Using a tine harrow with a 3-PT hitch trailer

[Rolando]

This may be a new one for you. I have a Bobcat Toolcat that doesn't have a 3-PT hitch in the rear. I need to level about five acres of dirt that's pretty rough from disking and plowing. I want it smooth to mow when I have grass growing there. It's going to be a pecan grove, but the trees are 60 feet apart.

I want to pull a 10 foot wide (L-10) Countryside Manufacturing Flexible Tine Harrow with the LL-10 3-pt hitch Lift. The harrow mat is 10 feet wide and 7.5 feet long, the 3-PT Lift picks it up at the front and about 6 feet back.

I came across the Agri-fab 3-PT Hitch Trailer and I'm wondering if it can handle this implement. The trailer uses a winch and cable connected to the Top Link to raise and lower the implement.

The Toolcat has a 2 inch Class III receiver hitch with a tongue weight rating of 500 lbs. I would use a Draw-Tite Clevis Mount in it to pull the hitch trailer. The Toolcat weighs about 5,000 lbs.

What do you all think about this set-up?

 

[BTDT]

Interesting. The hitch trailer says not to exceed 400lbs implement weight, the LL-10 weighs 150 lbs or so, so I would think it should work. Good luck.

 

[Rolando]

I asked Agri-fab about that 400 lbs limit and they said that was more of a 'working weight' issue. I also read somewhere about concern that if the implement weighed too much, the tow vehicle might become unstable from uplift. I don't think that would be a problem when pulling with a 2 1/2 ton Toolcat.

But I worry about the stress on the trailer components from the moment arm of about 300 lbs being lifted six feet back from the trailer axle.

If you're picking up 500 lbs. with the 3-PT hitch, and it's balanced with the hitch on the tow vehicle, is the weight on the trailer wheels 1,000 lbs? It's been too many decades since I took a physics class. It seems to me that you have a balanced fulcrum with 500 lbs on each end.

 

[BTDT]

Now that you know how its built, you could just build one yourself and make it as strong as you want it to be. That's what I like about this site, lot's of ideas. If I like them and can use them, I do it.

 

[Rolando]

Unfortunately, I don't have the skills to build it myself.

I sent an email to Agri-fab asking some questions about how I would be loading the trailer and got a commercial back, telling me what I had already read on their web site. I had hoped they would forward it to a technical person.