Two questions

[jrduty]

My tractor is a SST 16 speed F/R and I gotta aks, does anybody use the LL(low,low) range? I can't imagine any reason to use this other than to impress people how slow you can go. And boy is that slow!
Second question. I notice in the stats on loaders that they will list a lift capacity and a breakout capacity. What's the difference? In other words, is the loader able to lift more weight at a lower height but looses weight capacity as the loader is raised? Oh! the things one ponders at night when the women hi-jack the tv to watch chick flicks.:confused2:

 

[DK35vince]

The low gears are great for rototilling

 

[ametcalf]

Back in the days when my wife grew 26 acres of fruits and vegetables we used an old horse drawn tobaco setter for transplanting most of our small plants like broccli, peppers, strawberries, etc. We used an Allis chalmers 5040 that could get pretty slow. I wish I had a picture but we gave the setter away about 5 years ago. Normally this type of setter is ridden by 2 people but if we were short handed or just had a couple of hundred plants to transplant I could man the machine by myself if she could get the tractor slow enough. The 5040 was generally slow enough in low range first gear at idle but if the roots were tangled it would have helped if she had gone slower. We had about 4 of these setters that I got for about $10.00 each as in the late '70s in central KY they were for the most part considered junk. I'd change the old metal seats and back rest for some boards, put a new barrel on to hold the water, istall a 2" pipe in place of the old rotted wooden tongue, grease the wheels and the water valve mechanism and they were good to go. If you are curious as to what these looked like you can google 'horse drawn tobacco setters' and follow the leads.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Lift capacity is how much the bucket can raise off the ground. Breakout is how much weight the bucket can curl. So if your bucket is on the ground an you push the lever to the left, the lip should raise. This force is called break out. THe curl force is much more than the lift capacity. This is useful sometime in digging out an object like a rock for instancewhere it is stuck in the ground. If you can get the lip of your FEL under one side of the rock, hit the curl and roll the rock out of the dirt. The FEL may not have the lift capacity to raise it since you have all the force of the dirt around it holding it but the curl may break it out and then you may have the lift capacity to get it up. You need to be very careful with this as sometimes the curl is enough to lift your tractor off the ground and if you have one side of the FEL stuck under something and it lifts on the one side it could turn your tractor over or twist the frame on the FEL.
As for slow, most of the super slow gears are seldom if ever used but are there if needed. My tractor has 20F/20 R and in creeper range 1 gear you practically need to get off drive a stake in the ground and come back in 10 minutes to see if it moved.

 

[fdmars]

My tractor has 20F/20 R and in creeper range 1 gear you practically need to get off drive a stake in the ground and come back in 10 minutes to see if it moved

That made me laugh. thanks:laughing:

and good info on the bucket weights and what they mean:thumbsup:

 

[Window Geek]

When I have to unload something a litle too heavy from the back of my pickup, the relief valve will pop off and limit the FEL from going any further. At that point, I can sometimes cheat that lift by using the bucket curl to get the load up enough to slide it off the truck. This "cheat" is that extra 50 or 100 pounds that I couldn't get otherwise. I can't cheat the machine into lifting 300 pounds more, that will just lift (flip) the tractor rear wheels off the ground.