Ideas for rear weights to balance FEL loads (post pics too)

[Spiveyman]

Spiveyman, what you need to remember is that your tractor is larger than many of us have and will have greater loader lift so you need more ballast. I have a 1200 pound backhoe on mine and at times it is not enough.

I was going to ask about the back hoe thing actually. After reading one of Eddie's posts (several of his posts) I just have to get one! But in the mean time while I'm saving up to get one, I now realize the importance of enough ballast. The tires filled are supposed to be close to 1,000 lbs. I'm not sure I could get enough weight in a barrel to top your 1,200 lbs. That's one reason I was liking the "suped up carry all" idea that would hold 2,000 lbs and provide some utility. I could perhaps mount a couple of barrels on something like that one from TSC and still have some crazy utility options. The only problem is I'm not quite as resourcefull as texasjohn there.

Thanks for the pointer though... OK, so my tractor weighs about 6,200 lbs (that's what the dealer said when he looked it up), the rear tires filled are another 1,000. Does anyone have an idea of how much ballast is "enough?" I know the easy answer is as much as you are picking up with the loader, and the way the weight is mounted matters, moment arms and all that with the distance from the rear wheels, so maybe there are too many variables to answer this. Perhaps I'll shoot for the 2,000 lbs that bale lifter will hold and see how she goes.

Thanks.

 

[texasjohn]

I sent you a PM with weight info.
Short answer is, your vehicle is in about same class as mine. I have loaded tires, yep, 1000 lbs extra weight there. I find that 1000 to 1500 lbs total on my carryall works Ok... however, the moments, etc. are incalculable as far as I am concerned. I go by "feel" ... I seek to avoid "porposing"

 

[Spiveyman]

Great, thanks! The other thing for me, being new to the FEL world, I won't be trying to max out the capacity of the loader right away. I'm going to take it very easy and get the feel of things. I think the max capacity on the loader is about 4,130 lbs, so at that load it would stand to reason that I'd need 1000 (tires) + at least 2000 (ballast). I'm assuming the tractor itself would have some weight that would be accountable in there, not to mention that I can't imagine picking up over 4,000 lbs worth of anything. The dealer called, the things been delayed a week, so hopefully it will be in THIS weekend.... I'm not a patient man when it comes to things like this, but I guess I'll have to be now.

 

[texasjohn]

I know you are getting anxious.... the good news is that you can get experience using a round bale on the rear as ballast.... then go from there!

 

[mike69440]

I would have rolled my L39 last week without the wheel weights. Why Kubota says not to add weight to the L39 with hoe attached I can not understand. The hoe still tosses the machine around at over 8,100 lbs total weight. A ful load in the bucket and the rears get light.

I was moving about 100 yards of loam and got careless and stuck in a hole. I was using the BH to pick myself out and still had the FEL bucket full and just slightly elevated. I was on a side slope and I put the L39 in a bad way. I was about to jump off the machine, but the wheel weights saved my bacon.

 

[Spiveyman]

Wow, close call. There's a few "what not to do's" in there, but I'm glad that worked out for you. I couldn't help but think, the whole thing might have been a sign about God not being happy about you calling NH His country, when clearly he prefers Kentucky.

(I'm mostly just seeing if all those people from Texas have a sense of humor! HA!)

 

[sandman2234]

Yes, but he vacations in Florida...
David from jax

 

[texasjohn]

Hey, us Texans are secure in knowing where God's country is... we don't have to make claims about it

 

[LetsRoll]

Spiveyman...how are you folks doing on hay in your neck of the woods in Kentucky? Around here, rolled hay (grass hay that is) is going for around $75-$80 a roll for cows. Alfafa is going over $100 a roll, even seen it up to $125. Word is around here (Franklin, just south of Bowling Green), hay will be scarce during winter months in my neck of the woods.

As for rear ballast, my rear tires are loaded and they get light carrying a 2000 lbs of rolled hay. I have a 55 gallon drum that I had filled with concrete last fall when I poured a sidewalk. The driver asked me where I wanted the extra concrete poured of what was left over and I told him to put it in the drum I had set aside. He knew right away what it was for. He told me his company fills them all the time for people that need ballast for there tractors. Some contractors wont let the driver pour out what they have left over on the job sight. So the driver takes it back to the company and they have a place they dump it. If you dont want to buy and mix concrete, you might call your local concrete company and ask if they will fill it with waist concrete that they have left over from a construction sight. I dont think they charge very much for it since you are doing them a favor of taking there waist concrete from them. Just might be a option that you could/can look into. What I did was cut the top off my plastic drum, I cut just enough of the top just to get the top off. The driver was able to get 60 gallons of concrete in it. My concrete does not have rock in it. When I took it into town to have the southern states weigh station weigh it, they said it weighs a little over 1200 pounds. All I did was cut two holes in it for the drawbar to slide through it and welded a 3"x3"x1/4" steel tube to the drawbar. I still need to finish the top link for it. But until I finish the top link, I just use a chain so that I can chain the top link to the square steel tube. Using this ballast is like night and day when moving rolls of hay or doing dirt work. Maybe this thread will make me finish the top link. I got a back seat driver saying to me right now that I wont finish it until the chain slips off it and I broke something on my tractor. Funny thing is, she is probably right. Think I might prove her wrong tomorrow. We'll see, just depends on this Kentucky heat where having.

 

[texasjohn]

Hay here... from several neighbors who have rolled some, 6' rolls:

$25 last year's haygrazer, water damage from below.. so much rain this year
$40 this year's haygrazer, not rained on, cut when very stemmy
$35 this year's johnson grass, cut when stemmy, some weeds, rained on
$55 this year's bermuda grass, top dressed, clean, not rained on

It's rained every week this haying season except for 2 weeks in August, now has started again. So, all hay has either been cut very late and stemmy, or has laid out in the rain for a good while.