good chains, ropes, etc.

Richard · Dec 7, 2001

Hi Bob

I made a similar inquiry a while back and ended up going to http://www.labonville.com and bought a 25 foot length of their 3/8" grade 100 "square" alloy logging chain with a choker on one end and a slip hook on the other.

The square edge on this really helps it bite into logs. I have used this to drag up to 3 (each approximately 12 inch in diamater) ENTIRE pine trees at a SINGLE time. I have used it to extricate some moron who got his truck stuck in the muckhole when the lake water level was lowered and he decided to take his truck scuba-trucking /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif. In fact, when pulling his truck out, I had pretty much the entire rear end of his truck in the air as I was lifting it out of the muckhole he had driven into.

My personal thought is, I'd rather spend an additional few $$ to "know" (or substantially decrease odds) that the chain isn't going to break on me (had that happen to earlier 3/8 chain)./w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

Since I have a cab with missing glass on one side, I have a short piece of chain wrapped around the two left posts of my FOPS and I hook my chain to that leaving it tucked in a relatively small pile in back corner of cab. Makes it easy for me to always have it handy.

Richard

theboman · Dec 7, 2001

Several ways takes cares of stumps and the ain't none easy except hire a profdessional stump remover with a stump grinder.
A shovel and matic works wonders on a stump, your hands and your back. If you chop a lot of the roots loose your tractor has another advantage.
Have a chain saw? Cut that stump next to or below ground level. By the time the stump roots enought to cause a sink holes big enough to worry about it'll be 2100 or so.

Up behind my house is a stump about 12" tall, just the outside hull of the stump. It's hollow (or plum hollow) for about 15" underground. I put the old FEL against the stump and didn't budge it... It must be a steel tree stump.

Bo McCarty
Bluegrass, Pick It Up!

Bob_Trevithick · Dec 7, 2001

<font color=blue>Right off the bat, considering you want to try your hand at "pulling stumps"... read the tractor section on attaching your chains... always, always, always go low and hook at the drawbar for that type of work...</font color=blue>

Well, I certainly will wait until the break-in period is completed, and I have some experience at normal operation before I tackle anything tricky. And yes, I did get the manual for the tractor the day we did the deal.. and have been reading it over and over and over. My wife laughs at me, but she understands the importance of this too.

Thanks for all the great tips and advice, folks!!

Oh, and my wife came up with the little bouncing tractor pic.. I don't know if she found one and modified it or made it from scratch. I laughed and said, yep, that's the one for me. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bob Trevithick

frank_f15 · Dec 7, 2001

my simple rule of using chains with my 2400 is, if i can lift it easily i don't use it. i would rather have to much chain and not enough tractor than too much tractor and not enough chain.seen what that could do once, don't want to see it again/w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

billboe · Dec 7, 2001

<font color=blue>Oh, and my wife came up with the little bouncing tractor pic.. I don't know if she found one and modified it or made it from scratch. I laughed and said, yep, that's the one for me. </font color=blue>

I did admire your sig! and, it is only 660 bytes!

Billboe

MChalkley · Dec 9, 2001

Bob - I'll second Richard's comments on the square-link choker chain. If you want a chain that will bite into logs, stumps, etc. and is the strongest available, try the Pewag choker chain from Labonville. My first post on this chain was back in May of 2000 and you can find it at this link.

Also, depending on the stuff you're pulling you might find grubbing tongs useful - some information on them can be found here and here.

MarkC

dmccarty · Dec 10, 2001

Bob,

When I bought my JD 4700, a big part of the job list was getting stumps out of the ground. I have pulled hundreds of stumps out of the ground. They ranged in size from 1-2 inch itty bitty ones to monster 36 inch oaks. I have a JD48 backhoe as well as a 4n1 FEL. With the FEL I can SOMETIMES pull a stump out of the ground like pulling teeth. Usually these are 3-4 inch pine stumps. The UP movement really helps.

I have managed to pull some 3-4 inch stumps with the boxblade. It works but is not the best. Pulling the stump forward while using the 3PH to move the stump up seems to work best. But then the stump has a habit of getting stuck IN the box blade so you have to unstuck it.... /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

Some hardwoods have a tap root that goes deep and some do not. I have some red buds that run roots over the dozens of feet long and a good 1 inch thick. I have seem hardwoods with taproots longer than the pines. I have some pines that don't really have much tap root and others that go to China... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

The more taproot you have, the harder to get out.

I have tried pushing, pulling, and chaining to get stumps out. I have hooked chains up to some of the 36 inch stumps. AFTER I had dug them out, i.e., cut all the roots with the backhoe and gotten the stump half out of the hole, I COULD NOT move them with a chain and the tractor. Just spun the wheels.... I have had very limited success getting stumps out with a chain.

The most production stump pulling I can do is with the backhoe....

I have a chain that is a "logging" chain I got from the JD dealer. It had some decent specs which I have forgotten but better than the "regular" chain at the big home stores. I bought transport, Grade 70 chain, at Lowes since it does not rust like the other chain and had a higher strength....

As other people have said, make sure you keep the chain BELOW the center of gravity of the tractor. That pretty much means the draw bar. Around Thanksgiving, my wife's aunt and cousin where pulling an old peanut shelling wagon out of a barn that had fallen down. They hooked the old MF 165 to the wagon. The chain went to this hoist they had on the 3PH. This placed the chain roughly at the seat level on the tractor as compared to the drawbar on the bottom of the tractor. The draw bar is maybe 18 inches or so from the ground while the seat is a good 36+ inches. They gave some awesome mechanical leverage to the wagon but did not know it. The wagon was pinned by the fallen barn....

Thankfully, they don't know how to run the tractor, so the throttle was at idle. When they popped the clutch the front wheels only raised a foot or two off the ground. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif If they had the engine had a higher RPM I'm sure they would have flipped the tractor over backwords. There ain't no ROPS on an old MF165 so it would have killed her before she knew what had happened...... Depending on where her son was standing it might have gotten him as well.

When I heard this story I tried to explain what could have happened and how to hook up to the drawbar. They looked at me like I was the man on the moon. Not a clue in the world as to what I was saying. Completely clueless on how close they had come to dying. Since they grew up on the farm they know everything. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Course GrandPa Russel is the one who ran the equipment not them and they really don't have a clue as to how to safely run this stuff. They just think they do because they watched Dad/Granddad..... /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif At the end of the day, we left and the cousin was pulling old fuel tank around the barns with the same chain and hook up point........ Thankfully the tank was empty....

Be careful. A tractor can kill quick if one is not paying attention. I think everyone has some close calls myself included. I'm glad you got the manual as other's suggested! I did the same thing as well. And I went back and read the manual after I was working the tractor to get a different view. The wife made fun of me since I was reading the back hoe manual and moving my hands as if they where on the controls. She thought I had lost it! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif But it worked! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Hope this helps....
Dan McCarty

Bob_Trevithick · Dec 10, 2001

Hi Dan,

Very helpful post! Yes, I'm quite aware of how easily I could mess up with this thing, and hearing stories such as these helps to pound the lesson in. Many thanks, and thanks also for the stump-pulling tips. I'll find out, I expect, what works best for my land, trees, tractor, etc. It'll be fun!

Thanks again!

Regards,
Bob

Bob Trevithick

dmccarty · Dec 10, 2001

Bob,

I forgot to mention that you might want to search through TBN on stump pulling. We have had discussions before and I'm sure you will find specific help that has not been mentioned before. And we surely have had talks about chains as well. I remember a talk at least a year ago where I got some valuable information.

Later....
Dan McCarty