My first track loader!

[boone]

Weather and schedules finally all lined up. Got the loader back at the farm! Dad, brother and I have spent a long weekend doing all kinds of jobs. I have a lot of pics and will try to post them up as time allows.

Got an early start at 7am Thursday morning. We hired a local dirt contractor to move it. The loader had about a 15 mile journey over to the property. The Mack truck pulling it could really move out. The owner said it had about 460 HP. Said he wished it had about 100 HP more!








The local farmer's coop delivered us a fresh tank of fuel on Wednesday (210 gallons). We had drained the old farm tank of it's stale fuel. Last year we ended up using 5 gallon cans to fill up the loader each day we worked. That got old on top of making a mess everytime we filled up. The only bad part now is the labor involved in pumping it.







Backing away without making too much of a mess in my grandmother's yard. Time to put this thing to work!

 

[OldandWorn]

Hey Boone....looks too good to get dirty. Yep, the downside to tracks. Everywhere I go it makes a big mess on my gravel and shale roads even with 50 point turns.

Hey! How do you insert text between your pictures? I tried for so long and finally gave up.

 

[boone]

Hey! How do you insert text between your pictures? I tried for so long and finally gave up.

It can get a little tricky...try this thread. It explains how to do it better than I could: https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/showthread.php?21903-How-to-add-pics-to-forum-posts

 

[OldandWorn]

Thank you....big help and so easy now that I can see the pic attatchment in the post.

 

[boone]

Tightened up a couple of our piles and started some fires.











Used an old towel soaked with diesel to start the fires. The piles were probably dry enough to start without though. Got rid of several of the old piles, made several new.

 

[boone]

Month or so ago we had the county come out and install a new 40' culvert in place of the old narrow 15' entrance way. The county engineer's office will come out and spec it and tell you what size you need. After that you can pay someone else to install or you can buy the tile from the county and they will install it and cover with creek gravel at no charge. Not a bad deal. The tile was around $18/ft.





Setting and aligning the gate posts took the longest time. We set the posts about 3' deep. Used 3 bags of quikrete per gate post with couple of gallons of water poured in the hole between each bag.











The gates are 12' each. We tapered back to the road with a 24' offset. Once we got the gates hung, we hit our rythm on the posts and planks. Towards the end, we had a guy stop and ask if we were a fencing company needing any work. We politely told him, he'd have to do his own.

We'll eventually build this area up a little with more gravel.

 

[OldandWorn]

Nice looking entrance! Sweet deal on the tile.

 

[Monte1255]

Boone:
I think you are going to be really glad you got rid of all the grease on the track loader, with fires burning like that and the need to push up ...........sparks.........and well anyway you get the picture. I burned about a dozen piles a week or so ago.....and was thinking same thing (glad the machine is fairly free of grease!)

 

[Monte1255]

Boone:
here's a pic of my ole girl..............not as pretty as yours.....but it works nicely.....three years so far of ownership and only one hydraulic hose blown. (aside from normal maintenence) It's got it's issues as well.....but we try our best to stay on top of them. this picture was taken in third week in Febuary when I was still tearing down a barn.......it was a real good day fer sure because I was finally done with the floor and the bull work........ from here on in it was all seat time. We were saving the lumber for resale so it had to come apart a bit at a time by hand.

 

[boone]

Thanks OldandWorn! It's much better than the old entrance way last year where we had to cut the fence and climb a hill getting out.

That's a sweet picture Monte :cool2 She's looking good! Those tracks look like they mean business! I like it. There's been times I wish we had some double or single grousers. Mainly backing uphill.

Yeah, I haven't ventured too far into the piles after they've burned for fear of fire. The neighbor drove over early one morning after seeing me push and shared of few horror stories of catching dozer's on fire. He said he burnt a D6 completely to the ground one time. Said an ember from a fire he was pushing too was pulled in on the side and got in the bottom of the belly pan. He said he's caught several others on fire but managed to put them out before the machines burned. After talking with him, I stayed far and away of the piles. It made me remind dad we needed the fire extinguisher out there!

 

[Monte1255]

the tracks and pads were put on last year with the idea that I wasn't going to be working flat and level all the time......... I was really glad for the singles last week or so when backing out of a few holes that were to be used for the root balls and rocks we managed to push out. It got so soft down in the bottom you didn't dream of sitting still for too long because the clay was pumping so bad. If I'd had double grousers like I orignally had I'd still be in that hole! lol

The thing that bothers me the most is the idea of having to push the piles together and catching the gust of wind that brings the sparks up all around. I usually wet the machine down thouroghly before even attempting to push fires together.......it takes a lot of water, but well worth the effort I think.

 

[boone]

We made the entrance wide enough to get a truck with the loader through, but also so my brother can get his rig through.





My brother has a couple of old tricycle tractors that he takes to shows. But this one is his pride and joy. The back tires are loaded and widened and it can walk about every hill we have on the place. The cutter is a Woods DS96 (8 foot). He sustained one flat tire while he cut this weekend. Thankfully it wasn't one of the rears. Front tire came in contact with a deer antler. Tire shop was able to patch it for him.







Our farm tank didn't stay full very long. Notice how I parked myself in the shade taking pics while he pumped. LOL!

 

[Monte1255]

nothing like a little workout before the real work begins........lol call it "stretching" Seriously though.... maybe check out craigs list for a 12 volt pump, it sure made a heck of a difference here.

 

[boone]

We were talking about that. The old diaphrams in the pump are leaking bad. If we go to replace it, we'll probably replace it with a 12V pump. It's not so bad on filling the tractors, but that 175 will flat wear you out when it's empty.

 

[boone]

Clearing pics

Making the way through the jungle

 

[boone]

 

[boone]

Next, we started on this little clump. Most of what you see standing is smack in the middle of jagged surface rock. We cleared a good bit of it last year but moved off it because of the rock. Now we're back to finish this job.







The worst part about this area was the slope and the rocks. :Banghead The slope wasn't bad, but the rocks were jagged and sticking up just enough to make ledges. Getting sideways on sloping surface rock and trying to turn was about like riding on ice skates.

 

[boone]

 

[boone]

More rock hidding in the brush.



Best way to tackle these were to go up the hill and peel them out.

 

[boone]

Dug a big hole to put the rock in. This was much more fun than pushing rock.