Cat 0 Implements?

[Vigo327]

Different tools for different jobs in purely practical terms is fine, but honestly tools are one of my main pleasures in life and tractors are just like all my other tools.. I like to have a bunch of different sizes that are good at different things, and then when i need to do something i never get 'stuck', just turn to a different tool.

But yeah, i have a solid half acre of wheeled vehicles parked around here and it's 'a problem', so clearly there's a limit somewhere and each person must find their own.. My limit is, i can't live the way i do on a small piece of land, but somewhere right below that is.. I cant live with only one size of tractor!

 

[scodyw]

MotoAlliance guy - I know I am late to the party here, so hope you are still listening, as someone who owns and uses your cat 0 implements, the number one thing I would like to see for cat 0 is a quick hitch. Another thing I would like is a hydraulic post hole digger. I have contemplated making one, but if there was one available around $750, I would buy it.

For everyone else, I am sorry, you do not need a 2000lb+ machine for a 5000 sq ft kitchen garden. I owned a 25 HP diesel SCUT with a cat 1 hitch, a loader and backhoe when I had 5 acres. I used it for maintaining the property, but even then I only had a kitchen garden, and it sucked to maneuver it in there, so I kept a garden tractor for that. Now that I have only 1.25 acres, I sold the SCUT but still have a garden tractor. I used to own an 11 hp two wheeled tractor (Grillo 107D) that pulled a potato plow without a problem. It has a lot of implements available for it (I only sold it because an old shoulder injury made it hard to use as I got older). I have an 800lb 1972 MTD 990 that I threw a 13hp Predator into, just to pull cat 0 implements through the garden (moldboard plow, discs and a tollbar with tines or hilling discs.) I used it for a few years until a few months ago a part of the lift wore out that I cannot find a replacement for. It will still pull implements, just not lift them very well. I just got a smaller 725lb Ingersoll 3018 with an 18hp Onan, because parts are still available for it.

Another garden tractor I used to own was a 1994 Yardman 998. It was 18hp and had a loader and a backhoe from Kwik-Way. Someone offered to buy the tractor for way more than I had in it, so I said yes and got the SCUT. I also had a matching White GT1855 (same thing just grey). I used it for mowing, working the garden and I had a cat 0 48" box blade for it that I used to maintain about a 1/4 mile dirt driveway. It worked well so I never got a box blade for the SCUT. At the time, a Cat 1 Box blade would have cost more than I paid for the tractor. I sold it when I moved and got the Grillo.

Garden tractors with cat 0 implements are not right for everyone, but neither is a sub-compact utility tractor. I cannot justify paying $14,000+ for a SCUT that is way too big for my space. I also cannot justify the price for heavy duty cat 1 implements. For my situation Cat 0 implements have a better cost for the amount I use them ratio. Even though they are light duty, for the amount I use them, they are plenty strong enough. I loved the two wheel Grillo, it worked great for my current yard and garden, but my shoulder cannot handle it anymore. So I need a small 4 wheel garden tractor. Unfortunately parts are getting hard to find for a lot of old garden tractors and new "garden tractors" are not really garden tractors, they are just large, overpowered, complex, luxury lawnmowers. It would be nice if someone still made true garden tractors in the $5,000 to $7,500 range, designed as simple working machines with a cat 0 lift.

For the pics or it didn't happen crowd, here are some of the machines I have owned. The yardman, I took the picture because someone asked me the lift height on the loader. The Grillo, I made the cart for it out of a Tractor Supply wagon. The 990 (blue tractor) I took the picture after painting it (backyard rattle can job), before putting the seat and new front tires on it. The Ingersoll is where I bought it before bringing it home.

 

[Vigo327]

Im a big fan of the garden tractor size class as well, but with the proliferation of SCUTs it has become a defunct size class, as even a JD X700 series is essentially the same size as a 1025r anyway.

My addition for anyone considering a garden tractor but not sure about it, is theres a POSSIBILITY that certain cheap 4 wheelers/atvs might do the things you want AND be more fun the rest of the time. Just throwing that out there.

I have no ATVs but i have a Case 444 and a JD 212 in addition to my Kubota b6100 and b8200. if I had to keep one and ditch the rest it would be the 6100 as it splits the size difference perfectly and is a joy to use. If i stuck purely to garden tractors i would probably do the Case as the hydraulics give huge opportunity for customization and custom attachments etc.

 

[diesel85]

One of my neighbors had a 1988 Yamaha Terrapro ATV that had a PTO with a finish mower.

Pretty neat little machine.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

Maybe because "tactor" and "impliment" industry does not consider CAT 0 significant....

Dale

I have a slew of David Bradley's that will say otherwise. The suburban tractor had cat 0 and had a cam over hand lift. It's a 1956 model.

 

[SmallChange]

EXCELLENT discussion and topic! I don't think the question is what we would like to see in Cat 0 on this forum, I think the question would do better in a forum for people that do not have tractors. But there's no such thing as a "No Tractor By Net" forum, so bring it on. The point is that some tasks require Cat 1 or larger, but there's a pretty big space between the Cat 1 sweet spot target and what we can do by hand. Loads that are heavier than around 50 lbs, ground engagement beyond what you can do with a spade, raking heavier and wider than a hand rake, and other things like that, are what we need to be thinking about.
A boom pole maybe 4' long with a 100 or 200 lb capacity would be nice. A platform lift, too. Something designed to carry sacks of concrete mix (up to 90 lbs) would be good.
An auger could be hard to pull off, but that depends how we set the requirements. I have those two-handled post hole diggers with the hinge at the blade. They set kind of a lower limit. Digging a 6" hole 3' deep with those takes a bit of effort. An auger that was just capable of digging the holes for a split rail fence would make all the difference.
I think another way of looking at this is this: for a garden tractor that you can load into a pickup truck with ramps, what are the ideal attachments? There's a huge difference between what you need a pickup truck (or access to one) to do, and what you need a flatbed trailer to do. That's its own market segment right there.

 

[Xfaxman]

A boom pole maybe 4' long with a 100 or 200 lb capacity would be nice.

I made an A frame adjustable lift pole with a hand crank for my Craftsman Garden Tractor:

The pole is 82 inches long with holes to change the angle.

 

[SmallChange]

I made an A frame adjustable lift pole with a hand crank for my Craftsman Garden Tractor

Yes, see? Small capacity things like this can be really useful, and might be all that somebody needs.

In a similar vein, I've wished for a small hand powered winch with a capacity somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 lbs, for jobs like lifts that are too awkward for a human, like lifting things at arm's length, or lifting things in awkward spaces, or adjusting the height of subassemblies that are not high precision. I had a subassembly that weighed about 30 lbs, needing to be gently raised and lowered and tweaked into place in the middle of a complicated setup and there was just no right way to do it.

 

[Chuck08]

Personally I just bought a scrap JD 425 to salvage the 540 pto and Cat-0 3 point. I’m getting a small market garden going and am planning to buy the subsoiler and possibly the scarifier. A three point dump bed would be nice as I could straddle the beds and spread compost/ or use it to harvest the haul to the pack house.

Additionally I was considering buying a BCS to prep beds but a 30” three point tiller with a depth roller on the back would be nice for bed turnover. A 30” power harrow would be cool too. For simplicity sake since BCS already makes those for the market garden community a 3 pt mount with a gearbox to make the rpm’s right, and the ability to offset to operate against the inside of a hoop house.

 

[Code54]

The BCS is a GREAT machine for small garden operations. We have the tiller, Power Harrow, Sickle bar, a dump cart and a flail mower. All fit where it is tough to get the tractor in and all preform extremely well.

 

[dougc71887]

Hey Board,
We had a designer of implements come to us last year asking us to launch a new line of implements for Cat 0 spacing tractors. CAT- Implements. Well priced and have worked very well. More popular than I would have guessed.

We are considering expanding the line and are open to suggestions about what implements people use. Is a post-hole digger a big deal, for example?

Thanks for any input you have.

I know this does not directly address the question asked but I'd like to supply some information and ask a question or two that may be generally relevant as it goes to the Cat 1/0 area of discussion.

When I bought my small patch of grass back in '08, I was still working FT and didn't take the time to think my early purchases through and instead listened to other 'well-meaning' friends in the neighborhood about what to buy. So off I went with a Kubota M6040 and all the typical implements used in traditional farming. My reality ultimately set in and I realized everything I had was generally too large for what I wanted to do. My land is rolling hills, ponds, woodlot (SYP) and mostly what I do is occasional tree harvesting/transporting, Sawmilling, road maintenance, bush hogging, lite clearing, food plots and gardening. It's all done in relatively small patches of activity so Category 1 implements are plenty large for most all I do. I could likely get by with some of the lighter Cat 0 stuff too such as a rake. Ultimately, after owning the land for a while, I opted for a 35HP Ventrac rig with rear hydraulics and a 3 Pt Hitch - Power Rake, Brushcutter, Bucket + Rake and disc harrow for the rear (food plots). That works much much better for what I do. The rating on my 3 Pt Hitch is 750 lbs. Just today I was looking at a Kasco Vari-Maxx Seeder which I think would be great for my food plots but it weighs in at a whopping 960 lbs so can't be used with the Ventrac (with additional limitations listed in the next paragraph). It seems I run into issues like this a lot. Sometimes the rear attachments are just right and other times the Ventrac package just can't handle the lifting of the heavier units. It's not the HP, but the nature of the tractor's design and what is is 'mostly' designed to do.

Somewhere here I think I ran across a comment about a Category 1 (Narrow) which sounds like what I may have on the Ventrac's 3PtH because though it is classified as a Cat 1 unit, the lift arms do not swing wide enough to get most of my Cat 1 attachments 'easily' mounted. I have also noted that the OAW of the lower lifting section of the implements vary from each other by as much as a couple of inches which makes the hook-up even more harrowing considering the limitations of my 3PtH. Currently, the only option I have is to reverse the direction of the lift arm pins to allow room to connect. Is it common to do this when one runs into these obstacles? I have no idea and cannot find anything on-line that discusses the reversing of lift arm pins and whether it's commonly done or if its a no-no.

1. Does anyone know what my problem is with the lift arm limitations of my 3PtH?
2. Can anyone direct me to the 'standards' of what the various Categories are dimensionally?
3. Any other input I consider valuable as I am a former city boy loving the country life and wishing to do it right.

Thanks

 

[WranglerX]

I know this does not directly address the question asked but I'd like to supply some information and ask a question or two that may be generally relevant as it goes to the Cat 1/0 area of discussion.

When I bought my small patch of grass back in '08, I was still working FT and didn't take the time to think my early purchases through and instead listened to other 'well-meaning' friends in the neighborhood about what to buy. So off I went with a Kubota M6040 and all the typical implements used in traditional farming. My reality ultimately set in and I realized everything I had was generally too large for what I wanted to do. My land is rolling hills, ponds, woodlot (SYP) and mostly what I do is occasional tree harvesting/transporting, Sawmilling, road maintenance, bush hogging, lite clearing, food plots and gardening. It's all done in relatively small patches of activity so Category 1 implements are plenty large for most all I do. I could likely get by with some of the lighter Cat 0 stuff too such as a rake. Ultimately, after owning the land for a while, I opted for a 35HP Ventrac rig with rear hydraulics and a 3 Pt Hitch - Power Rake, Brushcutter, Bucket + Rake and disc harrow for the rear (food plots). That works much much better for what I do. The rating on my 3 Pt Hitch is 750 lbs. Just today I was looking at a Kasco Vari-Maxx Seeder which I think would be great for my food plots but it weighs in at a whopping 960 lbs so can't be used with the Ventrac (with additional limitations listed in the next paragraph). It seems I run into issues like this a lot. Sometimes the rear attachments are just right and other times the Ventrac package just can't handle the lifting of the heavier units. It's not the HP, but the nature of the tractor's design and what is is 'mostly' designed to do.

Somewhere here I think I ran across a comment about a Category 1 (Narrow) which sounds like what I may have on the Ventrac's 3PtH because though it is classified as a Cat 1 unit, the lift arms do not swing wide enough to get most of my Cat 1 attachments 'easily' mounted. I have also noted that the OAW of the lower lifting section of the implements vary from each other by as much as a couple of inches which makes the hook-up even more harrowing considering the limitations of my 3PtH. Currently, the only option I have is to reverse the direction of the lift arm pins to allow room to connect. Is it common to do this when one runs into these obstacles? I have no idea and cannot find anything on-line that discusses the reversing of lift arm pins and whether it's commonly done or if its a no-no.

1. Does anyone know what my problem is with the lift arm limitations of my 3PtH?
2. Can anyone direct me to the 'standards' of what the various Categories are dimensionally?
3. Any other input I consider valuable as I am a former city boy loving the country life and wishing to do it right.

Thanks

Here it the QH standard for all CAT "X" (1-2-3) hitches... And as a side note I have a SCUT and most CAT 1 implements seem just a little to big/heavy, but the CAT 0 seem just a bit to much of a light weight (CAT 0 seem primarily for ATV'S)..

3-Point Hitch Categories: From 0 to 4

Not every 3-point hitch is created equal; they have five categories, matched to the strength of the tractor where they’re installed.

www.hobbyfarms.com

categories/#:~:text=Category%200,with%2020%20horsepower%20or%20less.

 

[Vigo327]

I have no idea and cannot find anything on-line that discusses the reversing of lift arm pins and whether it's commonly done or if its a no-no.

You'll definitely be fine. I do the same for a couple of reasons. One reason is i like being able to kick the arms inward off the pins while standing to the outside, vs having to pull them off or kick 'across the middle'. Silly reason? Well, since there's not much downside, silly reasons become perfectly valid!!

So in terms of the lift capacity, in general 3ph lift capacity is 'set' primarily by the hydraulic relief pressure. It seems to me that it's mostly set to a level that wouldn't require much if any front counterweight to keep front tire traction (for steering purposes). So most tractors (and yes i know what a Ventrac is, still a tractor for these purposes) could lift substantially more than the stock 3pt lift capacity if they had additional front counterweight to maintain steering control. If you're comfortable modifying the pressure relief setting, getting from 750 to 1000lbs would not be much of a stretch.

 

[dougc71887]

You'll definitely be fine. I do the same for a couple of reasons. One reason is i like being able to kick the arms inward off the pins while standing to the outside, vs having to pull them off or kick 'across the middle'. Silly reason? Well, since there's not much downside, silly reasons become perfectly valid!!

So in terms of the lift capacity, in general 3ph lift capacity is 'set' primarily by the hydraulic relief pressure. It seems to me that it's mostly set to a level that wouldn't require much if any front counterweight to keep front tire traction (for steering purposes). So most tractors (and yes i know what a Ventrac is, still a tractor for these purposes) could lift substantially more than the stock 3pt lift capacity if they had additional front counterweight to maintain steering control. If you're comfortable modifying the pressure relief setting, getting from 750 to 1000lbs would not be much of a stretch.

Thanks Vigo. Truly helpful advice and I will take advantage of it all!