Hauling Your Boomer

jinman · May 9, 2002

Brandon, I don't have a photo of my tractor on a trailer with my rotary cutter, but here is a photo of my TC45D the day I went to pick it up from my dealer. My trailer is 18' and you can see that a cutter would hang out about 3' to 4' if you count the trailing wheel (you could take it off). If you take the cutter off and put it in front, you just might end up with more weight in the rear of the trailer than the front and that is not good. Anyhow, I hope the picture gives you some idea of what you are up against. The TC45D with loader and rotary cutter is at the maximum weight you can carry on a 7,000lb trailer. If your tires are loaded, you will be overweight. You should consider going to a trailer with axles rated heavier than 3,500lb each. A 24 foot gooseneck would be just perfect, but they are pretty expensive unless you haul your tractor a lot. Good luck. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

DocHeb · May 9, 2002

Jim,

Great picture, very helpful!

Anyone else with pictures of trailered Boomers out there?

mikim · May 9, 2002

I have a TC45 and an 18' trailer. My cutter definitely hangs over the back - I just put a flag on it - but if I were doing a lot of trailering for any distance - I'd get a bigger trailer.
mike

bnixon · May 9, 2002

Thanks for the picture. That is a big help. I have a superduty trailer (12000lb) I shouldn't have any issues with to much weight. I stepped up because of that reason. My biggest concern is distributing the weight so that it will pull well.

I would go with a bigger trailer but this is as big as my Suburban will handle.

I will have to mess with all of the different suggestions and see which will work the best. I will be trailering the tractor about 60 miles several times a month and occasionally 300-350 miles to my other place (2 times a year).

Thanks again for all of the input.

Golfgar4 · May 9, 2002

Brandon,

Just make sure that once you figure out what to do you take some pictures for those of us that haven't figured it out yet!/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

mswanson · May 9, 2002

I only have a medium size boomer but mine seems to fit well on an 18' trailer with an 8000 lb rating pulled by a K2500 Suburban. I was glad to hear that you had a 12000 lb trailer for your big boomer. So far far I have been loading the tractor facing frontwards with the bucket right up to the lip of the deck since this is how the dealer told me to do it. I do have a problem sometimes with the frame of the backhoe scraping the ground when unloading. Does anyone have any hints to solve this problem. Next time I think I will try loading it backwards to see if I don't get the scraping. When I was shopping for a tractor last year I almost bought a used TC40D with 50hrs. It had a trailer with it that was 10,000 lb and I believe 20' with a pintle hitch setup.

John_Mc · May 9, 2002

I will be trailering the tractor about 60 miles several times a month and occasionally 300-350 miles to my other place

That frequently, and for that distance, I would be very hesitant to trailer it with anything heavy hanging unsupported off the 3 pt hitch. There was a thread here somewhere on TBN about damage to the 3 pt hitch caused by heavy loads bouncing on it (and since the mower hangs way out, that's quite a long lever you're hanging that load on). This was in reference to driving the tractor at high speeds over bumpy terrain/roads. Your probably on smother roads, and have the trailer suspension to help absorb the shock, but you are also at much higher speeds. I forget what the actual damage was (something internal, if memory serves...) if you do have to haul this way, perhaps you could rig up something with chains to the far end of the mower to carry the load?

Removing the mower and putting it under the FEL, as others have suggested, is probably a much better way to haul it long distances.

John Mc

Golfgar4 · May 9, 2002

"...I would be very hesitant to trailer it with anything heavy hanging unsupported off the 3 pt hitch."

John,

You're right, there was a thread about this topic, but I haven't found it yet. A person definitely wants to support any implement hanging off the 3 pt hitch while trailering. Even if the rotary cutter, or whatever implement is attached, is hanging over the back end, as long as it can lowered where it is sitting on the flat portion of the trailer bed, it shouldn't be a problem. With a 20' trailer, we might be talking, what, about 2' - 4' hanging over? As long as the rest of the cutter is resting on the trailer bed, it should be safe to trailer it anywhere. I would certainly attach a red flag to the portion hanging over just as a safety precaution.

BKColeman · May 9, 2002

Is this the <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=owning&Number=61369&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1>thread</A> you're talking about? Kubmech talks about 3ph stress. Seems like their might be another thread by him too on the same topic that spurned from this thread.

--Brad

Golfgar4 · May 9, 2002

Excellent job Brad. That's the one! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Don't know why I didn't see it when I was searching. Must have something to do with work interferring with the search! /w3tcompact/icons/hmm.gif/w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif