jeepcoma
Silver Member
We had 20 tons of rock delivered in order to build footing inside a horse run-in shelter. We took down a section of fencing so that the driver could get right up close to the shelter and dump next to it, but he took one look at the ground and said he'd sink right in and be stuck. We do live in a flood plain and fear of getting a 4-wheel tractor constantly stuck and leaving ruts in the ground was one of the main reasons I went with a 2-wheel tractor in the first place, so I can't say I blame him. Ultimately it got dumped on the side of the road as close as he could get it to the shelter, maybe 50 feet.
I had an old auto trailer I'd been using with my previous truck but was too small for my new one, but I always though it would be a handy companion for the G110, something I could take in the woods with my chainsaw, and drive places I wouldn't go with my truck, hauling brush and such around to burn piles. I had all the parts and pieces and just needed an afternoon to rig something up and do some drilling for the mounting holes.
It works in a pinch but I will definitely be welding on a tubular mounting bracket and removing the ball mount hookup (or maybe figure a way to mount the bar such that the ball mount could be retained), but I needed it working ASAP since a friend was coming over to help. Driving it with the trailer is certainly interesting, it took us a few cycles to nail down an efficient process: only load at the rear 1/3rd of the trailer, aft of the axle; don't overload or losing traction is easy; turning left is easier that right because the clutch level comes toward you instead of being pushed away, and I don't have go-go-gadget arms. This picture was our first load and we got stuck on a couple ruts that the horses compacted along the fence line, maybe a 3" bump. I added the full set of wheel weights (65 lbs each wheel) to already foamed tires, but it just didn't have the traction on the wet grass to pull that tiny trailer tire over that bump, and I didn't have much room to maneuver, so we had to shovel off maybe half the load before we got out. Lesson learned.
Backing up with the trailer on, it is very, very hard to turn the handlebars to steer. Is this normal? I suppose because the torque from the engine is now trying to push "up" on the drawbar-to-trailer mount, the center of gravity moves towards the tractor axle enough to remove the neutral balance. It's probably easier to stop, point the bars where you want them, then reverse again, and repeat the stop-go-stop-go process than it is to try and steer while in motion. We gave up on trying to go in reverse after the second load.
There are a few things I'd like to improve, like putting the correct drawbar hitch mount on, adding a seat, chainsaw mount, maybe some Grillo green paint (anyone know the color?) but it's certainly a handy little trailer that I think I will get a lot of use out of. Not bad for something I happened to have sitting around anyway. Hmm those front power barrows look pretty nice...
