Power vs Agility / Which Logging Tractor is Best?- Ep35- Outsider Log Cabin

over the years I've logged with several different types of tractor from a tiny 13 horsepower VA case all the way up to an 80 horsepower Fiat heston each tractor presented its own unique set of pros and cons after working with this collection of machines in the bush I formed a pretty good idea of what I think makes a good logging tractor which tractor did I find to be the most useful my answer might surprise you it all started with the Heston which was manufactured by Fiat I started the law cabin project I didn't have a tractor of my own at the time but my grandpa was kind enough to let me borrow his tractor on occasion before I was able to save up enough money to buy my own and boy what a beautiful tractor the 80 horsepower Heston is for a tractor from the late 80s it comes fully equipped powerful 80 horsepower diesel engine four-wheel drive power steering and a hefty front-end loader when the tires are fully loaded the tractor weighs in at approximately 11,000 pounds I don't believe there's anything that this juggernaut of a bush tractor can't lift pull or drive through honestly I'm not even sure if this tractor would notice if it drove straight through the side of a barn as far as I know this tractor has never stalled out been stuck or met its match [Music] on paper the Heston seems like it would be the perfect Bush tractor however it had two major drawbacks first of all it isn't very maneuverable sure the power steering allows for feather-light turning but that means nothing when the tractor is as wide and long as it is with the loader attached the tractor is at least 18 feet long this makes it almost impossible to turn around within the dense cedar bush that we regularly work in but forget turning around there are many parts of the forest that we can't even access with a heston period it's just too big since we log selectively this is a big problem as impressive as this tractor is it's almost useless to us when it comes to logging in dense bush we need a tractor that can follow us off the established trails to reach the individual trees we select for harvest the Heston just isn't capable of doing that for us the second drawback to this tractor is its price point it's expensive for a bush tractor although it's 30 years old most Heston a t6 t6 DT models start at $10,000 us for most small-scale operators like myself that's just too much money repairs and maintenance are naturally quite pricy to a good Bush tractors should be dependable and durable while at the same time being reasonably cheap to run and fix although the heston can be many things cheap isn't one of them at least not for the little lead loggers like myself when I had the chance to buy my own tractor I decided to get something that was a complete opposite to the oversized and overpowered heston for approximately $450 US I bought myself one of the smallest and cheapest tractors I could find you're looking at a 1948 VA case at 3,200 pounds it's one-third the weight of the Heston and it's one-sixth the power at 13 horsepower it's also a fraction of the size on paper it's a very underwhelming tractor no loader no four-wheel drive no power steering no power anything and barely any power at all in fact most modern riding mowers would give the poor case a run for its money in the horsepower and features Department however the VA case does have some notable strengths with its turn on a dime steering high ground clearance and small stature this tractor was built to drive in the dense bush in fact we could drive it anywhere we wanted without having to break a trail for it all we had to do was carefully pick our path beforehand and weave it through the trees this meant that the little case left almost zero footprint on the surrounding forests if I could sum the v-a cases strengths up into one word it would be nimble however like the Heston it too had some major drawbacks yes it was nimble and yes it was inexpensive but it was grossly underpowered I could pull a few small cedar logs with it or one larger cedar log but that was about it it couldn't handle anything over five hundred pounds without repeatedly stalling [Laughter] this ended up being a big problem for me because I still needed to haul piles of fieldstone heavy poplar logs and entire boulders to the common site each load would easily total several thousand pounds if my little tractor was barely capable of getting itself up an incline in anything more than second gear then hauling heavier loads with it was laughable at best even on level ground overall the best way I can describe the little case is nimble but gutless so I ended up selling it and purchasing an international 1951 w-4 mcCormick for 700 American dollars like the VA case it was pretty bare-bones but it had double the horsepower and it was about a thousand pounds heavier this old w-4 was the best of both worlds it was a strong hauler like the Heston although not as powerful and it was surprisingly agile like the case although not quite as maneuverable it was a good middle ground tractor and it worked amazingly well for me for the first time I was able to reach most of the trees and rocks I needed and haul them out without any problems the w4 hauled just about everything I asked it to the only thing that it struggled to pull was this mammoth Boulder which is the biggest raw I have in my cabin foundation but after throwing a heavy-duty cable and pulley on it to help reduce the load the tractor moved it with ease in addition to its balanced power and agility the w-4 had other strengths that I enjoyed for example the gas engine always started without hesitation even in the dead of winter diesel engines are though more robust and economical usually don't start up well in the wintertime something else I enjoy about the w-4 is that it was surprisingly easy to steer even though the wheel had to be manually turned the VA case which also had manual steering was bad for something called steering wheel torque feedback which happens when the front tires his stump rut or rock and torque the wheels to the side the Sun and turning of the tires will simultaneously and violently turn the steering wheel as well often right out of the operators hands which can be painful even dangerous for some reason the w-4 was built in such a way that it almost never had issues with steering wheel torque feedback obviously I appreciated that for all the w-4 strengths it had a couple weaknesses first of all it had terrible ground clearance most of the w-4 wrote high enough to avoid getting hung up however the drawbar was ultra low to the ground and it got hung up on everything when the drawbar got stuck on something which it often did the back tires would immediately lose traction and I would be stranded I can't tell you how many hours I've spent getting my tractor unstuck all because the drawbar would catch a rock or the low side of a knoll or a chunk of ice yep my tractor has been hung up on a chunk of ice before it wasn't fun although the w-4 was strong nimble and economical its poor ground clearance became an issue far more than I care to admit finally the w4 liked the case didn't have a three-point hitch having a three-point hitch is nice because it can be used to pick the end of a log up for skinning this makes it much easier to pull the logs and keep them a little cleaner too since the w-4 doesn't have a three-point hitch it had to skid logs the hard way after working with the heston case and w-4 I formed a pretty clear picture in my mind of what would make an ideal bush tractor at least in my set of conditions enter the 1961 Massey Ferguson 35 it's got a three cylinder Perkins diesel engine which have a great reputation but you can ask me again what I think of my diesel engine once the winter rolls around and I try to start it for its engine size the tractor itself is pretty compact it's under 10 feet in length only five feet wide and only four and a half feet tall in fact I believe it's roughly the same dimensions as the tiny V a case although I do believe the Massey is shorter in height thanks to the seating position on a side note I found the cases seating position to be the worst I always felt like I was seated too high up as if someone had set a bar stool on top of the tractor and had me drive it from there it just felt way too tipsy for my liking now the W for seating position was much better being that it was lower but at the same time it felt odd that's because the seat dangles the driver right off the back end it's almost as if the engineers who designed the tractor forgot to include a spot for the driver and only realized their mistake at the end so they decided to just slap a seat on to the back end and call it a day anyway my point is the Massey's seating position is exactly where it needs to be right between the back tires not on top of the tractor not hanging off the back end but down in the tractor I appreciate this stability that brings any way the Massey is about the same size as the tiny case only a little wider and a little shorter it's also similar in weight only 350 pounds heavier for a total of 3,500 50 pounds the Massey is also just as nimble as the V a case it has great ground clearance can turn on a dime with its extremely tight turning radius of nine feet however it's way more powerful at 35 horsepower the masse is 50% more powerful than that w4 in almost three times more powerful than the case to further sweeten the deal the Massey also has a three-point hitch finally I'll be able to pick the ends of my logs off the ground when skidding them now I know some of you are probably wondering why I haven't purchased a loader for any of my tractors while a loader can be invaluable for most applications I believe in our situation it would do us more harm than good first of all having a loader would make it more difficult to navigate the denser sections of bush this was a big part of the Heston's problem secondly without power steering equipping a loader on my tractor would make it much harder to steer and it would become next to impossible to steer if the bucket were to be carrying something for that reason loaders should only be used on tractors with power steering at least in my opinion thirdly loaders are pricey they are also just one extra piece of equipment that could potentially break on me usually at the worst possible time anyway since I only bought the Massey 35 about a month ago it's probably too soon to tell but I think I just may have found my ideal bush tractor it has enough power to put the w-4 to shame its nimble enough to run circles with a case it's compact enough to drive through the dense bush and it has the ground clearance to drive over any type of terrain it will encounter out here the only drawback of this tractor is that it's uncomfortable over the bumps but the VA case and w-4 were the same the Heston was by far the smoothest of all the tractors but that came is no big surprise anyway I'm excited to put this Massey Ferguson 35 to the test thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one take care my friends

Channel: The Outsider

Views: 845,542

Keywords: tractor, logging, cabin, log cabin, The Outsider, budget, off grid, homesteading, self reliance, construction

Id: rz3tcLKBQiw

Length: 17min 0sec (1020 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 23 2018