First Impressions Using Tractor Ballast
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2020
- Today I give you my first impressing using tractor ballast that I constructed recently for about $100. Considering that this barrel weight cost me about $100, the weight of between 900 and 1000lbs is pretty cheap. With about 14 (66lb) bags of concrete, a 55 gallon barrel, some steel and a drawbar, watch as I give you my first impressions using this backyard project. The tractor that I'm using this ballast barrel on is a 2012 Kioti DK40se HST with front loader. Up until this point I"ve moved around a lot of heavy wood pallets and logs using nothing for ballast. If you're considering adding weight (ballast) to your tractor for whatever reason, watch this video to get my impressions of whether I would recommend this project to others or whether I would go a different route. In this video I also talk about some of the hidden dangers of using a ballast barrel. I also will give you my opinion on adding ballast to your tractor tires as another option. Thanks for watching everyone!
- Jak na to + styl
Great to see someone solve a need without spending big bucks on factory made!
Glad the diy ballast it working out for you. It will come in handy digging out those stumps.
Smart move making the ballast. I made a concrete ballast and it made a big difference. My dealer filled my rear wheels at no cost. He did that for all his customers. I purchased 3 tractors from him over a 20 year span and they were a one family ownership for decades. The original owner passed away so now I deal with the new owner and he's just as personable and amicable as the former owner. Great job with your tractor & ballast. I enjoyed a full-watch. Have a fine evening. 👍🏽🙂
Great Video....Great point about keeping ballast low on the three point. I keep mine raised on my BX and your video will now keep me safer. Thanks
Excellent video review and description, video was fun and very informative! Thanks for pointing out about those stumps, that’s a really good point! Cheers Sandy!
Cheers!
Great video! You have convinced me to do a similar ballast for my new JD 1023 ! Clear description ! Man you are good! Tks for sharing!
I appreciate the kind words!
got exactly the same thing on my 1983 ford 3910. It was on it when i bought it but judging by the condition, it's been on there since they had the loader put on in the 80's or 90's as the loader is that old too. Thus, they're a tried and tested ballast method from days when money was tight and there wasnt so many gadgets available everywhere.
Hi there
Looks good
Put folks for folks on the back door to the time have a good day
Great educational video.... Thank you. Regarding your tree stumps, I have had success with burning them. Take your chain saw tip and dish out the stump to a bowl shape, rake away any combustible material from near the stump, then place a few BBQ briquets in the dished out stump and ignite. The briquets will smoulder away on their own without an opened flame. It is an easy, cost effective way to deal with stumps that are low to the ground.
Michael from Alberta
Good to know
I like it !
I have made it a habit of cutting all my stumps as short as possible, but if I am making a new trail I will push the trees over with my loader which will make the whole root ball come out. If I cant push them over I will tie a strap to the tree as high as possible and pull it down, just make sure your strap is long enough so the tree does not land on your head. I have pulled down trees with a trunk diameter of two feet this way with a fifty horse tractor.
I may have to give that a try
I have a Kubota L2900 with calcium filled tires. Not worth the expense. Still looking to make a Ballast for the 3 point.
I have a Kioti DK4510, which came from the dealer with ballasted rear tires. However, since our small farm is very steep the ballast in the rear wheels is certainly not enough weight. I’m going to have to give this a try!! Thanks
I really like the weight barrel and rim guard in my tires, sure makes me feel good about moving heavy loads. Thanks for checking out the video. Sounds like you’ve got a real nice tractor
@@sawingwithsandy I was certainly skeptical about buying a Kioti at first, as I had never heard of the brand before, but the only way I could like mine better is if it had a cab like yours! They are great tractors. Thanks for all the great videos!
You know ur right about the height of ur ballast. Try making one with the barrel going horizontal, that way ur down low and if u back into a mound u have the round part of the barrel acting as a skid to lesson the possibility of damage to ur 3 point hitch.
Good point there Joe
I went with added ballast as I work a lot in the yard and do not want to add ruts. I can remove the ballast when not needed.
Is nice to have it removable for sure
These tractor have so much force in the loader... they need ballast. I went with the windshield washer route, I bought a 55 gallon drum of windshield washer (90$ cdn), used an old fuel injection pump hooked to a cheap water hose and I bought a special adapter water hose to tire valve, the adapter has a "purge" valve so once every 5 minute you close the electric pump... purge the air out, then switch the pump back on. I have AG tire if that make a difference. but since then... My loader isnt capable of picking the back of the tractor anymore. I plan to make something like you also because the more weight... the more stable you are... sometime you can pick up anything on the gravel road but try the same load in a sand pit... anyway. good video!
Sounds like a good idea with the washer fluid. I may end up going that route as well depending on how I like this current setup. Thanks for sharing
Great idea as you can drop it if needed to reduce machine weight if you have to haul it
For sure. Pretty handy I find
For the low stumps, the short-term cheap solution is to mark them with flags. I have a bucket full of them and mark stumps and rocks so I can go back and dig them up later. Long term, think about getting a stump grinder. They are not cheap, but if you figure $50-100 each for stump removal, it will pay for itself pretty fast (in your case, no time at all).
Yeah i hear ya about the stump grinder. Just have to see if I can convince my wallet to open wide enough for a stump grinder purchase haha
Can't use your FEL forks to work the stumps out? I've done several they just take a little time
Excellent video...is that a gps behing your sterring?
It’s a camera for reversing. Works great. Check out my install videos if you’re interested
Just thinking about your comments regarding having to keep the ballast low to the ground. With the experience you now have in building the first version, do you think it would have been possible to design and build it with the barrel turned horizontal? Of course the lid would have to be fixed on and a hole cut in the side (top in this case) to fill it with cement, but I’m wondering if that might work better to keep your mass low and wide. It might need a taller steel extension out the top to get enough spread for the three point hitch, but otherwise I think it might work.
Thoughts?
I did consider the width but the drum appears to be too wide when on its sides would be possible if I shortened the barrel height a bit. A rectangular shape would even work well im sure to keep the weight low
Thanks Sandy - makes sense that it might be a bit too wide unless it were set back further.
Hello. I have loaded tires on my tractor still use a three point hitch implement when doing loader work, I say the same thing. “Game Changer”, the weight is needed, so I’ve decided to make a ballast three point hitch setup with old patio slabs, giving me a platform to store a few task related tools as needed... well see how that goes...probably mod as I go, but I figured that would work for ya when I watched that episode! Good job. Bob
Sounds like a good plan Bob. Thanks for watching
Quick comment. The concrete ballast on 3 pt hitch increases weight on the rear axle. If you add wheel weights or fluid in the tires, that weight does not affect the rear axle. The concrete ballast is a good idea, but the others may help too.
Thanks for clarifying that Randy. My tires are filled with RimGaurd as well which is a nice add on
Putting ballast behind the rear axle reaches the weight on the front axles. There are two fulcrums, acting as teeter totters, the front and rear axle. Putting liquid ballast in the rear tires does not reduce the load on the front axle. Half of the liquid in the rear tire is in front of the axle, half is behind. So, it will move the center of mass or the tractor back towards the rear axle a bit. Since the total weight of the tractor has been increased, there will some share of that borne by the front axle. Putting weight behind the rear axle has much better leverage than weight at the axle.
Sandy they fill tires with calcium go to youtube and see hot to do it and do it yourself probably cost a couple hundred dollars for the calcium! Also i am curious why didn't you add a receiver out the back welded into the cross over bar this way if you wanted to put in a hitch to draw something you wouldn't have to take off the barrel?
Hey Marc, thanks for watching. I Likely would avoid calcium chloride as it causing rusting of the wheels but beet juice or washer fluid may be something I considered in the future. I didn’t install a hitch because I never tow anything with my tractor as I use my atv for towing around trailers as it’s more maneuverable in my tight trails
Hi Sandy, have you looked into wheel spacers? I have the same tractor and looking to add 3 itches per side. Thoughts?
I haven’t looked into spacers but I did find by reversing the wheels so the tires stick out more was pretty good
@@sawingwithsandy thanks.
I understand saving money but $900 is cheap compared to a.junk flipped tractor. Especially with the sub compact tractors and how narrow the rear end is compared to a larger tractor. Ive got.filled tires and am watching this to make my own weight ballast, pretty much same as yours but I want to add a hitch reciever in mine. Weight ballast are great for loader work but the filled tires puts the weight right from the tractor to the ground and really helps with traction, my buddy has same tractor as mine just newer and he has filled tires and got wheels weights and it's amazing the difference it made compared to mine with filled tires and a ballast box. I understand saving money trust me but if there is any way to swing it I would 100% have your tires filled. It helps with loader work and counter weight but also makes leaps and bounds difference with traction esp in mud or snow, cause a stuck tractor is no fun and usually a person's tractor weighs more than their vehicle so trying to pull it out with a truck is like trying to move a house with your ford ranger . (Exaggeration a bit but anyway) enjoy your day sir, I enjoy your videos.
Thanks for watching Chad
I suppose that's a piece of logging land. Holly crap! If people in the future saw how straight those trees look they would think we methodically placed them like that for religious purposes.
Yeah they forest was planted
@@sawingwithsandy It looks so awesome like that. A weird serene feeling. I live in Maine so I am surrounded by trees. My growth is young around me because, it was pasture about 50-60 yrs ago, though across the road or farther behind me is old growth. Those trees are amazingly big!
Do you really get 900 to 1000 pounds with Tire ballast? My tractor is quite a bit smaller I have it just curious if that's what you're comparing it to?
Yeah it does actually weight that much with 14 bags of concrete x 66lbs a bag = 924lbs not including hardware steel
What part of canukville you live at ?? I am out side Edmonton ab
Hey Doug! I'm in Central Ontario
@@sawingwithsandy awesome keep on wood chucking
Dunno about your size tractor as mine is smaller (25hp Mahindra), but an advantage to using ballast on smaller 4WD tractors is keeping the load balanced on the frame. The Mahindra has a 900lbs bucket capacity, and that kind of weight on a smaller tractor really puts a lot of stress on the front axle if you don't counterbalance with weight on the rear of the tractor. The Mahindra dealer (after having repairs done to the front end due to piling heavy wet snow with the bucket) advised that for the Emax series tractors, 400lbs on the back end would help prevent the kind of damage I did to the front end. Lack of experience on my part cost me almost $1000! Live and learn... lol! I opted not to fill the tires for two reasons - cost, and I have a belly finishing mower deck that I use for mowing my 3 acres. The tractor is heavy as it is, and when the ground is soft I was concerned about compression and ruts in the yard. I love your size tractor... and the fact that it has a cab! That will be similar in size to what I want as my next tractor purchase. Thanks for sharing! Learned a lot!
what of the hidden dangers of using a ballast barrel?
High centre of gravity
@@sawingwithsandy that is?
When the weight of the concrete barrel is off the ground the centre of gravity is higher
@@sawingwithsandy how many days did you leave it to dry?
If you still need more ballast just start eating McDonalds every day.
Haha.
ALL U NEED IS REAR BOXBLADE SCRAPER , THIS WAY U CAN USE THIS BLADE / BUT WAY WAS WASTE OF TIME
My main reason for using this for my weight was because the concrete barrel weighs twice the amount that my box blade does and sticks out a lot less. However I’m sure anything that’s heavy and hangs off the back of the tractor would help
you are cookl