weight capacity of 7308 FEL rear mounting brackets

[Mosey]

I have this crazy idea ...

The 7308 FEL rear mounting brackets - the bars that stick out from the frame just in front of the floor pads on each side - how much weight will one of those hold? It seems to me it would hold quite a lot, but most of the weight from a loaded FEL bucket would be on the front brackets, so maybe the rear brackets are not designed to hold a lot.

The reason I'm asking is that I want to mow some side hills and be able to go sideways sometimes instead of always going up and down. The hills are about 30 degrees (maybe more) and I haven't yet dared to go sideways on them. It's scary enough going straight up and down them! But, if I rigged up a way to hang about 450lbs of weights on the uphill side, using the rear FEL brackets to hold them, then would it be safe to go sideways on these hills?

 

[Golfgar4]

I don't know how safe it might be, Danny. But I assume that you're not mowing the inside of a big bowl, so are you going to move the 450 lbs. to the opposite side each time you turn around to go the other way? Doesn't seem too practical to me. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[Rip]

I think the brackets themselves would be strong enough, but I'm not sure I would want to take a CUT sideways on a 30 degree hillside. Take some real slope measurements before proceeding. A Tilt Meter would be a good thing to have in any case.

I would first remove the FEL, use filled turf tires (already with wide-set front and rear wheels) perhaps also with rear axle spacers, and then perhaps the side mounted counter weight.

I have seen slope mowers with a counter weight system, but they were probably engineered for a specific slope capability.

Perhaps a 55 gallon drum on each side with a pump to transfer water from one to the other?

Think everything through carefully and Good luck!!

Rip

 

[Mosey]

This hill is only about 150' long and 40' high, so I can mow one length of it, turn downhill and go back (deadhead) on the flat ground below, then go back up the hill and do the next pass. So, I'll be mowing the same way each time on the sidehill.

 

[Mosey]

I have a tilt meter that measures both side angle and up/down angle. When going up/down it reads about 30 degrees (not quite, but I'm rounding it up to allow for some margin of error). I've also measured the angle using a protractor and eyeing it the best I could and came up with the same result. I have R4 (Industrial) tires and they are not loaded. I don't want to make any other modifications, so if I can't determine it's safe to do with just the 450 lbs of weight on one side, then I'll give up and just keep mowing up/down.

My neighbor said the previous owner used to mow sideways on this hill using a Farmall B tractor. I've seen Farmall B tractors and they are very wide, but they have a narrow front end.

 

[brg]

I would be carefull putting weight on that support. It appears all the weight from the loader is applied at the clutch housing. My TC33D broke in half at the clutch housing. See attached picture.