FEL uses

[AHNC]

Since my tractor is on the west coast and I am on the east...for 12 more months, I don't get to work with it much. Just returned from CA however and spent a week working on the place. That passes for vacation. I had to roof mount two mini-split heat pump consensing units. The weight (90 & 140#)wasn't much of an issue, but they are tough to get your arms around. I had the bush hog on the back of the 2660, pulled up to the roof area, raised the bucket a couple feet and levelled it. Secured some 2x3's to the bucket the condensing units to those and gingerly raised/levelled to max extension. Was unable to get up to full roof height so back down and shimmed the condenser up some, and well...Bob's, yer uncle. Properly rigged/secured this was a very safe procedure and I would have had a heck of a time, with much greater likelyhood of damaging myself or the equipment doing it without the FEL equipped tractor.

I post this for the folks whom I've seen talk about not needing a FEL with their machines. I use that thing all the time. I'm no stranger to bull work, but can do less and less of it before I need a nap:laughing:, so the loader gets me thru the day!

 

[TripleR]

Can't even imagine life without one.

 

[Thomas]

I consider my FEL my third hand..sure makes project heck of lot easier.

 

[RadarTech]

I agree with all the above..
without a loader I just don't think the tractor would be even 10% as useful!

From a tool tote, a"forklift" dirt mover.. and so many more
It is so helpful....


J

 

[Egon]

The weight (90 & 140#)wasn't much of an issue,

Young Folks!

 

[/pine]

Before I bought my tractor/fel...my most used tool was a wheelbarrow...

since then I think I've used it one time to mix a batch of stone mortar...

adding a grapple to the FEL bucket has made it even more utile

 

[RadarTech]

Young Folks!

hey some of us resemble that remark!!!
and I am sure young deere would speak up if he wasn't in the woods camping with his dog and horse!!!


J

 

[thatguy]

Can't even imagine life without one.

x1,000 -

and its sure beat the wheel barrow i was using.. LOL

 

[Robocop5626]

I am scrapping an inground pool to fill in the hole. The pool had a vinyl liner with metal reinforcement all around the sides about 4-5 feet down. My tractor wasn't strong enough to demolish the sides and a quote to have it done with a larger machine made me sit down. So I bought an oxyacetyline rig and strapped it into my FEL bucket. I just drive out to the edge of the hole and climb down. The torch reaches easily and works well. It sure made getting that rig around that much easier. The FEL also works for digging access to the shallow end of the hole so I can fill it in safely.

 

[TripleR]

About a week ago, I had a front flat on my M8540. My grandson put an air compressor in the FEL on my L5030 and put air in the tire twice to get me back to the shop.

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

It's like a pick up truck. Once you have one you can't make it without one.:thumbsup:

 

[funwithahoe]

I am not recommending this practice, but when I was a kid my dad would tell me to get in the FEL of an old JD backhoe (Yellow style) with the chainsaw and we would trim the bottom limbs off of all the trees that lined our driveway - Up about as high as the FEL would reach and then as high as I could hold the chainsaw. Not sure that would pass OSHA guidelines today but it probably didn't then either. Of course the JD was built way before ROPS were invented and leaked oil as though BP had designed it. There probably would have been a way to make it more dangerous but I can't think of one! Of course we didn't wear our seatbelts in those days nor had anyone imagined carseats for kids.

 

[RadarTech]

It's like a pick up truck. Once you have one you can't make it without one.:thumbsup:

Good analogy...

yea..

I can't imagine being with the truck for sure!

J

 

[TripleR]

I am not recommending this practice, but when I was a kid my dad would tell me to get in the FEL of an old JD backhoe (Yellow style) with the chainsaw and we would trim the bottom limbs off of all the trees that lined our driveway - Up about as high as the FEL would reach and then as high as I could hold the chainsaw. Not sure that would pass OSHA guidelines today but it probably didn't then either. Of course the JD was built way before ROPS were invented and leaked oil as though BP had designed it. There probably would have been a way to make it more dangerous but I can't think of one! Of course we didn't wear our seatbelts in those days nor had anyone imagined carseats for kids.

My sons worked for my father in law during the summer and I found out years later he had them doing the same thing. He also put a stadium seat on top of the canopy for them to spray brush killer.

 

[RadarTech]

My sons worked for my father in law during the summer and I found out years later he had them doing the same thing. He also put a stadium seat on top of the canopy for them to spray brush killer.

ya know I have heard it time and time again---
If we did now what we did when were kids we'd all be dead...

From riding in the back of pickups, to bicycles/motocycles without helmets and kneepads, boating without lifeguard vests.. the list can go on forever....


I bet we could all think of tons of these things and a search of TBN would like yield most if not all of them!

J

 

[funwithahoe]

My sons worked for my father in law during the summer and I found out years later he had them doing the same thing. He also put a stadium seat on top of the canopy for them to spray brush killer.

No worries there - Probably nothing in the brushkiller that was blowing back over them and the driver to hurt them - I mean that stuff only kills brush right? And hey it's not more than a 9 foot fall from the top of a moving vehicle with huge tires if they fell off.

I'll bet you were fuming when you found that out!

 

[funwithahoe]

ya know I have heard it time and time again---
If we did now what we did when were kids we'd all be dead...

From riding in the back of pickups, to bicycles/motocycles without helmets and kneepads, boating without lifeguard vests.. the list can go on forever....


I bet we could all think of tons of these things and a search of TBN would like yield most if not all of them!

J

Yeah - Cracks me up all the safety stickers that are on my new 'bota but I do believe we are heading in the right direction. Mostly we get away with stuff we shouldn't but I had a distant relative who had his leg removed courtesy of stepping over a running PTO with no guard and I wouldn't even want to know the number of accidents that have to happen before something like a ROPS becomes standard issue.

 

[RadarTech]

Yeah - Cracks me up all the safety stickers that are on my new 'bota but I do believe we are heading in the right direction. Mostly we get away with stuff we shouldn't but I had a distant relative who had his leg removed courtesy of stepping over a running PTO with no guard and I wouldn't even want to know the number of accidents that have to happen before something like a ROPS becomes standard issue.

I recently saw an article in one of my wood working magazines about how a table saw user sued due to injury.. I wait to hear what that sticker will be...

Safety stickers are kinda like water... and people are like horses..
I can put that sticker in front of you and it still may be ignored.
like leading a horse to water....
J

 

[TalonDancer]

....when I was a kid my dad would tell me to get in the FEL of an old JD backhoe (Yellow style) with the chainsaw and we would trim the bottom limbs off of all the trees that lined our driveway - Up about as high as the FEL would reach and then as high as I could hold the chainsaw. ....

We still do this today, except we don't use the bucket. We use a 4' square pallet with 3' high sides, lashed onto the pallet fork with ratchet tie down straps. It is MUCH safer that using a chain saw off a ladder, or even while climbed up into the tree. We can get the pallet 8.5 feet in the air as a stable platform for using a chainsaw.

A tractor without a FEL is a mower.

Talon Dancer

 

[TripleR]

No worries there - Probably nothing in the brushkiller that was blowing back over them and the driver to hurt them - I mean that stuff only kills brush right? And hey it's not more than a 9 foot fall from the top of a moving vehicle with huge tires if they fell off.

I'll bet you were fuming when you found that out!

Not really, he was a really good man who was just raised in a different time with a different way of doing things. Thankfully no one was ever injured and that third eye on my grandson really comes in handy...