Can anyone post some pictures of hills

[daTeacha]

Pooh Bear (or maybe I should say "failed pucker meter" Bear) unless your tractor is a subcompact and a light one at that, your body weight is pretty insignificant. Even my old B7100 at 1350 lb with loader was not greatly influenced by me moving my 215 lb around on the seat. My cub mowers are, but the heavier of the two comes in at about 500 or so, maybe. Consider that even on my little Kubota the loader would lift better than twice my body weight. Your weight can have some influence, but if you're working a tractor around 1700 lb or more, by the time your body weight becomes the deciding factor in rolling or not you shouldn't be doing what you're doing.

 

[suttles]

JimParker,

Thank you for the detail description of the triangle for a of use on a hill.

I am going to read and re read that so I understand it.
For the few hours (now maybe 20) I feel comfortable with the Kubota L3130.

I do totally agree with the idea of getting complacent after doing something new.

That is a scarey thought because I think of all the future years I plan on living on this property.
Doing something that gets familar and you let your guard down is most likely going to happen at some point.

We use the seatbelt everytime we get on it.
I ask the man we bought the land from yesterday if he thought any of our land was to steep.
He has farmed all of it, and never had a roll over.
But I feel these hidden dips and guillies are the scarest when mowing on slopes.
So if I can learn the safety limit of our hills then I hope the rest is just paying attention to what is going on.

All the same I want to learn all I can about safe tractor use
on these hills.

One thing that might not have been to safe was mowing after dark last week.
It didn't feel like anthing was not safe that night.
I had plenty of moonlight and tractor headlights.
The PTO shaft fell off but it turned out to be a bolt that came lose from the slip clutch.
The same thing happend a day later to my husband.

Thanks I will keep trying to get this triangle formula planted in my head.

Sandy

 

[scott_vt]

You already have the best engineered tilt meter available.
It's that rear mounted pucker oriface on you lower backside.
The steeper the hill, the tighter it puckers.

I would trust my own personal pucker meter before
I would trust some store bought device that only tells me the angle.

That feeling of impending doom you get from your pucker meter
is natures way of saying back off before you hurt yourself.

Pooh Bear

Mornin Pooh,
My feelings exactly

Here are a few shots of the inclines on my property, when I mow I go top to bottom and it works OK. On the bottom side of the property its a little steep and I just go slow with the FEL close to the ground. That internal meter works quite well

 

[bones1]

Scott, that bottom side looks pretty puckerie (is that a word)?.Iv'e got one of those too, makes me a little nervous but I do it.

 

[scott_vt]

Scott, that bottom side looks pretty puckerie (is that a word)?.Iv'e got one of those too, makes me a little nervous but I do it.

Hi Bones,
Yeah the bottom side its pretty steep, especially when your turnin on the bottom side and hit a woodchuck hole or some such withy the downside tire

You should of seen me when I first cut it with my 42 Farmall A with a sicklemower First gear creeping along at a snails pace, but I learned alot. I also spoke to one of the older farmers that had hayed it years ago and got some helpful input from him.

I would never knock a tiltmeter but I think I have an internal one built in Pineridge, Mike posted a good pic at 18degs, and thats about as far as I can go myself without pushing in the clutch and backing the heck outta there

 

[hz293]

All I know is that after my roll, It's up and down the hill for me with an occasional side run less that 15 degrees.

Harris

 

[Nasty135]

Hey Guys, As another poster or two stated Near a pond or drop off the pucker meter starts to tingle and not in a good way! But It will depend on the tractor your riding , The Massey 135 I have is pretty wide and the seat is low and it feels very stable on everything I have to drive it on, Now for the 1433v I use it is only about 60" wide and you sit higher in the air over the axles , And in the same areas the 135 feels totally fine the 1433v gives pucker factor...One of the things that will really get your attention is if your hi-side tire starts to lose traction You know that is "TOO FAR" as you sprout roots...

So you can have different tractors give varying levels of pucker ,because they each have their own point of a rollover...

 

[Superduper]

Two things I would like to chime in on. Firstly, most all newer tractors will comply with one of two specifications: ANSI B71.1 and ANSI B71.4. The former for consumer equipment and the latter for commercial equipment. If you own a small garden tractor, then it probably complies with the former and if you own a CUT, it is probably the latter. The difference is that B71.1 specifies minimum lateral stability of 25 degrees measured at rollover, while B71.4 specifies 20 degrees measured by pulling out test strip (don't ask as I don't know what this means). There is more, of course to the ANSI specification, but this is as far as it is addressed regarding lateral stability. Asking what degree slope is safe is not a good question as this can vary greatly from equipment to equipment, and configuration to configuration. For example, the same tractor can normally be ordered with R1 tires, or R4 tires. Your stability with R1 mounted in a "narrow" configuration for crop row clearance will be much reduced than the same tractor with R4 tires mounted at widest position. Furthermore, as you've already gathered by the other posts, each person's pucker factor varies greatly, just as people's tolerance of heights can vary greatly. The lack of fear doesn't necessarily mean that the situation is safer, merely that one can better cope with it. Also, the longer you mow slopes, the more accustomed you get to it, and this can lead to complacency and misplaced confidence, just as you can be overly cautious when first operating it. Don't get me wrong, the pucker factor is a good thing because it will definitely motivate you to operate at a more cautious and attentive level.

Secondly, the triangle description is an excellent explanation but can be hard to picture. The attached pdf file addresses tractor overturn hazards and center of gravity. Page 2 shows an excellent illustration regarding what point the center of gravity is overcome and tips the tractor. As you can see by the illustration, the tractor that is at the verge of tipping is really tilted quite dramatically and most everyone will admit that they never operate their equipment anywhere close to this angle of operation. Certainly, at the illustrated angle, the operator will have great difficulty just maintaining his rear on the seat and probably needs to hang on dearly. The illustration does show that the center of gravity for the depicted tractor is at a point just above the rear axle. Say we raise the CG for safety sake to a point between the two rear reflectors. Even with that, you can see that the tractor can still be tilted quite dramatically to be well within safe limits. However, as in previous contributions, it is extremely important to operate slowly so as not to introduce dynamic centrifugal forces that can increase the negative effects of center of gravity. Also, operating at the verge of tilt is definitely a no-no as there will be no margin for unexpected ruts and other real life challenges.

Now, if we examine the pictures of the Kubota and NH tractors sitting on the slopes and draw an imaginary vertical line from the center of the headlamps to the ground, we see that the point that the line would contact the ground is well inside of the outside edge of the tires and it would appear that the tractors are well within the level of safe operation. In reality, the center of gravity is probably lower than the headlamps as the headlamps are probably already at the top of the engine, and there is a lot of weight below that point. The low profile of the kubota in particular shows that there is significantly greater room for tilt before getting tippy. Note however, that both operators indicate that their pucker factor is kicking into high gear.

Finally, I was wondering whether someone could comment on whether they feel the attached image depicts a slope that could be easily traversed with their tractor, and a brief description of their tractor?

 

[Egon]

Out on a limb here but I think a Kubota B7100 with only a 60" MM lawn mower would make it across.?? At least the bottom portion.

 

[johnk]

The .pdf is a php and I can't load it. The file name is .php. Interesting article so far but I'd also like to open that PDF,,,,,,,Check it out....Thanks...