My close call captured with camera...

IslandTractor · Aug 4, 2008

Double Orange said:
That is the 1st correct answer.
Pulling with your loader will treeke the loader arms.

Sorry the tractor police in me came out!

I'm glad everything worked out.
P.S.
Rumor has it that while you where inside the wife snached it out w/the Back/Hoe

You don't lift the rear wheels of a tractor by pulling as much as by lifting an immovable object with a loader strong enough to lift the rear of the tractor. He was mostly lifting to raise his rear wheels like that. I'm sure that backing up did contribute to the force lifting the rear but without the loader lifting and providing a high pivot point where the chain is attached he would simply have stalled or spun his wheels.

Diamondpilot · Aug 4, 2008

I had a friend nearly get killed pulling a fallen tree with the FEL. Any time you pull from above the axle line you are looking to go over. Only pull from the draw bar.

Chris

Renze · Aug 5, 2008

Diamondpilot said:
Any time you pull from above the axle line you are looking to go over. Only pull from the draw bar.

I saw that when i was in Canada: only the low drawbar (40 or 50 cm height) is sold on any tractor.
Over here, a high drawbar ( 90 cm, 3') is standard for many trailers.
Back in the old days with 2wd tractors, we needed that to transfer enough weight to the rear axle of the light tractors, when pulling manure tanks through soft fields.

Newer heavy tankers and trailers do have a low drawbar, with about 2 ton tongue load, because these are pulled by 4wd tractors that need their weight on the MFWD front axle to pull effectively.

Over here it was standard untill the mid 80's to get the power to the ground (and usually the front wheels a bit off the ground

) In America its a total no-no to pull above the centerline of the rear axle.... Weird isnt it ?

orangebluegreen · Aug 12, 2008

As Egon said....

"For my little tractor that is a common operating position when using the bucket.
On the HST type tractors a easing off the forward motion pedal will bring things to a stop and there is always a hand on the joystick."

Unnerving at times but common.
I must have done that a hundred times this past year digging out Australian pine stumps with my B Series, the stumps were way bigger than the machine but enough abuse and hard work got the job done.

horse7 · Aug 17, 2008

IslandTractor said:
I am surprised people are responding that this will hurt the tractor or is particularly dangerous. You have a heavy duty tractor that has a loader rated to lift over 2000lbs to full height and can probably lift 4000lbs a few feet off the ground. The front axle is designed for that and has a safety margin engineered in. How many Kubota owners have broken their front axles using the FEL?
....

A worthwhile test to try is to load the FEL with 1000Kg or whatever the rating is (and is safe to carry considering rear tire load/attachments), and drive over lumpy ground watching the front axle flex. There isn't any shock absorption except by the pneumatic tires (usually), so that leaves metal flex. Iron can repeatedly flex a little bit and recover from the flex forever, you just need to decide how comfortable you are with the degree of flex observed-- most people have a pretty good feel for how much materials can be stressed before it looks like "too much to pay for".

Also, I've heard that the bearings are what gradually go under heavy load, rarely a complete front end failure or permanent axle tube bending.