loader use

[debp]

We just bought a used L3400, and I am trying to learn how to use the front end loader. I am not clear what kind of force I can put on the loader to not harm it or the hydraulics. I am trying to dig up a layer of road base that is packed but still loose enough to shovel with a lot of effort. My neighbor showed me how to do this by putting the bucket bottom near vertical and pushing and pulling the gravel, but it involved going forward at quite a good speed and to the point the front tires came quite a ways off the ground each time he pushed the gravel forward or pulled it back. Is the loader and tractor made to handle that kind of use without hurting anything? He certainly was able to move dirt effectively and without any obvious issues.

 

[medic0648]

Do you have a bb with scarifiers or other attachment to break up the road base first? It would be easier on the fel and you. I'd be more worried about breaking welds or bending the fel over the hydraulics other than blowing a line.

 

[creekbend]

If possible, it would be in your best interest to obtain a Loader Manual for your make and model. I have a L4400 that I bought new. In addition to an Operator's Manual, there was a Loader Manual included. Perhaps, Your local Dealer might be able to supply you with one. Another source would be Kubota's web site. I know that the web site offers Manuals, but I'm uncertain if they sell Loader Manuals. BTW, adding a Toothbar would definitely help. Perhaps, you could go to the SEARCH section at the top of this page, and type in Toothbars? Best wishes.

 

[RaydaKub]

The bucket is dumped almost vertically and the tires raised off the ground, then you're scraping gravel? That's putting a tremendous amount of leverage on the bucket cylinders. At the very least, I'd get some kind of tooth bar on it and then only dump it about 10 degrees from level. But for that kind of work, a box blade would be a lot better.

 

[Turbys_1700]

FEL's are made for lifting...
Most of the time damage to them and the tractor comes from pushing...
That is what a bull dozer is for...
Get you a box blade with scarfers and loosen up the road bed first...
If not you can back drag with the FEL if you have a tooth bar...
Just don't put too much down pressure on the unit...
You will learn as you go to the limits of your tractor and FEL...

 

[crazyangel]

Some great advice mentioned here already. Here is my two cents... :2cents:

There is no doubt that you can move the material using the method your neighbor showed you, but as a general rule, I try to avoid using my loader in bulldozer type situations. It just isn't designed for it, and to me, there is just way too much risk of bending the loader arms/cylinders or blowing a seal. Most loaders are designed for light to moderate digging, lifting and carrying. So when ever I am dealing with packed material I try to first break it up with another implement to reduce the strain on the loader arms and cylinders. A box blade with scarfers is a fantastic tool for this. You might consider looking for a decent used one on craigslist. I am sure others have different experience that would indicate a more aggressive approach will be fine, but I really don't want to incur the expense of repair/replacement on my machine because I took that risk. That is just my perspective one it...

Good luck!

 

[nybirdman]

Keep that up and you'll break something for sure.Probably bend the cylinders.As stated buy a Box Blade with scarifiers that is the proper tool.This is why you never buy a "rental" machine",yahoos like that don't care,its not theirs.

 

[Grandad4]

Even with something as large as a tractor, having the right tool for a job is really important.

Think of the loader bucket as a big scoop shovel. You wouldn't take a shovel and scrape the road with it held vertically because your arms would tire quickly and while you might loosen a bit of gravel that way, it wouldn't be very effective. Same thing applies to the loader... as everyone else says, that's not what it is for and you'll eventually damage something. Again, just like the scoop shovel, you can dig some with it by pushing it almost flat along the surface, but it's still hard work. There is an attachment called a toothbar that goes on the lip of the bucket that helps dig in, but a blade on the back of the tractor that is pulled rather than pushed is truly the right tool for scraping driveways and such. Two kinds: box blade... better for road/driveway repair and moving dirt, and scraper blade... kind of a heavy-duty snowplow for the back of the tractor. It's not as good as the box blade for repair work , but would also be handy for snow in your Durango winters.

 

[rScotty]

Even with something as large as a tractor, having the right tool for a job is really important.

Debp, that's a real good question. And Grandad4 is right. Here we have 4 tractors with loaders. The oldest is 40+ years old and they are all in fine shape. A good rule of thumb for using a loader is that it will be just fine with any job that it can do at a very low speed. The heavier the work, the slower you should go. Sometimes you are barely creeping forward. Don't ever be tempted to use speed instead of loader force and tractor power to force a loader bucket. That's how you will bend and break things. It may not break today, but eventually that will damage it.
You won't hurt the machine by creeping slowly into the job to evaluate it. Everyone does that. Just go very, very slowly. That gives time to see if the bucket is going to do the work or that the loader is under too much strain....... then it is time to get another implement out and break the project into smaller pieces.
Using speed to try to force the tractor to do something beyond it's capability is NOT the way to do things.
Luck, rScotty

 

[jerrybob]

FEL's are made for lifting...
Most of the time damage to them and the tractor comes from pushing...
That is what a bull dozer is for...
Get you a box blade with scarfers and loosen up the road bed first...
If not you can back drag with the FEL if you have a tooth bar...
Just don't put too much down pressure on the unit...
You will learn as you go to the limits of your tractor and FEL...

Good advice here.......even with a tooth bar...be careful. I have a Piranha tooth bar and have loosened soil and rocks with it.......I find back blading with it is a good approach. Not to deep.....may take several passes. Good luck!:thumbsup:

 

[Ken45101]

My neighbor showed me how to do this by putting the bucket bottom near vertical and pushing and pulling the gravel, but it involved going forward at quite a good speed and to the point the front tires came quite a ways off the ground each time he pushed the gravel forward or pulled it back.

That sounds like a great way to damage the tractor and/or loader. Do things slowly.

Lifting the tractor front end with the bucket is no big deal but doing it at speed? Bad idea.

A lot of blacktop you can get under and break it up. But the box blade with scarifiers is the best approach, or a bucket with teeth.

 

[wrooster]

My neighbor showed me how to do this by putting the bucket bottom near vertical and pushing and pulling the gravel.

Your neighbor does not have a good grasp of what that sort of "bulldozing" can do to the bucket extension cylinders. There is a reason that your Kubota manual specifically recommends against such a method.

Wrooster

 

[debp]

Thank you all VERY much. I wish my loader manual said something about this, but I couldn't find it. It certainly didn't give examples of using the loader as a dozer, hence my concern about this method. But, I didn't see anything specifically about it.
P.S., I found it in the manual, missed it first time

 

[wolftree]

Even a 3 point mounted sub soiler would be a better choice for breaking up the roadbed. Then scoop it with the front loader.

 

[My Hoe]

Debp, that's a real good question. And Grandad4 is right. Here we have 4 tractors with loaders. The oldest is 40+ years old and they are all in fine shape. A good rule of thumb for using a loader is that it will be just fine with any job that it can do at a very low speed. The heavier the work, the slower you should go. Sometimes you are barely creeping forward. Don't ever be tempted to use speed instead of loader force and tractor power to force a loader bucket. That's how you will bend and break things. It may not break today, but eventually that will damage it.
You won't hurt the machine by creeping slowly into the job to evaluate it. Everyone does that. Just go very, very slowly. That gives time to see if the bucket is going to do the work or that the loader is under too much strain....... then it is time to get another implement out and break the project into smaller pieces.
Using speed to try to force the tractor to do something beyond it's capability is NOT the way to do things.
Luck, rScotty

I agree.

 

[rScotty]

Ok, so by we know how to load a bucket. We drive up to a pile of material (slowly), select a low gear, and ease forward while wiggling the loader bucket to fill it. Front wheels can come off the ground doing this and that's OK. The key words are do it slowly and watch what's happening. Now raise the bucket and shake it to check and center the load, repeat if necessary, and finally lower the load nearly to the ground in order to drive away safely. Never ever drive anywhere with the bucket any higher than necessary. Dump slowly and repeat. Often it's easier to slice successive bucket loads from the sides of a dirt pile than from the center.

It's when the new dirt is roughly strewn over the driveway that the fun artistic part begins. I'll describe how I do it and maybe others will chime in with their hints too. Like a lot of old-timers I like to do the actual spreading, compacting, and smoothing by "back-dragging" with the loader bucket.

The best finished dirt surface is one that is compacted in successive thin layers with just the right moisture content. Soil too wet, too dry, or layered too thick won't compact. Of course anything works to some extent, but perfection is when the soil has just enough moisture so that a dirt ball can be squeezed by hand and will keep it's shape like a snowball does, and then spread and smashed down in successive thin layers. About an inch thick is all even a large machine can properly compact, and the compaction gets better with thinner layers and more passes.

To begin, I'll pull up with the bucket partway over one of those piles of dirt previously dumped in the roadway and lower the bucket with the cutting edge pointing down to slice off a bit of dirt. while slicing down, the front wheels will naturally come off the ground, and in this position I (slowly) back away a few feet to pull the bite free of the rest of the dirt pile. I'll continue backing away while simultaneously rotating the bucket up so as to flatten it as we spread the dirt on the road. By the time the bucket is nearly flat on the ground I am still backing up and still applying just enough down pressure to keep the front wheels a little off the ground.

Steering while backing with the front wheels off the ground is done by slight touches of the right and left rear wheel brakes. How nice it is to have found a way to use those individual wheel brakes that uses a delicate touch rather than standing on the pedal! With the wheels off the ground and the bucket flat it's poetry just how easily the wheel brakes can swing the loader bucket from side to side while backing...... just like icing a cake.
Enjoy! rScotty

 

[Ken45101]

^^^ Good info. I notice that you emphasized "slowly", LOL.

The idea of steering with the brake pedals is good, but usually needs a manual tranny AFAIK. It's hard to use the same foot on the HST pedal and the brakes

 

[rScotty]

^^^ Good info. I notice that you emphasized "slowly", LOL.

The idea of steering with the brake pedals is good, but usually needs a manual tranny AFAIK. It's hard to use the same foot on the HST pedal and the brakes

"Slowly" is sure a lot of what good tractor work is about, isn't it? And it's what makes an already durable machine last a lifetime.

Right you are! HST (hydrostatic) transmissions sure have complicated the wheel brake layout. It's interesting how some of the tractor brands are trying different solutions. When we were tractor shopping we noticed that JDs are laid out different from Kubotas, and that Case offered other options, ...making us wonder just how many different pedal and lever layouts are on the market today?

Mysteriously, the otherwise talented designers of our M59 put both wheel brakes on the right side of the steering column. Good intentions maybe.... but NOT a universal solution. For some it might work OK, but older folk generally find that layout awkward since it makes swivel seat brake pedal gymnastics necessary and also moved the HST pedal outboard to a less comfortable position.

I'm guessing that those lucky Kubota engineers conveniently born with three right feet and one left found the M59 pedal layout no problem regardless of age. For them it's perfect. For the rest of us it's gymnastics 101 revisited with a yoga twist.

To Kubota's credit, somewhere in the design process someone did figure out that many (most?) of the intended M59 customer pool had been born with a different anatomical layout than the design engineers had counted on. So after making the embarrassing mistake of miscounting the number of feet per customer, Kubota corrected the problem by adding extra hand levers to control the HST.

With enough hand controls, even us two-footed folk can work the HST and brakes at the same time.
Enjoy!! rScotty

 

[PILOON]

My 2 cents.
Most if not all already said PLUS
NEVER ram into something! always ease in gently and then add power. Let hydraulics do the work.
TOOTH BAR is your best friend. Makes a whole new machine. Digging, rakeing, clearing roots etc, only downside is back grading a smooth finish but then the tooth bar gets removed for that.

 

[Ken45101]

TOOTH BAR is your best friend. Makes a whole new machine. Digging, rakeing, clearing roots etc, only downside is back grading a smooth finish but then the tooth bar gets removed for that.

I had poor results from the JD toothbar on my skid steer. Poor design, it kept breaking the corner teeth off (they were weakly welded on). I gave up and bought a Blue Diamond tooth bucket. The teeth do not hang below the bucket so it backdrags smoothly, the best of both worlds, good digging and good backdragging.