Huber Maintainer

[IceHole]

Have a 1960s? Huber Maintainer. It's sort of a tractor/finish grader, often used by asphalt contractors.

I bought it mostly to grade my driveway and "lay down yard" (ie where the RB auction finds gets stored haha)

It has 23.1x26 "turf" tires that are completely useless. May be orginal to the grader, not sure.
This summer I put about 1000lbs of liquid ballast in each, has made minimal difference.
Tried plowing 6" of dry snow yesterday, it couldn't even drive around, let alone plow.

Trying to figure if new tires or tire chains would be the best?

Old Skidders run this tire size, and some tractors. Tires will run me around $3500.
Chains, roughly the same. Probably less if I made some.

 

[Alusium]

Chains.

 

[materthegreater]

How is it even worth plowing with that? The moldboard on mine isn't very tall so I would imagine snow would go over the top very easily. It lives in the shed all winter.

 

[IceHole]

How is it even worth plowing with that? The moldboard on mine isn't very tall so I would imagine snow would go over the top very easily. It lives in the shed all winter.

It's a backup machine. But it has crap for traction in summer too

 

[materthegreater]

Mine is an 85 so it may be designed a little differently than yours. Once I stopped expecting it to be a dozer I was less disappointed with it. But it would be nice to have a differential lock at times. Mine has R3 tires that are loaded. Seems to do ok. Steering traction is somewhat lacking so maybe separate brakes would be helpful also.

 

[IceHole]

Mine is an M500.

No way it'd work as a dozer. My warehouse forklift has more traction and that about gets stuck on a wet fart.

 

[materthegreater]

I'm not sure how the numbering works. Mine is an M850. So I would assume it's bigger and heavier which would mean more traction.

 

[terex herder]

Those tires are made to not tear up turf. I'd guess it will continue to be pretty helpless until you get more aggressive tires.

 

[IceHole]

I'm not sure how the numbering works. Mine is an M850. So I would assume it's bigger and heavier which would mean more traction.

Nearly the same, just a bit newer

 

[materthegreater]

Nearly the same, just a bit newer

Ok, yeah that does look similar. From the video it sounds like it has a gas engine and manual transmission? Mine is hydrostatic so probably a lot less likely to spin out

 

[IceHole]

Ok, yeah that does look similar. From the video it sounds like it has a gas engine and manual transmission? Mine is hydrostatic so probably a lot less likely to spin out

Yes, Red Seal Continental and a 5 speed with clutch and torque converter.

They are pretty much the same machine through the years, mostly just updates to drivetrain.

 

[IceHole]

Those tires are made to not tear up turf. I'd guess it will continue to be pretty helpless until you get more aggressive tires.

Yeah, thinking it's not worth that though. Tires would cost more than I paid for it.

 

[Welder Dave]

I'd guess it could be from the 70's with Red Seal cast on the manifold. Not sure when the change over was but Continentals powered a couple million Lincoln welders.