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Senior Member
 
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BB,
You and Wichman are both right which is why I agreed with both of you. Huge difference between lawn tractors and garden tractors. Years ago we owned a Wheelhorse 8 hp tractor and it had all kinds of pull. But it was heavy, had a good cast iron tranny, and had wicked ag tires. Man would that thing work.
In fact I suspect today they almost cheat on the hp of lawn tractors to edge out the competition. Kind of like saying a chainsaw has a 20 inch bar when its the ccs driving it that count. The companies tout up the hp and figure it "creatively" to say the least.
But I am not surprised at all about you 17 hp Kubota. When I bought my 25 hp machine I said it was too small, but I was paying cash and that was all I had. The salesman said it would do everything my Ford 900 would do, and man was he ever right. I was skeptical, but 1500 hours later that Kubota is just as tough as the day I bought it, and I cut a lot of wood in a year. Logging is hard on tractors!
As for the 8N Doug, we had one before my time but in 1958 bought a Ford 900 that lasted until 1999. It was a good tractor and not a whole lot different from the 8N really. It had a lot of limitations, but yes plowing was something it did extremely well.
From 1870-1988 we were potato farmers primarily, and we plowed a lot of ground...deep tilled back in those days. I remember my Grandfather plowing fields with that 900 Ford in 3rd gear! He had the throttle so wide open, and going so fast that the sod would roll off the moldboard and flip a full 365 degrees before it landed, that was fast! And that was pulling a two bottom, 14 inch Dearborn plow behind it! I am not making it up, though I do attest that it was good ground without big rocks!
That old Dearborn plow now though, is a single bottom plow. In 1998 the 3 point hitch on the old Ford 900 was getting soft, so a neighbor wanted me to plow his garden up. I did, but I used my Uncles 90 hp John Deere. All was going well until I hit a big rock. It wedge itself between the two plow bottoms, but as it twisted, the tractor puffed a touch of black smoke and snapped the beam right off the other half. That made my old Two Bottom plow into a single bottom plow.
Eat lamb...because 50,000 coyotes CAN'T be wrong!
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New Member
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Last Login: 11/16/2009 8:57:51 PM
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[quote]britboy (10/16/2009)
I probably should just keep my mouth shut but I only wanted to pass on that
people should be careful about what they ask machinery to do.
[/quote]
Amen Hallelujah.
BTW I have seen ploughs being sold to hang of the back of quad bikes. I am sorry but that is not right.
Rofl
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Senior Member
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That is oh so true too. I will say I am impressed with people that modify their little garden tractors and do some pretty monumental tasks with them, like one guy that put a Front End Loader on his Garden Tractor and then proceeded to dig out his yard so he could have a pool. He said how much money he saved over renting an bobcat to do it, and now has the ability to do even more jobs around the house.
But on that same forum a guy had the same Kubota as me mentioned the tractor being tippy and wanted to cure that problem (common on Kubotas) by putting dual tires on. I told him how I inverted by back wheels to give me a lot wider stability and it worked well. Instead he went out and bought wheels and rims and put dual tired on his tractor, 4 hours later he snapped his rear axle completely in half. Big difference between a NH 9684 and a 2500 Kubota. But I bet it looked cool for those first 4 hours!
Eat lamb...because 50,000 coyotes CAN'T be wrong!
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| well this weekend my big job was to finish up burying a waterline that i hooked up to a stand pipe hydrant the trench was already dug so all i had to do was backfill. i took the mower deck off the case and attatched the snow plow and used it to do the job it was wet clay like dirt i just pushed an inch or two in at a time my tires broke loose otherwise i was supprised that when you lower that plow all the way and more it actually picks the front of the tractor up i also used it to spread some 4 inch gravel i had delivered for the driveway i had fun but i think id like to step up a bit maybe just keep the case for mowing
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Senior Member
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That looks like a pretty robust garden tractor by the pictures I searched for online. I am not sure I would give up yet. It sounds to me that you simply need more weight. A little on the hiney of the tractor to keep from breaking traction, and a little on the plow to hold it down into the earth while pushing.
You may have an adjustment problem too. Setting the angle of attack by just a little does a whole lot as far as an aggressive bite goes. It has to be set so that the cutting edge, and the curl of the blade forces the soil up and not down which attributes to ride over of the soil you are trying to push.
Ag lug tires also help which you can get at Tractor Supply pretty inexpensively.
It all depends on what you want to spend. You could spend a little bit of money and have a workable, but smallish tractor to do more tasks, or you could invest deeper and get a bigger tractor and just out and out do more. You'll never regret the bigger tractor for sure, but its a serious commitment. The good thing is, if you have the means, with this economy, now is the time to buy. Not only do they have great deals on tractors, on your taxes you can easily depreciate it under Section 179 on Schedule F. You gotta love that!
Eat lamb...because 50,000 coyotes CAN'T be wrong!
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