skikir
New member
Because my garden is on the side of a hill I put bunch of rail road ties as a retaining wall to keep the dirt level. After years they became a haven for slugs and rodents and I wanted to increase the size of the garden and had to remove the ties. I was able to tuck the end of the ties under the top lip of the bucket and lift it up length wise and put it into the back of the truck. It was awkward and was surprised how well it worked and did not damage the bucket. HOWEVER it was PAINFULLY slow! Just due to the fact it was on the side of hill limited it's cross hill travel and I had to keep the rear wheels down hill from the tractor with a 200 lbs 8 foot long tie sticking out lengthwise from the bucket I had to zig zag back and fourth across the hill to the truck keeping the bucket low across uneven ground. But the biggest pain was manipulating that bucket with that gawd awful joy stick! There is absolutely no tactile feed back! There is about 5 inches of travel of the joy stick from center to full left and to full right and half that travel has no response. The same for up and down. Then when you get some hydrolic response it's like full speed. You're always hunting for that response point. And you're hand can't feel it when it starts to move. The only way I was able to do this was one movement at a time. Move tractor. Stop. Slowly raise bucket. Stop. Slowly curl bucket out to level. Stop. Move tractor to back of truck. Stop. Slowly lower bucket. Stop. There was absolutely no way to coordinate two movements at the same time. Move the stick a little, nothing. Move it a little more, nothing. Move it a little more, plop. I was really paranoid of beating my truck with the ultimate ugly stick! The stick is not loose, there is no play in the center position. There's just a lot of dead travel. I get the same feeling when moving dirt. Even with an empty bucket there is just a lot lack of feel in the control. I'd like to adjust it so it starts to move just off center so I would know where it should start to move instead of having to hunt for it.
