SmallChange
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2019
- Messages
- 700
- Tractor
- New Holland WM25 with 200LC front end loader, filled R4 tires 43X16.00-20 and 25X8.50-14 (had a Kubota B6200D with dozer and R1 tires)
We have been toying with the idea of getting a travel trailer. If we did, the best place to store it would be in our back woods, which are fenced in. There's driveway and gate and space between trees sufficient to drive multiple cars back there and turn them around. But I doubt I could get a trailer in there and get it out again with it hitched to the back of my car.
I think I could do it with a ball hitch mounted to my FEL, and I already have the SSQA adapter to do that, which I sometimes use with a short 2" square boom pole. It is easy to compare trailer tongue weights and FEL capacities, so I know that particular load requirement could be met.
What is harder to know is what happens when the tractor is moving the trailer gross vehicle weight. If my space was flat, this wouldn't be an issue. But I do have some slopes. I can imagine scenarios where I would want the tractor to move the trailer up and down the driveway which has a 14% grade at the steepest point, and I don't like the thought of doing that while imagining what would happen if I popped out of gear, or getting complacent and then realizing I was pulling back hard and had forgotten to engage 4WD. At a minimum I would have to be OK with about a 5% grade while turning, and I can imagine jackknifing.
So... any experience or rules of thumb or guidance about GVW and FEL hitching? Does anybody here do something similar?
P.S. Yes, I know things could grow rambunctious if I tried to use the 3PT instead, because there's no downforce and the trailer could crowd behind me and drive the hitch point upward until things got away from me. We're not making that mistake! I have a drawbar I could use. I just figured the FEL would be better because the front end of the trailer would be more easily steered where I want it if it were in front of the tractor steering wheels and in my plain view.
Thanks!!
I think I could do it with a ball hitch mounted to my FEL, and I already have the SSQA adapter to do that, which I sometimes use with a short 2" square boom pole. It is easy to compare trailer tongue weights and FEL capacities, so I know that particular load requirement could be met.
What is harder to know is what happens when the tractor is moving the trailer gross vehicle weight. If my space was flat, this wouldn't be an issue. But I do have some slopes. I can imagine scenarios where I would want the tractor to move the trailer up and down the driveway which has a 14% grade at the steepest point, and I don't like the thought of doing that while imagining what would happen if I popped out of gear, or getting complacent and then realizing I was pulling back hard and had forgotten to engage 4WD. At a minimum I would have to be OK with about a 5% grade while turning, and I can imagine jackknifing.
So... any experience or rules of thumb or guidance about GVW and FEL hitching? Does anybody here do something similar?
P.S. Yes, I know things could grow rambunctious if I tried to use the 3PT instead, because there's no downforce and the trailer could crowd behind me and drive the hitch point upward until things got away from me. We're not making that mistake! I have a drawbar I could use. I just figured the FEL would be better because the front end of the trailer would be more easily steered where I want it if it were in front of the tractor steering wheels and in my plain view.
Thanks!!