I sure screwed up!

Boondox · Apr 15, 2001

My driveway traverses the slope on my property and has a slight downhill to it, so as the snow melts in the field above it uses the driveway as a streambed of sorts. I looked at all that water sort of meandering all over the place and thought it would be nice if I could use the rear blade on Clementine (my L3010) to grade it so the water hugged one edge or the other.

Fired up the beast, hit that remote hydraulic TNT lever to angle the blade full to the right, and went roaring in a slow sort of way down the driveway. Almost reached the end before the blade snagged a boulder about the size of the tire on my truck. /w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif

The good news: (1) Clementine's FEL was able to rip that rock right out of the ground and push it clear of the driveway. (2) Because so much earth was moved in the grading process my tractor can now drive under the breezeway between my house and shop without lowering the ROPS. (3) The runoff is now hugging the downhill side of the driveway. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

The bad news: (1) I now have a HUGE muddy hole in the middle of the driveway that requires 4WD for ingress or egress. (2) The hole is deeper than my little Honda car. (3) Not noticing how much damage the chained Ag tires were doing as I was attacking the rock, my vehicles must now traverse several feet of very deep mud before even reaching the car swallowing muddy hole. (4) My "A backhoe would have done a better job" comment did not earn me any points with the Wife. (5) All four of my golden retrievers adore mud holes and wallow in The Pit every time they go out. (6) A friend coming over to drop off a very nice Easter gift found the car eating mud bog with the front end of his brand new BMW. (7) Clementine needs a bath, but the hose is still frozen. /w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif

So I'm staring at The Bog wondering if I should use the rear blade to gently scrape some of the slush downhill, buy a ****load of sand to spread on top and smoosh it into the mud/clay slurry, or leave well enough alone and wait for summer..?

Pete in Mud City

www.GatewayToVermont.com

Harv · Apr 15, 2001

Youch, Pete! /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

I'm starting to think that tractor tires should be included as "digging implements". I have, as I'm sure many others here have, done some serious road/field mangling by spinning my R1's. I can only imagine how the chains added to the effect.

Sounds like you might be a candidate for that road fabric stuff we've been discussing. Although your base is clay, I'd worry about dumping expensive fill into the mire, only to have it squish down to oblivion when you drive over it. Also, (and I'm very much naive about this stuff myself) would it be better to use a crush instead of sand? In other words, something that's known to pack solid under pressure?

Either way, I don't envy you trying to solve the problem while there's still so much snow/slush on the ground. Summer would offer better conditions, but can you really wait that long? /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

Good luck, and keep us posted.

Bird · Apr 15, 2001

Pete, I'm sure familiar with the situation; wish I could help you, but in my case, I've found it to just be best to wait on dry weather. Seems the more you try to work it when wet (if it's clay like we have that sticks to the front end loader, box blade, shoes, or anything else), the worse it gets. I'd be surprised if sand helped much, although massive quantities of crushed rock might.

Bird

RobS · Apr 15, 2001

Sounds like you've been having some fun up there Pete! Not sure I can help too much other than remind you of the TBN mantra for good roadmaking... drainage, drainage, drainage. And then some quality compactable fill. I wouldn't use sand as it doesn't pack all that well. Hope all works out for you /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

john_bud · Apr 15, 2001

Pete, At least you didn't get stuck in The Pit with Clementine. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif AND you did get that rock out /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif AND you now have better drainage!

You may have read my little saga of being stuck in the mud. If so, you should know better than to take advice from me! /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif But, having made a version of "The Pit", I would say to wait until it dries out. Heck, I was breaking through the layer of grass roots and going down 6-12 inches into soup while walking around holding a shovel and cussing. Now a week later, its as firm as firm can be. (Well, I ain't been stuck in it again yet) /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Have fun,
John Bud

GlueGuy · Apr 16, 2001

Pete,

Bummer dude! Looks like you have more check marks in the minus column than the plus column. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif To quote a oft-repeated phrase: "I hate it when that happens!" /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

We had a mud-hole like that a few years ago. Was occasionally swallowing up visitors and the like. /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif.

What we did was bring in a couple truckloads (15 or 20 tons) of 1.5"X2" "course" agregate. Filled and spread as required, then drove over it for a couple months. Came back later and topped it with about 4" of "#2 recycle". This stuff is basically recycled/crushed concrete. Smoothed that over the spot, and it's been good to go for about 3 years now. We may put another couple inches on this year.

The GlueGuy

Boondox · Apr 16, 2001

I fixed it...sort of!

Had to get that muck out of the driveway since the little Civic had to be parked down the hill at our neighbor's vacation cottage...and while the Pathfinder could handle the stuff just fine in 4WD it was throwing mud up and over the house into the front yard! /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif Last week I had snow on the roof and this week it's mud

At any rate, heavy trucks are banned from my road this time of year as they tend to cause damage. So I was on my own. Figured the reason I was spinning the Ags with chains was because I was trying to drag too much muck. So I drove poor Clementine to the far end and took five foot nibbles with the rear blade. As I cleared the driveway down to firm stuff I'd back up a little further each time till I had it clear, mostly. So even though the driveway still has a deep wheel rut in the middle, both edges are firm and the whole thing slopes to the downhill side. Also did a little preventive maintenance by diverting the runoff into the front yard about a hundred feet further up the drive. Things are drying out nicely.

Thanks for all your support and suggestions!

Pete

www.GatewayToVermont.com

bpence · Apr 17, 2001

Having lived on a road that seems to turn into a big sucking mud hole every year, no matter what the county road commission does, I have to agree with Bird that sometimes you just gotta wait for stuff to dry out. And really, walking isn't all that bad.

When things dry out a bit, decide what to use to fill in to mire (I've used a lot of crushed stone on my drive) and consider it one of those projects that you always knew you'd have to get to but couldn't really jump into until you got the tractor and tore into stuff and only then realized what a huge project it was going to be and now that you don't have the back hoe it's going to take a while to fix, even with the tractor. Your wife will buy that, won't she?

Bob Pence

frank_f15 · Apr 18, 2001

boondox: u tell one heck of a story. really don't think sand will help u, i would suggest stone with dust, so it can compact. then make sure u know what your problem is and wait for dryer conditions.btw. the chains on my old ford 2n could chew up blacktop faster than a road crew. just think what i could do if i had them on a 4wd tractor!/w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif