What did you do with your Power Trac today?

[MossRoad]

I was going to comment on the age, good size so had to be there a while. I am growing muscadine and concord, the wine is great, never tried to make jam. As they produce more, I will give it a try. Waiting for the mulberries to ripen now.

I cut down several hundred feet of vine this spring. Going to make grapevine wreaths with them.

We have a couple white mulberry trees in the back of that picture. Very tasty and no purple bird poops.

 

[Lnk]

I cut down several hundred feet of vine this spring. Going to make grapevine wreaths with them.

We have a couple white mulberry trees in the back of that picture. Very tasty and no purple bird poops.

With the amount of pokeweed we have, purple bird poops are a given, my neighbor has had a muscadine Vines for over ten years, when I asked if I could take some cuttings, he said do what you want, it don't make no grapes. He never pruned it in 10 years. Spent an afternoon in February cutting it back to 2 main runners. Probably had a half mile of cuttings. (Never thought of making wreaths). He had grapes that year and every year since.

I have planted mulberries about 4 years ago and they are just starting to bear. I have a mature tree that is loaded with them down in the valley, got to try and shake that tree when the get ripe. Might make a tree shaker for my pt425. Will start a new thread if that happens. Hay is up next!

 

[cqaigy2]

My bil has a few different kind of mulberry trees, all prolific. I don't recall what they were but i really liked the flavor of two of them, the third was ok, but more bland.

 

[MossRoad]

I built some 55 gallon barrel raised planters for my wife and used the PT425 forks to carry them back to the garden area, then dropped the forks and used the small bucket with teeth to get some black dirt and compost from our stockpiles to fill them. Very handy.

We have some sort of horrible grass/weed, probably quack grass, that we have given up on trying to control. Weeding the garden became a large chore. So, we're going to slowly switch to raised planters like this, and other forms of 55 gallon barrel gardening. Hey, it's a hobby!

I got these barrels from a flavoring company. They are food safe. When I hit them with the circular saw, one had grape flavoring and the other vanilla. Man, I've never had such a sweet-smelling project!

Had the 4x4's and 2x4's in our stockpile as well. Pressure treated. Saved some costs there.

View attachment 747575

A month later, 3 more planters,

and 10 days with no lawn mowing....

 

[smilindave]

First time using the trencher. Not a bad job

 

[ponytug]

You have two 425s?

Nice trench work. I am curious about the caution tape; what is in that trench?

All the best, Peter

 

[MossRoad]

Nice!

Two PT’s?

 

[Lnk]

Nice!

Two PT’s?

He doesn't like to swap attachments!

 

[smilindave]

The one with the caution tape has a water line on the bottom, layer of dirt then a gas line, another layer of dirt and then electric and internet cable. The one my son is digging is for sewage.

 

[ponytug]

I reparked an 8 cu yd dumpster that got dropped in an awkward location.

Now it is time to fill it! The 1445 can load and move an almost full LMB filled with the mixed soil/rock. Almost. Dumping the bucket pushes the center of gravity out enough to lift the back wheels if I push the loading too full...

All the best,

Peter

 

[MossRoad]

Nice!

I’m hunting down leaks on my 21 year old 425 this week. Got one valve cover replaced with a new one after getting one of those broken bolts out finally. Then found the threads on a fitting on the hydraulic cooler was leaking. So I removed that, cleaned it all up, put new sealant on it and that’s good. Still have a broken bolt on the other valve cover, and I think the fitting on the other end of the cooler is leaking as well. Noticed the hoses to the cooler are frayed right where they bend when the hood is opened and closed, so may replace those soon as well.

I was just happy to get it to go a full 30 minutes before oil dripping caused smoking and possible fire. That gave me enough time to mow the whole acre.

 

[ponytug]

I had noticed that my hydraulic oil seemed to be getting darker, so I decided after eight years, it was time for a change. After the factory 15W40, I put in synthetic 5W50 in the hope that I might see a change in performance on hills at high temperature, but I can't say I noticed any difference. On the cold weather side of things, the 5W did seem to make low temperature cranking a little easier, but the glow plugs made the enormous difference. So, this time is back to 15W40.

Here is my setup;

The white item in the center is an old vane pump that is oil compatible, hooked up to an old white dishwasher hose that has a wonderful rubber fitting that fits over the PT drain snugly. On the other side, I have a ball valve on a short piece of left over washing machine hose, but usually just use a power strip with a switch to turn the pump on and off. I have found that this makes for a quick oil change, and next to no oil spillage.

The blue bucket has about half of the empty milk jugs that are required to hold the used oil for recycling.

The hard bit was getting the plug out of the tank. I tried brute force, PB blaster, Deep Creep, a blow torch, two different impact wrenches, and nothing loosened it up. The first (cheap) Allen wrench that I tried was not up to the task.

With an extra two feet of leverage, the plug came right out. Does anyone know the threads on these? I suspect it is a hydraulic (nontaper) thread, but it didn't match any of my thread gauges. (In case you were wondering, this had Teflon tape on it when I put it in last time!)

Not shown: after removing the drain plug, there was a big glob of weld material halfway blocking the drain opening. I thought about trying to remove it, then started to worry about ever finding in the tank, or bulkhead openings if I knocked it off, and decided to just leave it. Later it occurred to me that as the threads on the plug are straight threads, the weld blob was probably just Power-Trac's way of ensuring the plug has a hard stop to thread up against. Thoughts?

The tank was pretty clean, except for a faint film of black dust. It didn't seem to be at all gritty. Any ideas on what it might be? I have magnets in/on the oil filter, so I am leaning toward rubber worn off the inside of the hoses.

I let the tank drain overnight, but only another half a pint or so of oil came out, and no sludge.

With a new hydraulic filter, and some purging, it is now all ready to go back to work.

Today's tasks: getting hay for the animals, and moving trash and debris out to the garbage cans. (Like the 17 gallon empty containers of the new oil, and a couple of gallons of the changed oil. It took a little over fifteen gallons; I had a pair of partial gallons around from changing the engine oil.)

All the best,

Peter

 

[woodlandfarms]

I let my blown hoses act as my tank oil change.

 

[MossRoad]

Ouch!

 

[ponytug]

As a side note, the decrease in viscosity is noticeable, with faster pedal response; whether it is the change from 5W50 to 15W40, or thicker oxidized oil to fresh oil, I don't know. The old oil coming out was brownish black, and opaque.

All the best,

Peter

 

[ponytug]

I spoke with Terry today. He confirmed the black powder is rubber worn off the insides of the hoses. Normal. He also said that the drain plug has 3/8" NPT threads.

All the best,

Peter

 

[MossRoad]

Found an ad in a local farm newspaper for free blueberry bushes. Spoke with the owner. She's getting out of the u-pick and commercial business for personal reasons. Hoping to get a farmer or grower to take about 12 acres of bushes, or she's gonna hire an excavator to strip the fields. She wants to plant hay for her family's horses and take it easy in her retirement. However, she was quite happy for me to take just 8 bushes.

In the small world department, her granddaughter owns a cider house that we've been to a few times.

So went there, dug out the bushes, brought them home, and planted them along a back fence line. Then went swimming.

 

[PowerTracManiac]

Nice portable setup Moss

 

[MossRoad]

Nice portable setup Moss

Thanks. 18' car hauler with diamond plate floor. 5500# usable capacity. 2x12 removable side and front boards. 2" receiver welded in the center of the front on the deck to put a portable winch on if needed (borrow from a friend). Pickup truck tool box across the front for tarps, chains, binders, straps, ropes, shovel, axe, machete, spare linch pins, spray lube, grease gun, paper towels, some cable with hooks, all kinds of useful stuff, etc.

Funny story about that trailer and the PT425.

My wife works at the financial establishment where we took out the loan to purchase. So I met her there on my lunch hour. We went in to the loan officer and had our initial 'how you doing' conversation. Then he asked us how much we wanted to borrow. So I looked at my wife and said, well, the tractor with attachments and delivery will be about $12,500. I think we should get enough to get a trailer in the future, and that'll be $2500. So I think we should borrow $15K. She said OK, looked at the loan officer and said we'd like to borrow $30K because I'm getting a new car.



So there you go. In 2021 we got a PT425 with 5 attachments, an 18' car hauler, and a 1 year old 2000 Chevy Impala with all the factory options.

My wife is a pretty good poker player!

 

[3rd Coast]

Getting ready for snow season here in Michigan. Factory halogens had been long burned out so I stuffed a light bar in to the roof. Tight fit, had to grind down the mounts a little. 22".