The entire 60" LP unit is just a pinch over 200lbs. with pistons and all. If you have a 1000lb lifting capacity, that is 20%. Many grapples are 600-800lbs. With one of those he would not need to worry about bending it because he couldn't get it off the ground to do anything with it.
Definitely a balancing act between strong and light going on. The AR400 helps a lot.
Oh definitely. The Root Rake I got with my tractor is actually one size too large for my L2501. It is manufactured by a local guy who fabricates lots of grapples and rakes and markets them to local dealers. He does great work, and he designs his rakes in different sizes. The one he designs for my tractor size is One step smaller. Obviously, a 400lb root rake on the front of a L2501 seems a little odd, because you are indeed giving up some lift capacity to carry that big heavy rake around. When I bought my tractor I didn't realize any of this. The dealer offered the root rake to me and a decent price because I was struggling with wanting a grapple but not wanting to add the extra cost of it and a third function, and so I took that offer.
I've actually been surprised how much weight I've still been able to lift with this rake. I am still able to pick up 2 logs for example that are 10-12 foot long and 12 to 18" thick. When I bought this tractor I knew very little about tractors, so when I began to read and learn, and then realize that I was limiting my lift capacity and such, I was then a bit surprised to be lifting what I estimated was over 2,000lbs. I had seen the specs on the L2501 that suggest lift capacity around 1100 lbs etc etc. So I done more digging. The reality is that the L2501 can actually lift around 2600lbs. off the ground. Someone like me who had never owned a tractor wouldn't have ever known this, as I didnt understand all the mechanics involved, and was just going on the specs. The fact though is that the specs rate the lifting capacity at 1500mm height, which is over 4.9 feet off the ground. At that height and at the pivot pin is where you see the highest lift capacity listed for the L2501, at 1431 LBS, but even this doesnt tell the full story. I told myself "But I know I am lifting in excess of 2,000lbs so how is that possible.." Well you have to look at the lift capacity curve graphs to really understand what's going on. This is a single page in the LA525 Loader owners manual, and what it shows is that the loader can actually lift around 2600lbs off the ground. That limit drops off with every inch you go up in height. For someone just trying to move big heavy logs to my firewood pile, it means I can lift a lot more than what all the spec sheets show, because I just need to get the logs 12 or 24 inches off the ground - just enough to transport. I think a lot of new tractor owners dont realize this when they are shopping for a new tractor. I certainly didn't. I saw the ~1100 LB. lifting capacity in the spec sheet and thought "ok so I can lift a little over a thousand pounds with this tractor" Nope - I can actually lift over 2,000lbs all the way up to around 24 inches in height. If you just want to get it 6 inches off the ground to move it, you can lift around 2,500 lbs. The numbers change a lot if you stay under 4 feet. Most of my loader work and heavy lifting is actually done at a height that is below where they rate the lifting capacity for the machine for the purpose of the spec sheets. When you consider all this, the 400lb root rake all of a sudden isn't as bad a deal as it seemed to me when I first learned all this. I thought I had nearly cut my lift capacity in half by purchasing the root rake, but I hadn't really.
