next time this happens it will be in full daylight and you can see all the contributing factors. Just remember that a small amount of tilt is multiplied out on the end of your boxblade, and a small amount of toplink adjustment is probably 1-1 on the bottom of your box and scarifiers in the opposite direction.

When I put the first hydraulic toplink on my tractor, it was about 2" too long and there were several times I put the scarifiers into my tires when I ran the toplink out too far. Now I'm probably overly sensitive to clearances.

 

[Spiveyman]

No worries jinman, if there's one thing I'm good at, it's laughing at myself. Lots of practice. And I make some real bone head mistakes from time to time.

I am very sparing using that BB in dozer mode. That came up in dieselfuelonly's thread about learning to use his Yanmar. Lots of cautionary statements in there, so I'm cautious. I won't put enough pressure on that thing to damage the 3ph (hopefully), only use it to move loose dirt and such.

 

[john_bud]

Spivey,

There are only 2 things I can think of off the bat. The adjuster slipped or the splines on the rock shaft slipped.


I don't think the splines on the RS slipped as the upper arms are level in the pictures. I wouldn't think they would go back to level if that was the issue. So, that leaves the adjuster on the right side. The right side was lower, so that is consistent. You were working with the scarifiers down, so there may have been a point where you snagged a root or rock and it pulled the adjuster. They are pretty robust, but even anvils fail occasionally.

Put a tape measure on the adjuster and note the length. Then work it good an see if it gets any longer.

Also, take extreme care lifting the 3pt with the BB on it when the scarifiers are down. You don't want to find out what happens when one part of the 3pt breaks and the BB pivots. Think giant whoosh sound and your wallet getting $1000 lighter (per side). That's right, pop! goes the tire. You really don't what that.


By the way, did you call the police about the person fourishing a deadly weapon? We don't get that sort of thing around here. (thankfully) I do know plenty of guys that would have cracked out a 270, .30-06, 300 win mag etc and explained that pulling a .38 snub isn't real friendly....or smart.

jb

 

[sandman2234]

According to tractordata.com
Tires:
Ag front: 7.50-16
Ag rear: 16.9-30
My duals on the 7710 are 18.4-30 which seem like they are huge, but what about that tractor isn't huge?
Tractordata calls for 15.5-38 on the 7710.
I don't know if that is the correct tires, but it seems like it is close enough, especially on your two wheel drive machine. I got a kick out of the 4,000 pound tractor comment. Mine is even heavier and I wouldn't hesitate to drive on the dam. I would be concerned if I started to make ruts, or started killing the grass by driving on it too much, but other than that, I wouldn't hesitate.
David from jax