RTV tag team

[avorancher]

Using this dynamic duo made moving 7 yds of gravel about 1/4 mile a no-sweat task. The RTV held 3 scoops from my B7800 and carried the weight up steep orchard roads without complaint. It would have carried a lot more, but I didn't want to spill over the sides after the load leveled out.

Prior to the RTV, it would take me about 4 hours (20+ slow trips) to move the same amount. Yesterday, I finished moving, spreading, and compacting everything in just a couple hours.

Now I'm ready for the 200 yd fill-dirt delivery which is coming any day now.

 

[riptides]

Yep. Isn't that a great set-up. For some reason I did not think the RTV could hold that much.

Makes working so much easier when you have the right tools.

Plus, with the tag team, a family member or friend gets to share your day. That is what is really important!

-Mike Z. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[jinman]

I'm guessing that you have a 60" bucket and you approached the RTV so all the overspill was behind the tailgate. With a 72" bucket, it becomes a little more of a challenge, but positioned by the pile like you are, even a foots worth of spillage while loading would be better than using only the tractor to haul a bucket at a time.

 

[avorancher]

Bucket is only 54", so it spills just a little. The RTV bed is slightly wider than long, so today I'm starting to move 140 yards of fill dirt and finding it better to load directly from the rear. I can pull up until my grill guard is almost touching the tailgate to dump my first bucket, then follow up with 2 more to overfill it. When switching machines, I just pull up alongside and step from one to the other without even touching the ground.

Much of the time savings is in the speed I can travel both directions.

I did notice that I'm at the maximum weight for dumping. I had to give it a little muscle assist one time to get it dumped. That load must have had more basketball sized rocks than the others. The RTV bed holds 16 cu. ft. so I'm probably hauling around 1400 lbs per trip.

 

[logfarmer]

I am curious how the 140 yards is going. I do not have an RTV but am considering purchasing one for use on my tree farm. I need to do some road improvement, build fence, haul gravel and dirt, and have something that will hold more than a 4 wheeler when we go to our other house on the property. We are going to be remodeling the old house to be a cabin rental for some additional income after I retire. I have a 73 chev pickup with a snow plow which I was considering putting one of those dump be kits on for about $900. The main problem with that is that its still a 30 year old truck and Im not sure how much the dump bed will lift.
How is the RTV doing as a dump truck?
Martin

 

[avorancher]

Had 140 yards delivered last Thursday and if it hadn't started raining today, I would have finished up. It takes me about 10 minutes to make a load and dump cycle. I figured it was going to take about 230 trips, but I've started overloading the RTV so it went a little faster than planned.
I was going to count the trips, but after 30 or so, I lost count due to the mind-numbing repetition of the project.

I could have rented larger equipment to speed things up, but I wouldn't have been able to reach the dumpsite with anything much larger, so I would have still had to move it the last 100 yards or so with the tractor or RTV anyway. I'm going to get another delivery next month and I plan on using the same technique.

I'll post a picture and some interesting problems about the RTV that I discovered later today.

 

[avorancher]

First of all, 140 yards of dirt is a lot of dirt and I was a bit shocked when I first saw the piles. It made my tractor and RTV look pretty small in comparison. I had to move it 1/4 mile over narrow and steep grove roads. I had to put 28psi in the worksite tires, which made traction difficult when driving back empty.

Load distribution is much more important on the RTV than I would have guessed. The ability to dump an oversized load depended greatly on having most of the weight near the tailgate and sitting on level ground. I found that backing up at a walking pace, then decelerating and raising the bed simultaneously always worked. If sitting still, about half the time I would need to give it a manual boost to get the bed past the first couple inches (I was severely overloading it, so I’m not complaining).

Unfortunately, using the backup technique failed when I backed into a pile of existing dirt that had a big rock. I snapped both tailgate cables and the tailgate fell into the ball hitch and dented the lip. I removed the hitch, but then the lip of the tailgate caught on the metal filter guard and bent the lip the other direction when I lowered the bed. The first damage to my beloved RTV.

A potentially serious problem occurred when I was going up a steep hill in medium range and decided to stop. I couldn’t move an inch forward in medium, so I put it in low and gunned it to get moving. One front wheel hit a rock and much to my surprise, I popped a wheelie. The RTV (and me) dumped some load, which brought the front wheels back down.

I looked at the geometry of the RTV and thought that I had imagined the wheelie because it just doesn’t look possible. I loaded up again and stopped on the hill, got off and lifted the front by hand. Yes, I was able to lift the wheels off the ground with some effort. But it wouldn’t take much to flip it backwards once it gets going.

My method of dumping and the wheelie both relied on the inertia of the load, which was piled up above the bed sides. So I would be very cautious about carrying heavy items with a high center of gravity near the back of the bed.

 

[avorancher]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The RTV bed holds 16 cu. ft. so I'm probably hauling around 1400 lbs per trip. )</font>

Just an update. Today I loaded freight weighing exactly 1395 pounds into the RTV and drove around. My estimate of the dirt weighing 1400 is way off because today's load seemed light compared to loads of dirt I had been hauling.

Now I'm wondering how much I was really hauling when the RTV became a bit unstable.

 

[caylor]

Judging from your dirt pile picture and the possible moisture content of the soil, the soil weight could range from 100-120 pounds per cubic foot. (from an old engineering soil manual)

So 16x110=1760 lbs!! Awesome!

I think the 16 cu. ft measurement for a level struck bed load, right? So if you had it piled up in the bed you could have had around 24 cu. ft. of material in the bed.

24x110=2640 lbs?! Is that possible?

 

[avorancher]

It was piled up, but not all the corners were full, so it was probably more like 18 cu. ft. (loads after the picture got larger). The soil was a little damp because they were watering it before digging with a trackhoe, but not soaking wet.

Not sure how much the loads actually weighed, but I know it was a lot more than 1395 lbs. because that felt like nothing in comparison.

I think it is safe to say that the RTV will handle Kutoba payload specs of 1640 lbs. with no problem on most any terrain.