Tractor

[PRR]

> you've mentioned tractors..  what are we talking about?  I imagined farm and utility tractors http://el34world.com/Forum/index.php?topic=17418.msg174500#msg174500

Technically a utility or industrial tractor.

Basically for road-work.

1967/1968 Ford 4500 tractor. 60 horsepower 3-lung Diesel. Close to 5,000 pounds bare.
Ford front-end loader, lifts 4,500 pounds to about 13 feet.
Ford backhoe, 24" wide 34" long claw.
Simms full-metal cab with glass all around, 2 seats, and heater.
17x24 rear tires 57+ inches tall. (18-wheelers only get 10x20.)
Weight on the ground must total 10,000 pounds.

While it is clearly a farm tractor, including Ford Blue paint under the backhoe yellow, it was not assembled to work the farm. It never had key parts for a plow lift. The rapid-reverse oil-drive transmission would be wasteful in plowing, but demanded in all-day loader work. (You don't replace a tractor transmission casually, like when you put a 4-speed in your PowerGlide 1967 Chevy... the axle tranny and engine ARE the frame, and it is major heavy lifting to separate them.)

These are the machines that built your roads and dug your foundations 1960s-1980s. A bulldozer would do the rough clearing and leveling, then backhoes came in to trim the level and move mounds of small stone semi-evenly along the road, and hew the ditches. Most of these were from Case, who had a dedicated backhoe; but in many farming areas Ford had the better dealers.

Mine shows 5,000+ hours on the clock, and it does not lie. The engine has plenty of blow-by. The hoe pivots slop all over the place. Not to mention 46 years of oil-leaks and dirt piled so high I could not see the shape of the transmission.

And funny things. The loader arms have bad patches, like they had been broken-off and put back together. And bulges on the bottoms... the patches leak rain into the arms, it freezes, bulges 1/4" steel plate. I drilled test-holes and one peed black mud for 20 minutes.

Being Diesel, once you get it started, it has no need of electricity, except to watch fuel and temperature. As a bare farm tractor it had optional headlights and maybe one tail light.

However I expect to be clearing snow around the end of the driveway. If daytime I *NEED* flashers to warn drivers on the road. Also at night (often the best time to work on this street) so I need good lights front and back. And maybe a dome light also. So that's wires. The cab has front and back electric window wipers. When I got it most of this stuff was dangling or broken and crumbly. I also got a pile of rust alleged to be a heater, which is pleasant for snow work. I'd also like a volt-meter and a cigar lighter outlet (the universal 12V power source).

Electrical fire is no fun. I'm taking a 50 Amp fuse right AT the battery terminal, run back to a 6-slot fusebox with my various 10A and 20A feeds. This is mounting inside an electrical box made for alarms, with E-Z access cover. Wires up and over will be #14 THHN (good small house-wire) run inside PEX tubing so it doesn't fall-down again.

The feed from main to sub fuses is #8 wire. The fusebox turned out to be six separate 1/4" lugs. Since I had the American Beauty, it seemed to make sense to flat-down the lugs, lay the #8 across, and glob solder. It'll work, but it made me wish I'd got the $38 fuse panel with one heavy input lug.

[PRR]

Oh yeah. The red truck in the background is a K-2500 3/4-ton 8,700lbGVW long-cab 4WD pickup with body raised to clear oversize tires. Sits 6,000 pounds with ballast. It plows 2 feet of snow 8 feet wide without much grumble. But it looks small behind the backhoe.

The backhoe alone weighs more than the three cars here (minivan + sedan + sports), and can lift any of them.

[DummyLoad]

Ford backhoe fiber-finder,  24" wide 34" long claw.   


--pete

[PRR]

> Ford backhoe fiber-finder,

HA!  There isn't a fiber for a mile around.

Knowhatyoumean. When George had his backhoe here, we managed to snag the main power line, the well pump line, and the well water line.

[DummyLoad]

> Ford backhoe fiber-finder,

HA!  There isn't a fiber for a mile around.

Knowhatyoumean. When George had his backhoe here, we managed to snag the main power line, the well pump line, and the well water line.

merely appeasing it's appetite. it was wanting fiber.     if you don't want it dug up, then...


them thangs is pure evil i tell ya!


--pete

[Willabe]

HA!  There isn't a fiber for a mile around.

              Meh, who needs fiber anyway?

When George had his backhoe here, we managed to snag the main power line, the well pump line, and the well water line.

    I hope not all at the same time?

   
                        Brad     

[terminalgs]

It certainly looks like a handy device!   back-hoes are famous for finding fiber in GA too.

[PRR]

> we have onecall so we can mark the lines.

We do, in theory.

When they put in new speed-limit signs, all the utilities responded with orange "no" stakes.

This area is 1 or 2 feet of peat over rock ledges (mixed with rock-hard clay). Yes, you can blast rock, but there's too few people here to be worth the expense. Electricity, telephone, cable are all overhead. There's no water or sewer because not enough people here (especially with the high cost to bury below frost). There's no gas for several reasons.

So how did George hook my power wire? The overhead wire was brought in for a trailer, so it terminates at a meter-pole. Then Glenn brought in a lot of fill and built a house in it. It must have seemed easier at that point to lay the last 50 feet under the fill instead of running a riser up the side of the house and moving the meter.

And *that* wire is MINE. The utility doesn't know where it is. (And it's not quite where I thought it was.)

So far I am working the machine far from any likely infrastructure. The front acre has been wet for a century, too wet to build or bury. I've done a lot of ditching down there and don't find anything interesting, not even beer-bottles.

I just got a second load of stone to fill a parking pad. First I pulled a new ditch up from the other ditch to take the water out. 3 feet difference in water table, and I knew when I cut the subsurface clay-ridge which was holding the water back because water ran out of the ground. The pad-area dried out more in 2 days than it did in 2 weeks.

[Ritchie200]

A couple of years ago a state road maintenance brush hog ripped up a phone line main hub box that was hidden in the weeds along our road.  I went out to look at it.  I don't know how many lines were in there, but it looked like thousands, and it took them weeks to splice it all back together.  There were a lot of folks without land lines for a long time.  So tractor inspired modifications are not restricted to stuff under the ground!  This one was a Deere three gang hog cable finder.

Jim

[thermion]

hoes have some of the highest maintenance costs.

This, too, has been my experience...

[DummyLoad]

hoes have some of the highest maintenance costs.

This, too, has been my experience...

inconclusive! too much cost variance in the downtown and uptown varieties.


--pete