Real Innovative Tractor from the Swiss

rsewill · May 10, 2012

Looks like something Shortthrow could put together in a week with a couple of front ends and a few hydraulic cylinders.

vtsnowedin · May 10, 2012

I have always thought that more tractors should be set up reversed so the operator could both steer and watch what the attachment was doing without craning his head back and forth. The Ford 9Ns with the mid mount sickle bar mower were good as the operators eye could see the tip of the cutter bar and the front tire following the edge of the grass with just a few degrees of eye movement. Why not mount a Kune disk mower in the same position? Mowing and snow blowing would be better done in front of the drive tires and I can even envision a round baler with the operators seat up high on the side to the rear of a dedicated self propelled machine. Never work for a land plow of course.

Clumber · May 10, 2012

GSA Price list for Aebi Terratracs + attachments:

https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/ref_text/GS30F0022R/GS30F0022R_online.htm

MossRoad · May 11, 2012

woodlandfarms said:
Yesterday I got caught up in a bog... Loaded the tires good ( dualies really hold a ton of mud). So to knock the mud off I get going fast. I only had a 25degree slope so I did extremely tight figure 8 as fast as I can 6 mph... Farmer was driving up the road and stopped and stared. A few circuits, mud was off. Farmer thought I had had a stroke and was dying on the tractor. Couldn't believe anyone would risk sideways on a slope let alone turning and running at that speed..

Anyway, point of this is we have a heck of a machine at one heck of a price. 100 k for a cab and computer? Even if I did my dream mods to the pt I still would be way under 50 k.

I've thought that about a lot of drivers on the roads, too. :laughing:

A couple weeks ago my youngest daughter and I volunteered at a therapeutic horse riding facility. I was raking out stalls and piles in the paddocks and a couple guys with Kubotas were moving the piles to the manure bins on the other side of the facility. Forgot the models of the Kubots. One looked to be about a 35HP unit and the other was a B something, looking to be about 20ish HP.

A couple things I noticed.... the diesels were way quieter and way more powerful than my Power Trac PT425 with the gas Kohler engine. Absolutely no comparrison. They were pushing and pulling piles of manure that would have stopped my PT in its tracks hands down. The little one had a back blade that looked really handy... except it did not have power down, so he had to have a big old tire rim and a couple chunks of concrete chained to the blade to give it enough bite. I could see where that power and traction would be nice in a dirt plowing or other pulling type activity.

However, they were slow as molasses. I got bored standing there with my rake waiting for them to come back for the next loads. I could have moved three times as much manure accross that facility in the same amount of time as the larger one with the bucket that looked to be almost twice the size of mine. It was crazy slow.

Also, the buckets on the Kubotas could not curl back far enough when low to the ground. If they crowded the buckets, then curled back and lifted up a couple inches lots of the material would just fall out. The buckets are not deep or large enough. To get more material in their buckets, they had to lift them more than three feet off the ground so I could then scoop up the remains of the piles and toss them on top.

It was fun to compare them. Had I known they allowed volunteers to bring their tractors I would have taken my PT out and got some work done fast! Can't wait for fall cleanup. :thumbsup:

ponytug · May 14, 2012

Just to flag something this is a GSA price list. Private individuals won't get a price better than that, but the retail price may be substantially worse...