Guage wheels or guage wheel?

[HomeBrew2]

It could have easily been Arizona or Baja except for your bio claims California. My sister used to live just a block out of San Bernardino in the community of Highland and now lives in Wickenburg, AZ in a community with landscaping indistinguishable from yours. Pat

Had I cared, I could have also easily considered, California City, Barstow, Boron, Olancha ... maybe even Big Pine or Independence ... though it's been a long time since I've made a trek "looking for shade" and may not remember the specific topography and flora

 

[mfrost]

Had I cared, I could have also easily considered, California City, Barstow, Boron, Olancha ... maybe even Big Pine or Independence ... though it's been a long time since I've made a trek "looking for shade" and may not remember the specific topography and flora

And sometimes the trek may take a long time and them you may have to share it some undesirable varmits.

 

[Tig]

I got a couple hours of grading with a BB this weekend. One guage wheel worked great with the T&T. But... The 8" wheel is a bit narrow and small. I only saw it skid once in the gravel but it did sink in the newly filled holes. 10" x 4" would probably work much better. The laneway I was working is about ten years overdue for some attention and it also got severely abuse two winters ago by a new neighbour. A tandem load of gravel only went so far. I found it easier to work with the guage wheel set longer due to the size of some of the problem areas.
Now I need to build a grader.
Overall I'm happy with the result. Thank you all for the advice given.

 

[StrangeRanger]

Tig,
I too am knew to the adventures of a BB w/ gauge wheels. Actually, I don't have gauge wheels yet, but I'm looking for inspirations. Can you please tell us what tractor you're running and what you ended up w/ for a set up? Pictures or drawings would be awesome

I've got an L3400 w/ a Woods GB65 BB. My driveway is an 1,800' rutted, muddy, gravel mix nightmare. I can do OK by going very slowly and constantly adjusting the BB height, but it's obvious that gauge wheels are required. So I'm going to enlist my welding buddy's help and build some gauge wheels. Any advice or ideas ya'll can provide would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you,
j

I got a couple hours of grading with a BB this weekend. One guage wheel worked great with the T&T. But... The 8" wheel is a bit narrow and small. I only saw it skid once in the gravel but it did sink in the newly filled holes. 10" x 4" would probably work much better. The laneway I was working is about ten years overdue for some attention and it also got severely abuse two winters ago by a new neighbour. A tandem load of gravel only went so far. I found it easier to work with the guage wheel set longer due to the size of some of the problem areas.
Now I need to build a grader.
Overall I'm happy with the result. Thank you all for the advice given.

 

[Tig]

I'd be happy to share. My tractor is a B7100-HSD 4wd. I'll post pics of the setup later tonight.
My laneway is about the same length as yours. Box blade worked fine but I think some sort of grader would be better. Based on a collection of ideas and pics in the forums I came up with an idea for a grader. I started building the grader last Friday but ran out of time. Which is a good thing since based on what I learned last weekend I'd like to change the design of the blades among other things. So I'll have to back track a bit. Later this week I'll have time to get at it again. I'll start a new thread in the build it section. It's pretty simple in design and materials required, you may find it interesting.

 

[Tig]

Here is my single guage wheel. The design is based on what I saw in Homebrew's avatar. I only made one because his avatar only shows one. It's made from scrap I had. A bracket hooks on to the back lip of the BB. The bracket can be moved left or right. The arm slides in and can be lengthened as required. Towards the front of the BB is a bar that drop onto the BB to brace the end of the guage wheel arm. I just bungeed the arm down for now. The single guage wheel worked quite well allowing me to adjust the angle of the blade to suit the slope I wanted for any particular section of laneway. Because of the geometry of the setup the toplink has to be adjusted whenever the tilt is changed. I imagine two guage wheels would work in similar fashion. As I mentioned before a bigger wider wheel would be an improvement.

 

[patrick_g]

The tail wheel on most brush hogs is made of recycled tires and is wider and greater diameter. Unfortunatley the whole assy is aboiut $300. They work well and last a long time in rough situations but seem pricey to me.

Pat