safety on a hill going straight up and down
- Thread starter Spicytub
- Start date
I haven't had the chance to go down/up it yet I had to go out of town for work and just got back today. So gonna give it a whirl tomorrow.
Here is a pic of the hill it drops off on the sides and is the only access point to the lower part of the property that isn't almost straight down. That log you see was cleared after the pic as well. It has a slight turn left at the bottom there then levels out.
That looks very doable ... The advantage of 4X4 mode is the brakes are on the back, and are then tied into the front via the driveshaft, but leaving it in low range, you shouldn't even need the brakes, soon you will be going up and down there without a thought, as if it's your driveway! 
I think the biggest thing about going safely sideways on a hill is not do it on vastly uneven terrain ... A sudden dip or rock can kinda throw you off balance ...
I routinely take my SCUT with 3" rear spacers and WWF filled tires along my creek ...
Here I have added 70 Lb rear weights on each side, plus 275 Lb of weight on the BH frame ...
Oh my…I just wrinkled our leather coach reading through this post.
I would not have the stones to get that close to a couple places on the creek in your pictures. But it looks like you have come up with a ballasting solution to keep the rubber side down
.A front tire hits a rodent dug hole (that wasn't there last time) and your day changes fast. I wouldn't mow that creek bank without an outrigger on that machine!!
If it seems to steep going forward back up, yeah I know that sounds counter productive. But if you think about it where is all the weight of the tractor, the back end so you wont flip over backing up a hill vs going up, bucket first. Just MHO
I definitely keep the Front End Loader on when brush hogging (flail mowing in my case), like @TheOldHokie said, you want the it for the brakes, and I'll add leveling the front end--if you hit a pot-hole, rock, piece of wood, whatever only the rear keeps you level, the front pivots so dropping the bucket is a life-saver.
I now use differential lock and 4WD on hills after going for two potentially serious slides. I also use 4" wheel offsets, Two things going wrong at once is really risky, three could be a rollover.
I also keep the bucket low when mowing even though managing the front and back heights at the same time is a lot of concentration; if I'm going to hit a rock or log I want it to be with the bucket, not the mower. On an established trail where you can see the fallen branches and stuff the FEL might not be needed, but a slide happens incredibly fast, and once one wheel loses traction...use diff lock is my advice.
Happy Mowing!
I now use differential lock and 4WD on hills after going for two potentially serious slides. I also use 4" wheel offsets, Two things going wrong at once is really risky, three could be a rollover.
I also keep the bucket low when mowing even though managing the front and back heights at the same time is a lot of concentration; if I'm going to hit a rock or log I want it to be with the bucket, not the mower. On an established trail where you can see the fallen branches and stuff the FEL might not be needed, but a slide happens incredibly fast, and once one wheel loses traction...use diff lock is my advice.
Happy Mowing!
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That one picture above showing the empty bucket, I was actually kinda stuck, I probably could have backed up, but didn't want to ... I had forgotten to add rocks to the bucket before mowing, as the brush hog is a tad heavy, and it's hard to steer without extra weight up front, in 4X4 mode, the front tires wouldn't keep me going straight on that bank, or turn me back up the hill ...
So I dropped the bucket and very carefully got off on the up hill side, as my own seat of the pants "Tip-O-Meter" was going off!
I gingerly let go of the ROPS and it was steady ... I gave it a light nudge, still rock steady ... The a push ... Finally I pushed it as hard as I could on the ROPS above the rifle, still couldn't budge it!
I then went down in the creek and got some rocks, and drove it back up without spinning a tire!
I don't normally let it get this tall, but being a long distance truck driver, I'm gone for 2-4 weeks at a time ... Some times I get to swing by 2-3 times a week, but this spring I was gone the full 4 weeks, and it had rained over 12" in that time, the grass grew!
I normally mow that first lap near the creek in 4X4, and very slowly, working my way along looking for "the edge" and any "potential problems" ... Slow is less likely to tip you over as you have more time to react to what you're seeing and feeling.
One of the advantages of the pivoting front axle, which would be the first one to find a chuck hole ... Is that it takes about 4" of rise or dip for my axle to "bottom out" on my frame, which then provides side to side stability ... So less than that won't cause any instability IF you're going slow!
Very easy to test it on your own tractor, just get a few 2X's ... At 3" mine still has a little gap ...
But at 4.5" it's touching ... This will obviously be different on different tractors ...
On mine, it's the same on the back, 4.5" will cause the front axle to supply stability.
I'm not convinced that a tractor would tip over backwards with a brush hog on back of it going up a hill, possiblity of lifting the front tires? Maybe ... Unless dragging something like a back blade that snagged a big root ...
The advantage of driving forward up the hill is that the R1 tires the OP has are very directional, as in the "dig in" going forward ... They provide more traction going forward than backwards.
So I dropped the bucket and very carefully got off on the up hill side, as my own seat of the pants "Tip-O-Meter" was going off!
I gingerly let go of the ROPS and it was steady ... I gave it a light nudge, still rock steady ... The a push ... Finally I pushed it as hard as I could on the ROPS above the rifle, still couldn't budge it!
I then went down in the creek and got some rocks, and drove it back up without spinning a tire!
I don't normally let it get this tall, but being a long distance truck driver, I'm gone for 2-4 weeks at a time ... Some times I get to swing by 2-3 times a week, but this spring I was gone the full 4 weeks, and it had rained over 12" in that time, the grass grew!
I normally mow that first lap near the creek in 4X4, and very slowly, working my way along looking for "the edge" and any "potential problems" ... Slow is less likely to tip you over as you have more time to react to what you're seeing and feeling.
One of the advantages of the pivoting front axle, which would be the first one to find a chuck hole ... Is that it takes about 4" of rise or dip for my axle to "bottom out" on my frame, which then provides side to side stability ... So less than that won't cause any instability IF you're going slow!
Very easy to test it on your own tractor, just get a few 2X's ... At 3" mine still has a little gap ...
But at 4.5" it's touching ... This will obviously be different on different tractors ...
On mine, it's the same on the back, 4.5" will cause the front axle to supply stability.
I'm not convinced that a tractor would tip over backwards with a brush hog on back of it going up a hill, possiblity of lifting the front tires? Maybe ... Unless dragging something like a back blade that snagged a big root ...
The advantage of driving forward up the hill is that the R1 tires the OP has are very directional, as in the "dig in" going forward ... They provide more traction going forward than backwards.
Be careful if you have R4 tires, they have way less traction than the AG (R1) tires especialy going up hill. From my experience anyway. But slow is critical and NO sideways. I do cut at some steep angle sideways but not my steepest angles.
EastTX
New member
Equipment
M4-071, EA Wicked Root Grapple, EA Extreme 72" Rotary Cutter, EA Land Leveler
I have a similar situation with my property. My house is on a hill and that hill slopes gently off the front yard down into the pasture for most of the way down to the road half a mile away. The backside of the hill behind the backyard however is steep in most places. I have about ten acres of hardwoods and a creek down there so like you, I want to have access to it. There are a couple of places I can access it with short but fairly steep runs (maybe 30 yards) before it begins to gently level out. I can access it from a much flatter area where the woods run into the front pasture but then to get back to the creek area I have to traverse the hill sideways in a few spots and that's honestly more scary than straight up and down. It's also not nearly as convenient.
I had an LS XR4145 for 9 years (just traded it in for an M4 last week) and I went up and down that hill hundreds of times on it. I always had ballast on the back, sometimes a bush hog to keep the trails clean but often a land leveler I use on my driveway and either a bucket or a grapple on the loader. I would never consider going up it without the loader and something attached to it. Same for the rear, either the bush hog or the land plane. Going up, keeping the loader very low keeps the center of gravity forward and low and I feel better knowing if it was to try and rear up on me the mower or leveler would help stop that. Going down the hill keeping the bucket low can give you an emergency brake, as others have said, in case you need it. I learned this the hard way when my 4x4 broke while I was going downhill (the engage/disengage rod attached to the lever broke off where it goes into the transmission). 2WD isn't enough to keep it slow and the tractor just bolted down the hill. I got on the brakes but all that did was lock up and skid the rear wheels. I only slid about 20' to the bottom but I had to pull that old seat out of my butthole when I got to the bottom. I could have used the bucket for drag if I had it lower.
As for wet conditions, I went up and down mine wet or dry, even in a rainstorm or two when my wife was convinced our blind dog was going to drown in the creek and never had an issue. Mine hill is so heavily treed though that it's just soil mixed with a lot of rock. I was using R4 tires also. Long story short, use lower ranges and gears, especially in the beginning until you get a feel for it and you can gradually try higher gears. FWIW, on my LS I had 4 range gears and 4 regular gears so 16 total. I usually went down the hill range gear 3 (4 being the fastest) and regular gear 1 or 2. Anything higher would have probably been ok but it was too fast for me to feel comfortable. I could climb it easily in 3/1 but that took a while to get comfortable with. I started out climbing in range 2 and probably gear 2 but after a while I felt comfortable going in a higher range/gear. Plus going up in lower ranges with more torque could get you in trouble faster in my opinion. It's hard to tell from a picture but it looks like you will be fine, but avoid that grass when wet.
I have yet to take the new M4 back there as it is a cab and I need to clear some annoying limbs and vines so my glass doesn't get scratched. I need to do that soon because Fall is coming and my favorite thing to do in November and December is take the tractor to the creek to watch a magnificent sunset while smoking my pipe and sipping some good scotch. Helps me keep life in perspective.
I had an LS XR4145 for 9 years (just traded it in for an M4 last week) and I went up and down that hill hundreds of times on it. I always had ballast on the back, sometimes a bush hog to keep the trails clean but often a land leveler I use on my driveway and either a bucket or a grapple on the loader. I would never consider going up it without the loader and something attached to it. Same for the rear, either the bush hog or the land plane. Going up, keeping the loader very low keeps the center of gravity forward and low and I feel better knowing if it was to try and rear up on me the mower or leveler would help stop that. Going down the hill keeping the bucket low can give you an emergency brake, as others have said, in case you need it. I learned this the hard way when my 4x4 broke while I was going downhill (the engage/disengage rod attached to the lever broke off where it goes into the transmission). 2WD isn't enough to keep it slow and the tractor just bolted down the hill. I got on the brakes but all that did was lock up and skid the rear wheels. I only slid about 20' to the bottom but I had to pull that old seat out of my butthole when I got to the bottom
. I could have used the bucket for drag if I had it lower.As for wet conditions, I went up and down mine wet or dry, even in a rainstorm or two when my wife was convinced our blind dog was going to drown in the creek
and never had an issue. Mine hill is so heavily treed though that it's just soil mixed with a lot of rock. I was using R4 tires also. Long story short, use lower ranges and gears, especially in the beginning until you get a feel for it and you can gradually try higher gears. FWIW, on my LS I had 4 range gears and 4 regular gears so 16 total. I usually went down the hill range gear 3 (4 being the fastest) and regular gear 1 or 2. Anything higher would have probably been ok but it was too fast for me to feel comfortable. I could climb it easily in 3/1 but that took a while to get comfortable with. I started out climbing in range 2 and probably gear 2 but after a while I felt comfortable going in a higher range/gear. Plus going up in lower ranges with more torque could get you in trouble faster in my opinion. It's hard to tell from a picture but it looks like you will be fine, but avoid that grass when wet.I have yet to take the new M4 back there as it is a cab and I need to clear some annoying limbs and vines so my glass doesn't get scratched. I need to do that soon because Fall is coming and my favorite thing to do in November and December is take the tractor to the creek to watch a magnificent sunset while smoking my pipe and sipping some good scotch. Helps me keep life in perspective.
As a side note. Right where your finger is pointing is where a block of wood needs to be place (on both sides) when separating the transmission from the engine to keep the engine from flopping when it's unbolted.
Except that transmission is only connected to the engine via a drive shaft ...
Massey Ferguson GC 1725 MB ...
Massey Ferguson GC 1725 MB ...