Driveway Project

[3RRL]

I have been really please on how well the KK BB has worked. The only area that I wish it would work better is at the beginning and ends of the drive where I wanted it squared off instead of a taper. At those areas I used the toothbar to dig down and square off the ends.

Kurt

Well, I think you did a great job as it turned out .
If you wanted to square the ends up, using your fel is fine. But if you had some room to work perpendicular to the drive, you could box blade in reverse like a dozer at the end. Then approach parallel ON the drive to broach out the corners in reverse also ... much like a carpenter uses a chisel to square out a corner.



I don't know if your thought about using the boxblade that way or not, but I do that quite a bit. If you need some contour or bank on the drive, you can use the side tilt to create it, like a bulldozer would. Then you could go back and re-work the sides of the drive to build it back up square too. (If you have the room)
Just don't bend your lower drag links pushing like that. I beefed mine up to take the added stress pushing in reverse after I bent mine.

 

[KAB]

Just don't bend your lower drag links pushing like that. I beefed mine up to take the added stress pushing in reverse after I bent mine.

That is part of the story that I left out. After loosening and removing most of the dirt at the lower end. I then attempted to clean up the remaining dirt by pushing the loose dirt into a pile in the corner. I caught the edge of the dirt with the right side of the BB and bent both lower links and the rt side link. (I put the hydraulic side link on the left side) I was able to heat up the side link to straighten it out and found a press to straighten out both lower links.

I did not take any pictures of the bent links.

Kurt

 

[3RRL]

LOL ... Don't feel bad, I took them for you.



I fixed them up and welded a super thick scarifier to the bottoms to beef them up and several weld passes to build up a fillet.



They have not bent since then, and I have subjected them to even more severe stress duty. I also bent one turnbuckle side link. Mine were 1" dia thread so when I changed to hydraulic side tilt, I used really big cylinders ... Ø3-1/2 with Ø1-3/4 rods! I changed both sides out.

Back to your project, are you going to be doing any more drives or other dirt work? From your photos it looks like you really got the knack of working that boxblade. All that cutting with it came out terrific. What's next then?
You have to find something to do now that you got all that neat stuff on the tractor.

 

[KAB]

Rob,

I did a 24 x 60 driveway for my BIL over Memorial Day weekend. The driveway was fairly easy, it was moving the spoils over 300' that took forever. He now has a large pile of dirt at the back of his property.

That same weekend I installed one of these Royal Outdoor Products - Storage Buildings and Sheds, after tearing down the wood shed that was there, at my MIL campsite. and did the attached pics. to her driveway. The before are after I leveled it about 3 yrs ago, right after I got got the Kioti. I had other projects that needed done that weekend and did not have time to ditch the side of the drive. It is a 2hr drive to get there, and there is usually a long list of items to be done.

I also had 23 tons of limestone spread on the driveway after I had everything roughed in.

Back to my property... I need to figure out the exact placement of where the house will be located so I can finish the last part of the drive and parking area. I will also be adding a garage there in the future.

One thing that I had done to save some cost was to use the same cylinder for the side link and for the grapple. Some of these are still works in process due to the various projects that I have been working on. As I get them completed I will post what I did.

And thanks for the bent lower link pics. Those are what mine pretty much looked like. I will probably reinforce them sometime in the future as time permits. I have a 78 MGB that my wife wants me to start working on again now that I have most of the parts.

Kurt

 

[praha]

With everything marked and ready I used the box blade, with the help of TNT.............................excuse my ignorance , what is TNT?
Otherwise interesting reading and a nice job.

Joe

 

[3RRL]

Hi praha,
TNT is Top and Tilt. A description for having a hydraulic top link and hydraulic side link(s). It allows you to adjust the top link on the fly such as when using a boxblade for cutting or smoothing. Y can also adjust the side links on the fly for tilting the implement sideways such as a boxblade when you want one side of it to cut lower than the other. The system saves oodles of time spent manually adjusting the links. Saves wear and tear on your back too, just jumping in and out of the tractor for adjustments too.

KAB,
You've done a lot of work with your rig. I'll tell you what...
LOL ... I'd rather spend all day on the tractor cutting that drive than putting together that shed with the gazillion nuts and bolts any day!

 

[john_bud]

excuse my ignorance , what is TNT?


Joe

Either what Rob said, or Trinitrotoluene. C6H2(NO2)3CH3

I guess you can use it in small quantities to remove obstacles or limit out quickly when fishing.

 

[beersngars]

Very nice. I wish they would build the roads in Ohio that well.