A tractor is a very necessary piece of equipment for a farm. Farming is made up of a collection of difficult and time-consuming chores. With the right attachments, such as a front end loader attachment, your tractor can help you with even more. In this article, we explore the many uses of a front end loader. Read on to learn more to find out some front-end loader tips and tricks.
What You'll Learn Today
What Can You Do With A Front End Loader?
1. Maintain roads and ditches
Use your tractor with front end loader attachment to improve your access roads. Throughout your farm, you’re bound to have access roads leading from pasture to barn to garden plot and more. Without proper maintenance, these roads can become mud wallows in bad weather.
By adding a front end loader attachment to the front of your tractor and a box blade to rear, you can maintain your access roads by yourself and save a great deal of money.
You can use a tractor bucket on the front end loader to help you move dirt from the ditches along the sides of your access roads to the center of the road to improve drainage.
You can use a box blade to drag and smooth this dirt. In the end, you’ll have raised the surface of the road and cleaned out the ditches for better drainage and more secure travel.
2. Haul gravel and other materials
You can also use the bucket attachment to move gravel from an on property source, such as a creek bed to your access road. Smooth it over using the box blade.
3. Build firebreaks and create fence lines
A tractor with front end loader and a grapple attachment can also be used for installing fence lines and/or building firebreaks if you have a wooded area. Use a grapple attachment to remove fallen trees and other flammable debris to create a clear area to act as a firebreak or fire road through wooded areas.
Finish creating your firebreak by going back over the area using your box blade or scrape blade. This will help you clear away small debris before setting a prescribed fire to help protect your property against wildfire.
How Much Can A Front End Loader Lift?
The amount of front end loader can lift depends on a number of variables. For example, if your front end loader manual tells you that you can lift 1370 pounds at a given maximum height, this is the maximum the loader arms can lift forward of the pivot pins that connect the loader arms in the bucket.
The very maximum ability of the machine to lift weight is at the pins. With every inch forward that the load is placed, greater stress is put on the pins. So, the further forward you are carrying your load, the less weight you will be able to lift.
Another way of measuring maximum lift is to consider breakout force. This is the force that your machine is capable of exerting to break out the bucket. An example of this would be pushing the bucket into a pile of materials and then curling and lifting it to transport it.
The amount of breakout force your machine is capable of exerting depends a great deal on how high you want to carry that load. The higher you want to lift it, the less breakout force the machine will be able to exert.
Although your users’ manual may say that your machine is capable of lifting as much is 2000 pounds, you must always keep the height to which you intend to lift the load in mind.
If you do try to lift this much, you’ll exert a great deal of pressure on your loader. Even so, you don’t need to worry too much about damaging the machine because your relief valve will open.
Additionally, there are attachments you can use to make your machine more capable of lifting greater weights. For example, a bale spear will enable you to lift a 2000 pound bale of hay, but you won’t be able to lift it very high.
The lift capacity of a front end loader affects its speed. If it is capable of lifting a great deal, it may cycle quite slowly. When you’re using a front end loader, both weight and cycle time are of equal importance.
How Do I Know The True Lift Capacity Of A Tractor?
How Fast Can A Front End Loader Go?
A front-end loader is a slow machine. According to most users, you can expect a maximum speed of 20 miles an hour on the smooth, open road; however this is not advisable. Ideally, you will use a trailer for transporting your loader over a longer distance.
Most operators say that going more than 14 or 15 miles an hour is unsafe under any conditions. In most working settings you’ll be moving along at closer to 5 miles an hour.
