Check coolant and front axle fluids as well. On my BX, both were low after 10 hours of operation and working the air out of the system.
I have a 48 inch box with 4 scarifiers on my BX2380, and I can load the engine pretty heavily if I try with them all the way down. But it always amazes the neighbors how much my little BX is capable of with a little patience and a careful hand on the controls.
Yeah I really should have said “check all fluids” but it’s a good reminder. Being that it’s a cab tractor it even needs the windshield wiper fluid topped off! LOL.
And I noticed the washer fluid pump sprays both the front and back windows. I assume it’s supposed to do that even though there’s a front and rear activation switch for it on each wiper’s toggle but I should probably ask the dealer.
Sounds like we have identical box blades, and yeah, the soft spot snuck up on me or I wouldn’t have stalled it. I wouldn’t normally lug a diesel like that. The road was so hard (dry clay) that the scarifiers needed multiple passes to even get going. Then when they did get going they really got going. Ha.
I’m somewhat surprised folks put bigger box blades on this size tractor. The extra side reach would be nice for the ditches but you would have to be careful not to overload the tractor. I suppose the bigger engine would help with that, but I can do plenty of damage with the lower HP one, fast enough that higher HP would just give me permission to do dumb things, faster.
Kinda like fast airplanes. Could get three minutes behind the tractor real quick with more power. Haha.
“I saw the tractor go by, but Nate’s brain was still back in the garage.” LOL.
I love a box blade! You can easily grade like a pro. If you tilt it, and only put scarifiers down on one side, they'll dig (or re-dig if necessary) a pretty good shallow ditch. If you put the scarifiers all the way down, then shorten your top-link up as much as it will go, the box blade will work the ground like a cultivator. They'll push snow. If you angle them right, you can move a pile of dirt across grass without hardly losing any dirt along the way.
Agreed. That box blade makes me look like I know what I’m doing when it comes to dirt work.
Turn me around and make me use the bucket on the FEL and the laughter from a good operator starts. Ha. I’m damn glad I have the bucket level indicator after playing with it. Haha. Who would have thunk a stupid metal rod could be so useful?
I rarely used the box blade on the Ford in reverse push mode because the Ford had chains instead of sway bars on the three point, so it’d flop off to one side a bit — but played with back filling in reverse a bit yesterday. It will move a LOT of dirt running backward — maybe more than intended... haha.
Like my neighbor joked when I said I need more practice at dirt work...
“It’s dirt. If it ended up where you don’t want it, move it again.” Haha.
Anyway truck-eating potholes are gone, the erosion washout at the hill to the county road is filled, and about all I could want is a better way to roll or pack it down.
Clearly it needs another more careful afternoon to remove the long wave humps and then it’s time to call for a couple of tractor trailer loads of 3/4” mix minus. It’s never had proper gravel on it and now that I could finally dig down in it, the gravel never was there... didn’t sink, they just never used enough. Over on the mostly unused part of the driveway circle I can see where they scattered some 1/2” multicolor quartz on it to make it look pretty but that’s not a proper road base.
That steep bank at the county road needs a load of small rip-rap too, after covering it with fabric.
All stuff I always wanted to do but was just a horrible chore on the stick shift tractor... bending over constantly to shift — this thing makes it much more fun to get on with these projects!
Light drizzle now/snow coming tonight. Good to settle this initial road grade in.
Didn’t get a shot before we drove on it a bunch of times with the other vehicles. They’re playing the role of compactor in today’s film. Ha.
Technically it might need some more dirt fill over the culvert — not sure if you can see it there but it isn’t very deep. Concerned if I ever go thru there with the scarifiers down and the road is wetter they’ll reach it and rip a hole in the top of it. But not sure it’s worth building the road up that many inches, rather than just being careful.
