PondCreekFarm
Member
I have started to plow our fields for future planting of native prarie plants and row crops for wildlife. I have a L3130 with a loader and am pulling an old ford two bottom trip beam plow. I amazed at what this little tractor can do, and it is great fun, but I want to make sure I am doing this correctly so as not to damage the tractor. I have noticed that if I plow in low range 3rd gear that the engine bogs down unless I really keep it throttled up. If I stay in 1 or 2, however, it does not bog down at all, but it is so terribly slow in these gears. How should I do this? What gear, what RPM range should I strive to keep the machine within? Does it hurt the engine to slow down? (It sure seems to smoke more when it does this, and that does not seem to me to be a good thing).