Gear drive vs hydro

[MossRoad]

.. hey.. at least i restrained myself from using the 'riding lawnmower' analogy at any point in this conversation.. :0

soundguy

DOH!

 

[N80]

I think you could also say that real work is work that you would have to pay others to do.. if you weren't doing it yourself.

IE.. I'd ahve to pay others to mow my fields for me.. If i didn't mow them. At current mowing rates... It's MUCh cheaper for me to mow them per year.. even figuring the cost of the tractor i bought to do so... If I paid to have them mowed.. I'd have to let them grow up alot more inbetween cuttings due to the price.. etc.

soundguy

Good point. But for some of us weekend warriors like me, that type of work doubles as entertainment. And I won't lie, even though mowing is my least favorite tractor work, I still end up enjoying it. And I have a blast doing most everything else. I even enjoy the maintenance. There are times when I have other things that I want to do which makes me want to get a tractor job done real quick, but that's pretty rare.

And I think that most of us here fall into that catagory...or we probably wouldn't even be here fussing about our tiny little tractors. And that means that most any discussion about trimming minutes or hours with the efficiency of one tranny vs the next are not sincere.

There are usually half a dozen active posts about from people rejoicing about HOW MUCH seat time they've gotten lately.

(There are obviously people here, who don't enjoy tractor time as much as some of us, or for whom it is employment and certainly the 'time' issues are more important to them....but again, this is not typical of the BX Nation.)

 

[MossRoad]

As far as real work and getting paid...

I volunteer at the school, church and little league a few days worth of tractor time, operator and fuel each year. I think I have more hours on the meter in volunteer work than work at home each year. Definitely this year. We had no rain, so I didn't have to mow at home.... the grass died early.

 

[art]

Me too, but that's because I don't know anything about HSt other than a test drive in a parking lot 3 years ago on a tractor I knew I wasn't going to buy...all I remember is pressing a pedal.



Makes sense I guess. So the throttle and the 'pedal' are seperate things? In other words, set the throttle to 2100 rpm which means PTO goes 540 and then work the 'go' pedal seperately and go as slow as you want but keep constant PTO speed? That's cool. So you can creep around obstacles and still maintain good mower blade speed.

Okay, that's neat, but again, we're still sort of splitting hairs here since with a gear tractor, especially some of the ones cited above with ground speeds of .24 mph at 540 pto speed, you can still go painfully slow while keeping good pto speed. Maybe not technically as precise.....but in practical terms, maybe a wash?

(Sorry to be thinking out loud, I'm just trying to think through this and I don't have any HST experience and with my tractor second gear is slow enough to mow around shed, cars and house. Which means I don't have a lot of experience using first gear even in my own tractor!)

Alright, so to justify your perspective you can slow a gear drive down by using the right gear to get the job done! So let's just say that you have mixed conditions and one moment the .24 mph works but the next few hudred feet you could go 2.4mph! Do you shift gears or just stay at the same speed? Time is a thing that you can never replace, once it's gone it's gone! Only a hydro will allow you to speed up and slow down the have a perfect job and not shift a gear! That is also the same transmission that allows you to work with a machine hooked up to it that might be to big for most curcumstances but with the flexibility of the ground speed you can overcome that even with the loss of power caused from the hydro!

 

[N80]

Experiences will vary, and I've done very little actual volunteer work, but I have helped my B-I-L when he has needed smaller tractor services (moving feed in his feed lot, cleaning feed lot. moving and spreading gravel around his cisterns, disking his veggie garden (so his wife doesn't have to hand till it!) etc) I not only enjoyed it, but it made me feel good too.

 

[N80]

Alright, so to justify your perspective you can slow a gear drive down by using the right gear to get the job done! So let's just say that you have mixed conditions and one moment the .24 mph works but the next few hudred feet you could go 2.4mph! Do you shift gears or just stay at the same speed? Time is a thing that you can never replace, once it's gone it's gone!

Funny that you mention it but we are talking about the time issue right now. Clearly I don't find that 2.3725 seconds it take me to stop and shift as valuable as some.

Only a hydro will allow you to speed up and slow down the have a perfect job and not shift a gear!

That's not even remotely accurate! I can change ground speed significantly with the throttle, the higher the gear the more true it is. I can disk in 3rd gear/low range and have considerable control over ground speed without changing gears. I can mow in 7th (2/hi) and have come almost to a crawl (although rpms to the mower do drop) up to pretty much as fast a clip as I can maintain on my bumpy fields. So to suggest that a gear tractor requires a shift change ground speed is quite a misunderstanding of how they work.

 

[N80]

Pretty neat and simple concept.

It really is. And its just another one of those 'old timey' things that makes so much sense, costs nothing to implement, but is no longer used. To me it just defies explanation why this isn't on every basic tractor.

Granted, it would have limited value to most CUT users but it just couldn't cost much of anything.

 

[N80]

I also remeber a quite funny story about an hst ( kubota i think) trapped at the bottom of a gully that it's hst wouldn't crawl out of...

Soundguy

Was it due to the fluid sloshing down away from a pump or something?

 

[dmccarty]

I bite and enter The Great Debate.....

When looking to by a tractor, the JD 4700 gear tractor is/was 41.5 PTO HP and 40 for the HST. The HST was more expensive but I don't remember price.

I wanted to maximize the HP which was a good idea but I don't think I would see the difference HP wise between 40 and 41.5. I have run out of traction. I have run out of hydraulic power. But not PTO HP.

The PowerReverser is real nice. Another reason I bought the gear tractor over HST was that I drive manual tranny trucks and wanted them the tractor and truck to operate as similar as possible. The PowerReverser has a foot clutch but it also has a lever on the left side of the steering wheel that tells the tractor to go forward, backward or neutral. In neutral you can change geers as if the foot pedal was pressed. It works real well. Unforntunately after a long day of working on the tractor I have been known to get into the truck and move the turn signel lever to get the Ford to move forward.....

Its real easy to go forward and backward with a PowerReverser. Don't see how an HST could be that much better. I was mowing yesterday and much of the mowing was backing over heavy brush and saplings. Go backwards 6-12 feet with the MX 6 held high. Lower the MX 6 and move forward. Aim for a new spot. Repeat.

Using the FEL is the same. Never had a problem where I thought I was going too slow or too fast. I just set the geer and leave it there. The only time I think I needed HST or Crawler gears was when moving brick cubes. The pallet forks just barely would bit into the slots in the cubes. Maybe 1/4 inch clearance. Threading the slots had to be done just so which was hard since I could not quite see what was going on with the forks. Going real slow would have helped.

Knowing what I know now I would consider an HST but I don't know if I would buy it. It would get down to the extra cost.

Later,
Dan

 

[MossRoad]

It really is. And its just another one of those 'old timey' things that makes so much sense, costs nothing to implement, but is no longer used. To me it just defies explanation why this isn't on every basic tractor.

Granted, it would have limited value to most CUT users but it just couldn't cost much of anything.

I agree. It is just a printed ring. They have to print it anyway. And they have to stick it on anyway.

Now back to arguing...

Go drive a hydro!