L3410 pulling power

Joeinindy · Mar 28, 2001

When I got home today my local power company was running a new line to the barn and had gotten their truck buried up to the axels in soft mud. The truck was the type with a crane and boom for setting telephone poles and line work. I got the Kubouta out and hooked a nylon pull strap around the FEL bucket and to the hook on the trucks front frame and gave it all in reverse. The truck didn't budge but the L3410 dug four holes in the dry gravel drive about 1 foot deep and never lugged or groaned. I was really impressed with the power that little diesel puts out. They ended up getting another truck with a winch to free it up. Anbody who has their doubts about the power in a compact diesel needs to see one in action.

paccorti · Mar 28, 2001

Hey Joe that sounds like fun. Just curious, why didn't you attach the strap to the drawbar? Wanted to see as you were pulling?

Peter

toddler · Mar 28, 2001

The 3410's are impressive Joe, but it would have been even more impressive it could have pulled out that truck. My guess is if you'd had taht kind of traction, you'd have a broken tractor transmition. Those trucks weigh several tons! Stuck in the mud to it's axels, you were brave to try.
But like everyone always says, we run out of traction before we run out of power. Kind of a build in safty net!
Todd

Joeinindy · Mar 29, 2001

I used the FEL because I was too lazy to take the cutter off the back and I thought it would add some weight in the rear for traction. The fun part was leveling out all the ruts left by the truckswith the FEL in float and digging out the stabilizer pads they buried. Belive it or not the tractor actually did budge the truck a couple of times!

RobertN · Mar 29, 2001

Be careful pulling in reverse under a heavy load; it's a good way to pop spider gears. I did this while trying to pull someone out of the snow in my Jeep.

th explanation the gear/diff shop gave me was that the design of the gears, provides for excellent stregth in one rotation direction. But, the other rotation direction is weaker. If you look at the way this ring/pinion and spiders are, it makes more sense.

RobertN in Shingle Springs Calif

RobS · Mar 29, 2001

Hey Joe, what tires do you have? R-1's and R-4s are directional and the traction in reverse is significantly less than the traction going forward. Also, it I lift my cutter all way up it will allow me to use the drawbar and pull below the cutter, not that I've ever done that. Sounds like you had fun non-the-less /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif