Tractor Sizing Tractor with FEL to lift 550-750lb round bales

[freedomlives]

Jeff-- one thing I'd wonder, as your Kubota is just a bit heavier than the GL417 and just about the same wheelbase, length and width-- do you feel like it is pretty stable driving around carrying a ~600 pound load on the FEL?

This whole business of tractor buying feels me with trepidation-- it is a bit of a jump from the mess of two-wheeled tractors I presently own. I don't want to go too big, well, for two reasons actually-- 1. waste of fuel, needless soil compaction, etc. and 2. if the weight of the tractor is under 3.5 tons I can drive it on the road with a normal driver's license. But now I just saw a 60HP Zetor 6245 with FEL for about the same price as the Kubota, and --well, I'm not sure the amount the FEL adds-- but the 6245 comes in just below that 3.5 ton limit. Just twice as much weight and more wear on the land and fuel cost (and stupidly, the government did away with "red diesel" years ago, so the diesel fuel is full price, which is about 45% tax...).

Do you ever run in to anything you can't get done with yours and wish you had a bigger tractor?

 

[jeff9366]

freedomlives

As your Kubota is just a bit heavier than the GL417 and just about the same wheelbase, length and width-- do you feel like it is pretty stable driving around carrying a ~600 pound load on the FEL?

YES ~~ However a counterbalance load on the Three Point Hitch, generally 3/5 of FEL bucket load, is essential. The lift capacity of my Loader is about 1,700 pounds.

This whole business of tractor buying feels me with trepidation--

All of us go through this churning feeling until we finally get the correct tractor for the work at hand. I did not purchase a heavy enough tractor until tractor #3. I did not discover TRACTORBYNET until after I purchased my third tractor. Had I been able to bounce ideas off others I might have skipped tractor #2.

I don't want to go too big, well, for two reasons actually-- 1. waste of fuel, needless soil compaction, etc.

Fuel is a minuscule part of tractor operating costs; at least in the USA where petroleum is relatively cheap. Heavier tractors have larger wheels and tires. My approximately 5,400 pound operating weight tractor with air filled R4/industrial tires does not mark my residential lawn, which I run over almost every day.

But now I just saw a 60HP Zetor 6245 with FEL for about the same price as the Kubota, and --well, I'm not sure the amount the FEL adds-- but the 6245 comes in just below that 3.5 ton limit. Just twice as much weight and more wear on the land and fuel cost (and stupidly, the government did away with "red diesel" years ago, so the diesel fuel is full price, which is about 45% tax...).

Sixty horsepower would be overmuch for five acres. Sixty horsepower would be appropriate for 100 acres of flat land or 60 acres of hilly land.

As Zetor is Czech, would that make parts more readily available to you?

Think of the time and effort you spend pushing a wheelbarrow. The tractor's bucket will replace the wheelbarrow completely.

Do you ever run in to anything you can't get done with yours and wish you had a bigger tractor?

Very rarely. However, I am retired so I never feel time pressure. Much of my work is in woods. My tractor is 60" wide. A 66" wide tractor and implements would not pass consistently between the trees in my woods.

 

[4570Man]

That's encouraging information. So a 25HP Kubota can probably do it, then probably these 27HP Iseki's which for some reason I see a lot of should do the trick as well.

I may be stuck with what comes as far as the quick connects, but I've seen people selling the hooks and catches as separate pieces to weld on and retrofit the FEL to have the Euro-Connect (which fulfils the same purpose I think as the SSQA).

Hp isn’t a very meaningful number. It can change by 20 hp or so on the same frame size. A bigger 25 hp machine can probably do it. A BX probably can’t.

 

[rgr33]

I知 kind of wondering if something in the 27-30 hp isn稚 about right for your needs. Also, if you plan on stacking 700lb bales, is lift height a consideration.

I have an LS 33.hp that would have no trouble lifting 700 lbs, but could only stack two high, it can稚 reach the top shelves on my storage racks.

 

[freedomlives]

Zetor is common here. I think almost every tractor in our village is a Zetor or includes parts from a Zetor (home made tractors were something popular I guess a generation ago when cash was extremely tight).

Looking through the Czech/Slovak equivalent of Craigslist, I at first even missed some of the tractors for sale with a FEL because I was searching for the word "traktor" and many people selling Zetors don't even include that word in the listing.

The real downsides I see are the age of these, and also the size. One requirement my wife has is that the engine runs fairly cleanly, so the older tractors may get disqualified on these grounds. She isn't real happy with the air cooled Lombardini diesel in the Goldoni for this reason. I wouldn't be using a large Zetor as my wheelbarrow when continuing the home improvement work we have-- leveling out part of the yard for the kids to play, moving around gravel while making concrete, etc. I really did some things here a bit ***-backwards-- we've been married and living here 8 years, and just last year I made the car port-ish area into an enclosed workshop/garage, put down some concrete in the really bad areas around our yard-- I feel like looking back I should have gotten the workshop done first and gotten a FEL to help manipulate materials here early on.

We actually have right now about 20 acres, but it is not as one big field. 12 acres of fields behind our house that remained during all of communism here as private land, so it is a mixture of large fruit and nut trees, cleared field that I'm turning in to pasture, and land overgrowing with trees (right now, the goats just go everywhere through this). The truth is, there is a lot of land around us un- or under-used which I could potentially rent once we've gotten the cattle and the herd size grows, but all the same, I plan to do year-round intensive grazing, and stockpile hay bales. e.g. this year with the goats, well they got in to a haystack in Nov/Dec when it was snowing, but since then they've had just one round bale, and there are five round bales in the barn, that if we don't get one last hard snow, aren't going to be fed. So I see my future of hay making not increasing to a much larger area, storing the bales from that area, and probably 1 out of every 4 winters it seems like are really hard, and then having to feed the hay to the animals mostly on those winters. My friend who has the "dream situation" of 250 practically flat acres, but as he's just 40km away, virtually the same weather, hasn't fed his Angus any hay this winter.

So I don't know, it is all good points you people are making, and I guess it isn't like I'm married to the tractor-- whichever I get, if it isn't sufficient, it can certainly be sold in the future if it becomes clear it isn't a good fit. Probably the smaller one that can maneuver around near the house is going to be better for now though to help around continuing home improvements.

 

[jeff9366]

It is rather late but this is my general advice on buying a tractor:

The best way to shop for tractors is to determine your tasks first, then determine how much bare tractor weight you need to accomplish as many of your tasks as possible, SAFELY. Hillside work demands more tractor weight than flat land work. Bare tractor weight is a tractor specification easily found in sales brochures and web sites.

Heavier tractors have greater wheel spread making them more stable. Heavier tractors have larger wheels and tires better able to bridge holes and ruts without the tractor rolling over. Larger wheels and tires provide a much smoother ride over rough ground. Heavier tractors have greater inertia to resist rollovers when moving heavy loads in the FEL, the most hazardous of routine tractor tasks, especially hazardous on sloped land.

For most tasks greater tractor chassis weight is far more important than tractor horsepower. This is difficult for people new to tractors to realize.

Shop your weight range within tractor brands. Budget will eliminate some choices.
I like to spreadsheet tractor and implement specs, often a revealing exercise. I have a column for cost per pound.

It takes a 50% increase in tractor weight before you notice a significant tractor capability increase. It takes a 100% increase in tractor weight to elicit MY-OH-MY!

Selling a used tractor is easy. Selling multiple light implements in order to buy heavier, wider, implements for a heavier tractor is a pain and often a big hit in depreciation. ((Ask me how I know.)) Many who buy too light tractors buy too light implements.

A quality dealer, reasonably close, is a priority for me; less so for others, well experienced in tractors, who do their own maintenance. For most new to tractors a quality dealer, reasonably close, available for coaching, is essential. My kubota dealer is six miles away.

Horsepower is a primary consideration only operating PTO powered implements.

BUY ENOUGH TRACTOR.​

 

[jeff9366]

From what you have written it seems like a tractor with a bare weight of 2,600 to 3,000 pounds and minimum 25-horsepower would work for your situation today and the intermediate future. Still a small machine, easy to store under shelter.

Options: 4-WD and FEL for sure.

The tractors you are considering are not far off this suggestion. A little more tractors is better than not enough tractor.

NOTE: In the USA most 2-WD tractors have wheel spread adjustable for width at both the front and rear. These are often termed "row crop" tractors.

4-WD tractors have wheel spread adjustable only at rear. 4-WD is essential for work on hills.

 

[freedomlives]

Thank you Jeff for more good advice.

The only implement I'd want to have that would have to be smaller on these is a box blade to flatten out ground and the paths on our property. But I can't even find anyone here selling box blades!

A couple of months before realizing I needed a four wheel tractor, I already got the mulching mower for the walk-behind tractor, though I've still got to get an adapter made for it to fit on my Goldoni. But I'm just going to keep it and the Goldoni two wheel tractor, because my needs of dealing with overgrowth aren't that big, and are often in areas with trees with low branches, so the two wheel will be able to get in and take down blackberries a lot easier.

Otherwise, a potato digger would be real nice, but looking on the classifieds, seems like there's a pretty good market for these for smaller tractors.

My new dilemma is that an importer much nearer to me finally wrote me back. I had inquired about an ISEKI TL 2900 with a FEL, and he got back that it was sold, but he also has a TL 3200 with FEL (I presume for not much more than the 8000€ he was asking for the 2900). According to him, it has a lift capacity of 500kg (1/2 ton) to 3.4m, which would allow me to stack round bales 3 high. But looking up specs on it, they were made from '84-'86, so it will be at least as old as I am. I'll probably go on Satuday to see it, since its just 1.5 hours away, and that might give me some better insight.

 

[jeff9366]

The lift capacity of old loaders slowly decreases.

Frame parts get bent, adding to friction. Wear in the hydraulic cylinders. Some pins not fully greased, grease congealed etc.

Inspect closely.

Patience.

 

[freedomlives]

I may be in error about the age of the ISEKI. I was going by what is written at tractordata.com, but now I see that all imports of Japanese gray market tractors to the US got stopped in 1997 apparently, so I imagine data on that site may be out of date. Because also I've read that the Japanese are essentially forced to sell their tractors and get new ones by some high taxes, so I doubt a 30 year old tractor would have been imported from Japan. Crazy policy of the Japanese government, and no wonder they have such economic problems. (My other interest, btw, is economics and politics. Right now my wife and I are translated a book by a Slovak economist to English that explains the whole financial crisis, bank bailouts, etc. back in 2008)

But also I found that the dealer with the Kubota GL417 also has some more, and he said I just need to come look, so I'm probably going to drive there tomorrow and see. This GL27 looks pretty tempting: Kubota GL27 za 7.9, € | Autobazar.EU Only I'd have to buy/get fabricated some ROPS for it. But ultimately, I'm still leaning toward that GL417. Just we'll see tomorrow what they're like.