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Trying Out My 314 And Brinly Box Blade -Update

6K views 31 replies 9 participants last post by  JDBrian 
#1 ·
I had a meeting at the church tonight so I decided to load up the 314 and go early to get some time to try out the tractor and the box blade. This is the first time I've done any real work with the 314. I had about an hour to try it out. It was a bit rough at first. The blade worked pretty well with 40lbs of weight on it and no scarifier. The tractor is a beast. I am impressed with the power these things have. I had no trouble with traction even without extra weight. The gravel I'm moving is soft having been pushed to the edges of the lot by the snow plow.
I wish it had foot controls for the hydro and power steering but once I got used to the controls it wasn't too bad. I had to back up to a rock wall and pull the tops off the piles of gravel in close to the wall. I managed to do that without running into the wall or the parked cars. After I got the tops off the piles pulled out I could drag lengthwise and it was easier going. Heres a few pics!

Wheel Tire Car Vehicle Plant
Plant Land lot Road surface Asphalt Tree

The tractor loaded up Some of the gravel and damage from runoff
Plant Bedrock Land lot Grass Asphalt
Tire Wheel Automotive lighting Vehicle Automotive tire


Tire Wheel Automotive tire Car Automotive lighting


I managed to get about half way up the lot and get about 1/3 of that bad washout filled in before I had to put it away and go to the meeting.
Plant Road surface Land lot Asphalt Bedrock


Wheel Tire Car Vehicle Plant
Sky Tree Bedrock Road surface Composite material


I'm pretty happy with how the blade and the tractor performed. I'm going back on Friday weather permitting to finish the job. It's difficult to find a time when the lot is empty. There are a lot of activities going on in our 2 halls. I'll try to take more pictures then.
 

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#3 ·
Doing a great job, Brian! The more you 'play' with it, the easier it is to do what you want. You'll be a 'Pro' in no time!
 
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#4 ·
Kenny, I'll have a sore neck tomorrow for sure. Between looking back at the blade and trying to maneuver the travel lever and lift while steering I was a bit clumsy at first. I really needed to just try this out by myself so I could experiment with it. On Friday there is going to be at least 1 other person there to clean up with a rake etc. I had to get off the tractor and move a number of 4-6" diameter rocks that were buried in the gravel. I don't know where they came from. The lot is in bad shape. It really needs gravel and the eves troughs need to be directed into a buried pipe to a low area away from the lot. The washed out area was up to 6" deep. It doesn't look that bad in the picture.
 
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#5 ·
Takes some getting used too, that's for sure! I think you did fine for first try with it. The big stuff may be the first layer they put in and gotten pulled out by the snow plows. Put that in the washed out area. It'll help hold the smaller stuff in there when it rains.
 
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#7 ·
He's using his new box blade, Brian, not a snow plow. LOL
 
#9 · (Edited by Moderator)
I was talking about when the rock got pushed out of the parking lot. Brian did a great job pulling it all back in with his new box blade. The guy snow plowing can adjust the skids on his plow or do like we did and mount depth adjustment tires on there plow when plowing the snow off so he doesn't dig in so deep.
 
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#10 ·
Okay! I'm on the same page now! LOL
 
#12 ·
I'm not sure what the snow removal contractor is using for a blade. The lot is in such bad shape that I'm not sure how he is plowing it with all the rocks coming up through the base. We normally have a work party on a sat. morning in the spring and move that gravel by hand. That didn't happen this year so I decided to get a box blade and see what I could do. Any excuse for a new attachment and some seat time!LOL At the church council we are discussing upgrades to the parking lot so hopefully we can get the drainage issue dealt with and at least get some gravel in where it's been scraped away over the years.
 
#14 · (Edited by Moderator)
Well Brian You have made a believer of me! You did a good job.
BTW, doing a little volunteer work at the church, can be rewarding and is commendable.
As far as re graveling the lot, it depends on what's available in your area.
For about 40 yrs Van Dusseldorp had a sand pit and sold the county washed river gravel for road maintenence. When he sold the pit to Martin Marietta, he put a clause in the contract, that if they ever stopped pumping gravel the property was to revert to the town to be made a park.
That will never happen in my lifetime. It's over the Jordan Aquifier and will never run out of Gravel.
It was ok from the standpoint that frost heave would push the smooth stones back to the surface every winter.The roads could be tricky to drive on after the grader came through untill it packed a bit..
But when the clay got hard in the summer it would all move out of the tracks and have to be graded often
..
For the last 20 yrs the county has used what we call Road Pack. That's 3/4" crushed limestone with a lot of powdery fines in it.
That will pack down and the fines practically make it like concrete.t does not move around near as much and is better in my opinion.
 
#15 ·
Brian, that looks like it did just what you wanted it to do. Congratulations. I'm sure it is appreciated by your fellow church members too.
 
#16 ·
The blade and tractor did well last night. We'll see if there are any issues with the tractor when I give it an inspection before I go back. I did a major rebuild of the 314 last summer and this is the first real test. It got really great traction with the turfs and lowish tire pressure. No wheel weight required.

I'm on the church council as well and do a lot of volunteer work there. The common material for driveways and parking lots is referred to as Class A aggregate up here. It's a mixture of clay and crusher run up to 3/4". It works well if it has a chance to pack down. If you put it down too late in the year it doesn't get a chance to firm up before it's time to plow snow. I'm hoping we can get the drainage issue dealt with soon and get some gravel on the lot before the fall. I think the overall grade of the lot may have shifted from years of seasonally moving gravel in the lot. I need to get a transit level in there and check the grade.
 
#17 ·
That's the first time in many years I have heard anyone mention a transit level! I thought everything was done with a laser.
Interesting that you mentioned a Transit, I was just thinking the other night with my being old school anyway. I need to start hitting garage sales and used tool dealers and see if I could find a transit at a price I could swing to do some of the grading I need to do on my acreage.
 
#18 ·
Transit level or laser whatever will do the job. I don't have much luck finding tools at garage sales. Maybe I'm just too busy looking for tractors to see the tool bargains.
 
#20 · (Edited by Moderator)
Went back to the church tonight to finish up. The hill where I had filled in was washed out worse than when I left Monday! We had a bit of a thunder storm on Thursday but nothing really huge! All the material I put in the washout was gone and more!! All this from the eves trough? I looked over at the corner of the lot and saw silt there like a lot of water had lain there. That was the clue to this problem. The whole lot is graded to that low corner. When the snow plow piled up gravel along that corner he blocked the drainage path. The water has been running along the pile and down the right side (looking down the hill) of the driveway causing the huge washout. I set about pulling all that gravel out of there (3rd picture) and filling in the washout again. The smaller washout on the left side is due to the eves trough. It was so bad when I got there tonight I thought we would have to close that section to traffic. Anyway heres some photos. Someone parked right in the middle of my workspace while I wasn't looking. Anyway, the tractor worked fine but the blade is taking a real beating. That washout was full of rocks and getting them covered over and smooth again was not easy.

Plant Tree Road surface Asphalt Bedrock
Plant Road surface Asphalt Grass Groundcover

Heres what I found tonight Washed out again! Filling it in again
Light Plant Road surface Asphalt Bedrock
Plant Tree Road surface Asphalt Land lot

Pulled gravel from here to fill in Drivable again
Sky Tree Road surface Asphalt Cloud
Plant Tree Road surface Asphalt Grass

Pulling gravel from the wall Moving out big piles of gravel
Plant Property Road surface Tree Asphalt
Tire Wheel Car Land vehicle Vehicle

Gradually pulled it out into the lot Someone parked in the middle of my work

Tire Wheel Plant Car Vehicle

As good as it's going to get tonight!
 

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#21 ·
Looking good Brian! It's odd how folks seem to park in the worst spot. But you are getting it done!
 
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#22 ·
That drainage issue had us all fooled. We had an excavation guy in there and he was blaming the eves troughs as well. It was the obvious problem. When I think about it, this lot is about 10years old and we have not had a big washout until this spring. If the roof runoff was the problem it would have shown up before this! The pictures of the washout don't really give a good feel for how deep it was. I put a bunch of rock in the worst place and a 6" rock was below the grade. I'm going to have to go back again before the next rain and make sure I've got a good exit for the water other than the driveway. I was at it for about 3 hours. Slow work. Some of the piles were too tall to get the blade over. I'd say 18" high in spots. It took a lot of passes to pull it all out.
 
#23 ·
Yeah, you will have to get the water to go elsewhere than down that drive. Plus the normal traffic will try to move the gravel down hill until it packs in. Do you by chance have a roller you can pull around over that to help pack it in?
 
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#24 ·
Brian, that blade and you are doing a great job on the washout. Water doesn't always run the way it looks like it would and can do more damage than one would think. Hopefully you'll be able to determine where it's running and fix that problem. If it is running down the hill maybe an asphalt speed bump type diverter could be put in at not too big a cost. Looking good though.
 
#25 ·
Kenny, I don't have a roller. We had a wedding there today and it got a lot of traffic which is packing it down. Ronnie, that hill has not eroded like that in the past. I think the problem was the gravel blocking the exit from the lot in the low corner. The whole lot needs maintenance. I've got instructions from the Council president to obtain quotes to fix the drainage issue and add gravel to the lot to cover the rock base. We'll see what the experts think when they look at it. The tractor and blade did the job just fine but it was slow work. It's the first time I've worked in that large a space so it was a learning exercise for me as well. A compact tractor would have done the job a lot faster.
 
#26 ·
Sounds like an opportunity for a new toy...er tool!
Good luck with the quotes!
 
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#28 ·
Thanks George, It was a real fun bit of seat time for sure. I'm pretty impressed with the old 314 and the little 210$ Brinly blade. I was able to pull a box blade full of dirt up the hill part way with the old girl before breaking traction. That's with no wheel weights. Those Sundstrand 15 hydros are strong. GT fun at it's best!!
 
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