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

[flusher]

Howdy, I started another thread asking for tips on safe operation of a FEL. I've gotten great responses. One of the suggestions was to make a rear weight, here's that post:



So this got me thinking, does anyone have any neat ideas or designs for such a weight or something similar that would be functional in some way and also really heavy. Please post pics if you have them as that makes it much easier to understand. I'm not the most mechanically inclined person on the planet. Also I can't weld, but could have someone else do that for me the ideas involve welding. This is your chance to showcase your ingenuity! Thanks in advance.

I balance the FEL on my Kubota B7510HST by adding weight to the box blade. A multitasking solution since the weights balance the FEL load and also help the box blade work better.

Three 120 lb weights. Total cost: about $25.

 

[Spiveyman]

This may seem a bit boring, but I just leave my box blade on. Tires are filled too. The BB is only 580 pounds but that has been sufficient for anything I've wanted to carry in the FEL on my 45 hp tractor. Plus, if you just happen to need the BB, its there!

For most of what I will likely do with the FEL I will probably take that rout as well. If I'm moving hay, I'll use a spear/bale on the 3ph, for everything else I may want the BB or a back hoe eventually. I'm getting a BB today that is about 710 lbs. With the 1,000 lbs in my tires I'm hoping that will suffice. That will give me time to make a hoss weight (~2,000 lbs) for those big jobs that come along every now and then.

 

[Erik_in_Hoyt]

I, too, use my box blade for ballast - and I bolted some expanded steel to the top of it to give me a shelf where I can stack square kitty litter buckets full of concrete fr extra -- my 66" BB can hold 6 of these buckets for close to 1000 pounds of ballast, and I can still float the back tires occasionally lifting a large rock or mounded bucket of wet gravel/clay.
The kitty litter buckets came from a neighbor, the expanded steel came out of the scrap pile behind the garage, and the concrete I filled them with was leftover from a pour I was doing, so all I was out was the hour or so I spent cutting and drilling steel. The weights are held on front and back with angle iron and on top with a cinch strap.