Compact Tractors are Designed All Wrong

[gladehound]

Back in the early 2000's we had 60 yards of moon dust (granulated limestone) delivered to our little league park. They dumped it at the back of the park. It was to replenish three diamonds and build a new T-ball diamond. I volunteered to move the moon dust with my PT425. On work day, I show up with my machine and this guy starts laughing at me and saying we'll never get done, throws up his hands, gets in his truck and leaves. So I start moving it. About an hour later, he shows up with a Case 580 and says something about the right tool for the job. He scoops up a big old bucket full of moon dust and realizes he can't fit through the gate by the dugouts. So he drives all the way around the diamond, opens the double wide center field gate, drives over to the center of the infield, and dumps his load. He's looking pretty smug. I wave him down and say "Nice!", and give him the thumbs up. Then I point behind him. He's left two huge ruts about 10" deep all the way from the fence to about the shortstop position, ruining the turf. He said he'd fix it later and goes and gets a couple more loads. First time he comes back and makes the ruts deeper. Next time he tries a different path and makes a second set of ruts about 20' over. I got several parents together and they begged him to stop. He got mad and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to fix the ruts as he backed out of the diamond. He couldn't fix the ruts because the machine kept sinking, and he only moved three scoops of moon dust. Right tool for the job.... uh, no. :laughing:

I ended up fixing the ruts, putting in many yards of black dirt and reseeding it, and watering it twice a day for a couple weeks.

It took me Saturday to move most of the dust over three diamonds and a few more hours on Sunday, then about 3 hours of dragging with a chain link fence and cement blocks to get it all level. Looked real nice. The guy even told me it looked good and was surprised at how fast that little machine could move that much material. He ended up coaching my kid in softball and we got along real well. Good guy. :thumbsup:

So you can go through a gate. How does that make it better than a CUT? I must be missing something, but that is a really, really long time to spread 60 yards of stone. You got the job done without doing damage and that's what matters. But why couldn't a CUT do the same thing?

 

[MossRoad]

So, they dumped belly dump loads of lime on my daughter's softball fields. I moved and spread the lime with a Farmall H and this (they came out perfect):

View attachment 574250

Right Tool for the Job...

Nice! :thumbsup:

They couldn't get the semi's onto our fields.

 

[MossRoad]

Antonio Cararro has a bidirectional compact in the TT series... they're just horribly limited in North America. Currently, I only know of one dealer in western Kentucky. Not sure about Canada or Mexico.

If my next purchase is a new tractor, it will definitely be an AC TT series.

I see those in orchards in SW lower Michigan.

 

[MossRoad]

So you can go through a gate. How does that make it better than a CUT? I must be missing something, but that is a really, really long time to spread 60 yards of stone. You got the job done without doing damage and that's what matters. But why couldn't a CUT do the same thing?

They are slower at that particular task.

 

[gladehound]

They are slower at that particular task.

I'm having trouble understanding why you believe this. It took you over a day to move and spread 60 yards of stone. It typically takes me about 30 minutes to do a triaxle load with my CUT with a 1 yard bucket up front and 8 ft power angle blade in the rear. Maybe the distance you were moving it was a lot farther than I realize. But I just don't see why a CUT would take longer.

Back when I used to spread a triaxle load with my 19hp CUT with 1/3rd yard bucket and 6 foot blade it took about 90 minutes and never over 2 hours. I'm guessing 60 yards was 3 tri-axle loads.

 

[4570Man]

I don’t believe it either. The articulated machine might be a little better at loading trucks in a tight spot, but moving dirt over a long distance the advantage is gone. Since he can’t even load a truck that advantage is also gone. ( probably the biggest grip I have about the PT. The NH tractor it was compared to earlier beats it by 25” ) And I don’t know of any compact tractors that have a 1 yard bucket from the factory. The bucket on my JD 310 is 1.3 yards and it’s a lot bigger than any tractor bucket I’ve seen. Spreading tri axel loads in place is pretty fast. Moving the pile any distance at all takes a lot of time.

 

[gladehound]

I don’t believe it either. The articulated machine might be a little better at loading trucks in a tight spot, but moving dirt over a long distance the advantage is gone. Since he can’t even load a truck that advantage is also gone. ( probably the biggest grip I have about the PT. The NH tractor it was compared to earlier beats it by 25” ) And I don’t know of any compact tractors that have a 1 yard bucket from the factory. The bucket on my JD 310 is 1.3 yards and it’s a lot bigger than any tractor bucket I’ve seen. Spreading tri axel loads in place is pretty fast. Moving the pile any distance at all takes a lot of time.

My 1 yard bucket is not from the factory. I can use anything that fits SSQA. Actual specs from Loflin say 0.986 yd3. Close enough.

 

[MossRoad]

I'm having trouble understanding why you believe this. It took you over a day to move and spread 60 yards of stone. It typically takes me about 30 minutes to do a triaxle load with my CUT with a 1 yard bucket up front and 8 ft power angle blade in the rear. Maybe the distance you were moving it was a lot farther than I realize. But I just don't see why a CUT would take longer.

Back when I used to spread a triaxle load with my 19hp CUT with 1/3rd yard bucket and 6 foot blade it took about 90 minutes and never over 2 hours. I'm guessing 60 yards was 3 tri-axle loads.

Yes, spreading it isn't the problem. It's the distances I had to haul it and the obstacles I had to go around just to get to the gates to get onto the infields. The loads were dumped at the back of the park, not on the infields themselves. They couldn't get the trucks onto the fields. I had to haul it in at 1/3 bucket at a time, so about 180 trips. Some routes were well over a hundred yards in each direction. It was a really poorly run and poorly laid out Little League well before we got there.

 

[MossRoad]

I don’t believe it either. The articulated machine might be a little better at loading trucks in a tight spot, but moving dirt over a long distance the advantage is gone. Since he can’t even load a truck that advantage is also gone. ( probably the biggest grip I have about the PT. The NH tractor it was compared to earlier beats it by 25” ) And I don’t know of any compact tractors that have a 1 yard bucket from the factory. The bucket on my JD 310 is 1.3 yards and it’s a lot bigger than any tractor bucket I’ve seen. Spreading tri axel loads in place is pretty fast. Moving the pile any distance at all takes a lot of time.

Once again, you're comparing a much larger JD 310 to a 1500# PT425 or a NH TC21D.

 

[Xfaxman]

I don稚 believe it either. The articulated machine might be a little better at loading trucks in a tight spot, but moving dirt over a long distance the advantage is gone. Since he can稚 even load a truck that advantage is also gone. ( probably the biggest grip I have about the PT. The NH tractor it was compared to earlier beats it by 25 ) And I don稚 know of any compact tractors that have a 1 yard bucket from the factory. The bucket on my JD 310 is 1.3 yards and it痴 a lot bigger than any tractor bucket I致e seen. Spreading tri axel loads in place is pretty fast. Moving the pile any distance at all takes a lot of time.

My 1 yard bucket is not from the factory. I can use anything that fits SSQA. Actual specs from Loflin say 0.986 yd3. Close enough.

My 6' wide, 1 yard SSQA bucket is from Bobcat:

With 17 feet of lift, it has no problem loading a truck.

 

[4570Man]

My 6' wide, 1 yard SSQA bucket is from Bobcat:

View attachment 574275 View attachment 574276 View attachment 574277 View attachment 574280

With 17 feet of lift, it has no problem loading a truck. :thumbsup:

View attachment 574278

How does the kioti handle that bucket?

 

[4570Man]

Once again, you're comparing a much larger JD 310 to a 1500# PT425 or a NH TC21D.

I didn’t compare the 310 to either of those machines. I compared the 310 to a 40 hp tractor. And xfaxman pretty much confirmed what I said. No 40 hp tractor came stock with a 1 yard bucket. My 1 ton dump takes 4 scoops of dirt from the backhoe and that’s about all the weight it can handle but there’s room left. I probably could haul 6.7 yards of mulch. I only claim to haul 5 yards of mulch.

 

[gladehound]

How does the kioti handle that bucket?

The Kioti handles the 1 yard bucket better than I thought it would. The Kioti has a strong loader for a CUT. And subtracting the extra weight of the larger bucket, my loader will still lift ~3,500 at ground level and ~2,500 to full height (with enough ballast). The curl cylinders are very strong for a CUT and have no problem with the 38" depth of the bucket. I originally bought it just for light materials, but I now use it for everything (wood, gravel, loose dirt) because it's so much more efficient than the tiny 13 cubit foot stock bucket.

 

[gladehound]

My 6' wide, 1 yard SSQA bucket is from Bobcat:

View attachment 574275 View attachment 574276 View attachment 574277 View attachment 574280

With 17 feet of lift, it has no problem loading a truck. :thumbsup:

View attachment 574278

Mine is deeper but not as tall (also 6ft wide). I like the shape because I can see the front edge of the bucket if I scoot forward on the seat and sit tall. I can't do that with my stock bucket. At 778 pounds, yours is much heavier duty. I weighed mine right at 500 pounds but it is plenty heavy duty for a CUT and the weight savings helps me because I don't have the kind of lift force that you have.

 

[gladehound]

Yes, spreading it isn't the problem. It's the distances I had to haul it and the obstacles I had to go around just to get to the gates to get onto the infields. The loads were dumped at the back of the park, not on the infields themselves. They couldn't get the trucks onto the fields. I had to haul it in at 1/3 bucket at a time, so about 180 trips. Some routes were well over a hundred yards in each direction. It was a really poorly run and poorly laid out Little League well before we got there.

So then a CUT with the same size bucket should do the job faster because it has a higher travel speed. If you add a hydraulic top link and a second bucket in the back, you could cut trips in half with the CUT.

 

[airbiscuit]

So, I actually like Moss Road's threads, and a reasonable amount of the time, I agree. The problem with this thread isn't the exchanges, it is the provocative title - Compact Tractors are Designed All Wrong. This is a Compact Tractor Forum ("TractorByNet is the world's largest resource and community for compact tractors, featuring forums, news, reviews, photos, how-to information, and questions & answers."), and Compact Tractors are Designed All Wrong, can be translated as Compact Tractors are Dumb. One could infer from that that Compact Tractor Owners are Dumb. And then the fight started. unch:

The thing is, I'm not sure there is one universally perfect machine for all tasks and all sizes. The first tractor I owned as a poor newlywed was a 1941 John Deere B hand (flywheel) start. It was awesome to have, and saved me a lot of work. It is a dinosaur compared to my 40hp New Holland CUT. I had a Bobcat skidsteer, that was much better for loader work than my CUT, but I sold it because a CUT better served all my needs. I don't feel the need to say skidsteers are designed all wrong. In fact they are designed very well for their intended use.

I have a small frame CUT, a large frame CUT and a Simplicity Conquest mower (may upgrade to a SCUT if I stumble across a bargain). In my dreams, I would also have:

A Skidsteer
A Telehandler (for the cool factor alone)
A John Deere 3010 Diesel
A Powertrac (for the cute factor alone)

That's my 2 cents. :2cents:

 

[Xfaxman]

You left out a Toolcat.

 

[gladehound]

So, I actually like Moss Road's threads, and a reasonable amount of the time, I agree. The problem with this thread isn't the exchanges, it is the provocative title - Compact Tractors are Designed All Wrong. This is a Compact Tractor Forum ("TractorByNet is the world's largest resource and community for compact tractors, featuring forums, news, reviews, photos, how-to information, and questions & answers."), and Compact Tractors are Designed All Wrong, can be translated as Compact Tractors are Dumb. One could infer from that that Compact Tractor Owners are Dumb. And then the fight started. unch:

The thing is, I'm not sure there is one universally perfect machine for all tasks and all sizes. The first tractor I owned as a poor newlywed was a 1941 John Deere B hand (flywheel) start. It was awesome to have, and saved me a lot of work. It is a dinosaur compared to my 40hp New Holland CUT. I had a Bobcat skidsteer, that was much better for loader work than my CUT, but I sold it because a CUT better served all my needs. I don't feel the need to say skidsteers are designed all wrong. In fact they are designed very well for their intended use.

I have a small frame CUT, a large frame CUT and a Simplicity Conquest mower (may upgrade to a SCUT if I stumble across a bargain). In my dreams, I would also have:

A Skidsteer
A Telehandler (for the cool factor alone)
A John Deere 3010 Diesel
A Powertrac (for the cute factor alone)

That's my 2 cents. :2cents:

I thought you were a peace maker until "for the cute factor alone"!

For me, I think the telehandlers are my favorite and maybe someday I'll have one. But I'll likely keep a tractor if only for hay rides.

I totally agree that the title of the thread is provocative. I like most of Moss Road's posts. I like all machines and think PT's are really interesting and useful. I seriously cross shopped them before buying my second tractor. The fact that I didn't buy one is telling. Refer to Post 273 if you want to know why. I love the visibility on the PT, but not enough to make up for everything else.

A more appropriate title for this thread would be "Viable alternatives to CUTs"

 

[MossRoad]

So then a CUT with the same size bucket should do the job faster because it has a higher travel speed. If you add a hydraulic top link and a second bucket in the back, you could cut trips in half with the CUT.

Yeah, you and I think it would be faster, but it won't be. Put a full bucket of moon dust in there and try and drive at full speed forward over bumpy ground, turns, stops/starts etc... only one way to find out. We need to get a head-to-head going somewhere.

 

[gladehound]

Sounds good! :thumbsup: Most interesting to me if it's on an equal price basis with multiple styles of machine.