Trailer for 60 hp tractor

[farmer]

I know there is a few threads on here on what trailer to get for an atv. I have trails in my woods that I can get around in with my tractor. Was just wondering what everyone with a tractor uses to haul the wood out with? I would like something that isn’t to high to throw the pieces of wood in and and be easier to unload to.

 

[Newbie78]

I have some tractors, but I use an atv and a trailer to haul most of my wood. Occasionally a pickup truck. Usually the quad and trailer.

Does your tractor have a loader? Or a three point hitch? You could carry a lot of wood with a three point and a bucket. And it would be more maneuverable than with a trailer. Maybe I should think about that!

I have a small 12' x 6' tandem axle flat-deck trailer I could use, or a bigger one...but I don't.

My wood is on my own land and usually no more than a mile away from the yard, so getting a trailer load behind the quad is convenient for me. Also, it is not so much of a load that it is a full day's work to cut, load, split, and stack. More like a few hours. I always have several things to get done on any given day, and it's nice to spend a few hours in the woods frequently rather than getting all my wood in a great big hurry in a few trips.

Anyway, I'm just giving this a little bump so that others can make better replies to your question.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

I have this.. I normally dont drive it through the woods but stage it in a more open are..

I also have a grapple bucket to move things around in the woods.. that makes it a ton easier

 

[Rusty18]

I have a deck over dump trailer that I originally bought to use instead of skidding trees out. I don’t have it behind the tractor very often but it does ok. 10x6 tandem axle. No way would I take it up or down much of a hill loaded with the tractor though. What does your tractor weight? 2 or 4 wheel drive? What kind of brakes?

 

[Ashful]

You'd get a better response on tractorbynet.com, there are really very few members on this forum with tractors as large as 60 hp.

 

[farmer]

tractor weighs around 5000 pounds and it 2 wheel drive. I had an old manure spreader I used but the sides are higher than I like for throwing in big pieces since I’m not getting any stronger. Looking for something a little lower to the ground. I saw the wagon ashful uses in another thread. I liked that just a little bigger. I would like to run a tank of gas through the saw and be able to load everything I cut up and bring back in one trip.

 

[Ashful]

That wagon is great for moving and storing stacked wood on my patio, but I don't think I'd want it as a log hauler. For hauling logs, I really like my closed side tandem axle landscape trailer, esp. with the winch I mounted up high in front. You'd want to put a trailer brake controller on your tractor if pulling a 7k lb. trailer fully loaded on any sort of hills, but that's easy enough, if your tractor already has brake lights.



I just drop the tree, cut the trunk into 15 foot lengths, back the trailer in there and winch the logs straight on. I can fell and haul a few cords per day using this rig, under the right conditions.

 

[Ashful]

Oh, guess I should post a picture of the trailer @farmer mentioned, as well. My tractor is a bit smaller, only 5000# if I include the weight of the loader and ballast, and only 33 hp.



The cool thing about the wagon is that it has a dump function, powered off the tractor's hydraulic take-off, and controlled by a log splitter valve I rigged under the deck, with auto-down stop detent:

 

[Woodsplitter67]

Oh, guess I should post a picture of the trailer @farmer mentioned, as well. My tractor is a bit smaller, only 5000# if I include the weight of the loader and ballast, and only 33 hp.

View attachment 318774View attachment 318775

The cool thing about the wagon is that it has a dump function, powered off the tractor's hydraulic take-off, and controlled by a log splitter valve I rigged under the deck, with auto-down stop detent:

View attachment 318776 View attachment 318777

Ashful has cool stuff..

 

[Ashful]

He who dies with the most toys... probably spent too much time collecting toys.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

I dont think so.. grown up toys...most are just really cool.. having lots of stuff .. is just fun..

 

[Ashful]

Yeah, if they help you get your work done quicker, and back home to the family, it's a slam dunk! I bought and rigged that tandem axle trailer so I could go from manually loading rounds onto a trailer with nothing but the muscles in my back, to skidding full logs on at a rate of several cords per day. The little red wagon was purchased to help me avoid having to handle wood twice every time I brought it up to the house, as previously I'd move it from my woodlot racks to the loader bucket, and then a second time from the loader bucket to racks I had set up on that patio. Double work, and so tedious. Now I just load that big red wagon and park it!

As to my comment above, when my grandparents passed away, we spent a few months cleaning out my grandfather's multiple properties, esp. the house where he kept his plumbing business. Without going into details, I'll just say the work to catalog and either move, sell, or scrap everything there was beyond monumental. I sometimes worry I'm doing the same thing to my heirs, but with them not having the advantage of being at least interested in this stuff, whereas I was thrilled to receive and keep what turned out to be the amassed tool collections of a few generations of my predecessors. Of course, much of it is what makes life possible or practical in this house, like the wood processing and hauling equipment, or the tractors.

To the OP: Which way are you leaning, with this trailer decision? Did you end up taking it over to the TBN forum?

 

[Eman85]

60HP is a lot of tractor. I have smaller tractors and I use a trailer that came from TSC, I bought it used for a couple of hundred. It is ridiculous how much weight this little trailer can handle. I don't leave my property with it so I just load as much as physically possible on it. It has the low angle iron side rails and PO put some square tubing on top of that about 1 foot taller. I have heaped it with fresh oak rounds or green split oak. Tires are getting old and I do have a spare for it just in case.

 

[ericm979]

I find it's easier to pull logs out of the woods and bring them to my nice flat wood processing area where I can buck and split them. I use a winch and grapple on the tractor but I don't have to carry them more than about 1/4 mile at most. If I was hauling them farther I'd get a trailer that I could detach, load with the grapple and then hitch to the winch to bring the logs in.

 

[farmer]

I haven’t been over to the TBN forum. I was thinking a smaller trailer to get the wood out of the woods. I will probably look to see if I can find a used trailer. Looks like some of you pull the whole log out then cut it up out of the woods. Maybe dragging them out and splitting them before I bring them home would work to then I could just use what I have. Its nice to hear how others get their firewood processed.

 

[Ashful]

Looks like some of you pull the whole log out then cut it up out of the woods.

I have three modes, depending on where I'm getting the wood:

1. My house or a neighbor's, I drop the tree, buck trunk to 12 or 15 ft. lengths, and haul them home on my FEL with a pair of chain slings:

2. Away from home, with easy access for truck and trailer, I just back my trailer up to the tree after felling and bucking to 15 ft lengths, and winch the logs straight onto the trailer. Drive home, then lift off trailer with FEL or drag off the back of the trailer.

3. Away from home, deep woods: Fell and buck to 15 ft lengths, then use tractor to skid logs to a landing where I can load the trailer. In that case, since I already have a tractor there, I might skip the winch and just load directly onto the trailer with the tractor. Works great if someone else already has a tractor on-site, but requires an extra trip to retrieve my tractor when they don't, and also some extra work to unload my trailer at home without the tractor.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

I haven’t been over to the TBN forum. I was thinking a smaller trailer to get the wood out of the woods. I will probably look to see if I can find a used trailer. Looks like some of you pull the whole log out then cut it up out of the woods. Maybe dragging them out and splitting them before I bring them home would work to then I could just use what I have. Its nice to hear how others get their firewood processed.

Or.. you could look into a grapple bucket.. cut a bunch of logs to 12 ft .. grab a whole pile.. without even getting out of the tractor.. drive them to your staging area.. buck them up.. and use the grapple bucke to load your trailer..and not having to lift them.. You could even rent one to see if you like it...

 

[Rusty18]

tractor weighs around 5000 pounds and it 2 wheel drive. I had an old manure spreader I used but the sides are higher than I like for throwing in big pieces since I’m not getting any stronger. Looking for something a little lower to the ground. I saw the wagon ashful uses in another thread. I liked that just a little bigger. I would like to run a tank of gas through the saw and be able to load everything I cut up and bring back in one trip.

Is the manure spreader ever being used as a spreader? If not cut the sides down and put smaller tires on it? Does your tractor have a loader?

 

[farmer]

The manure spreader isn’t used to haul manure. It’s old and I took the back beater out when I started using it for firewood. The apron still works as far as unloading the wood but that is getting in rough shape. As far as cutting the sides down I don’t think that would work just because it’s pretty rusty and would weaken the side. I don’t have a loader for the tractor but that might be a way to go then I could pull the logs out then just lift them in the spreader and haul them home. The tractor already has the hydraulic hook ups for a loader.
Thanks for the ideas. Probably will think about it for awhile before I decide what to do. Loader and an updated trailer would be the best long term I’m guessing.

 

[ericm979]

You can find off road dump trailers. You'd have to load the rounds into the trailer but as least you could dump them at your destination. Usually the sides are not too high making it easier to load. I'd get one with a walking beam suspension as that handles uneven terrain well.

Some off road dump trailers can use the tractor's hydraulics and some come with the typical electric pump and battery like more normal dump trailers.

This one looks nice: https://www.everythingattachments.c...-Dump-Trailer-p/kk-1.5-dt-xb-dump-trailer.htm

 

[Ashful]

The manure spreader isn’t used to haul manure. It’s old and I took the back beater out when I started using it for firewood. The apron still works as far as unloading the wood but that is getting in rough shape. As far as cutting the sides down I don’t think that would work just because it’s pretty rusty and would weaken the side. I don’t have a loader for the tractor but that might be a way to go then I could pull the logs out then just lift them in the spreader and haul them home. The tractor already has the hydraulic hook ups for a loader.
Thanks for the ideas. Probably will think about it for awhile before I decide what to do. Loader and an updated trailer would be the best long term I’m guessing.

I'll admit I don't know the terrain in MN, but I personally wouldn't bother with the cost of adding a loader to any 2wd machine. They're damn dangerous on any sort of hill, and fitting a loader to any older tractor means either finding an OEM one (impossible) or fitting an aftermarket unit (eg. Johnson) that's not easily removeable for other jobs.

You're going to find that the cost of a used tractor with an OEM loader on it is often not that far from the cost of buying a used OEM loader for a tractor of equivalent size. In other words, buy a loader, and a tractor comes with it, almost free!

Beyond that, a grapple requires at least three hydraulic channels. If going aftermarket, then you can mount three SCV's on the loader arm itself (single live take-off from the tractor), but if going with an OEM loader and tractor-mounted SCV's, that's probably beyond the configuration of any tractor not specifically bought for operating a grapple or snow plow.

 

[ericm979]

I run my grapple off a single SCV on the fender right behind the loader valve. Two hoses run up to quick connects on the loader frame. I was originally going to use that valve to operate a side shift flail but got the grapple instead. A diverter for the loader's curl circuit is a common way to run a grapple. Or you can use a third function and have two buttons on the joystick instead of one for the diverter.

A grapple is super useful. It's the implement I keep on the front of the tractor, swapping to a bucket or forks when needed. But you have to be able to get the tractor to the tree to use it. For me, with a lot of steep thick forest, that's limiting. A forestry winch can pull logs out that I'd never get the tractor to. You can also use the winch to drag logs back home for processing, with the butts held up so they don't dig into the roads as much.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

Dude has a 2wd tractor and no loader.. so a grapple isn't really going to help him

I love my grapple.. it has speeded thinks up so quickly

Im in the habit of thinking that people have similar setups as me.. my tractor is 4wd and has the loader.. enclosed cab..

 

[Ashful]

Dude has a 2wd tractor and no loader.. so a grapple isn't really going to help him

Exactly.

Sort of like telling a guy with no car what type of gas he should put into it.

 

[Rusty18]

The manure spreader isn’t used to haul manure. It’s old and I took the back beater out when I started using it for firewood. The apron still works as far as unloading the wood but that is getting in rough shape. As far as cutting the sides down I don’t think that would work just because it’s pretty rusty and would weaken the side. I don’t have a loader for the tractor but that might be a way to go then I could pull the logs out then just lift them in the spreader and haul them home. The tractor already has the hydraulic hook ups for a loader.
Thanks for the ideas. Probably will think about it for awhile before I decide what to do. Loader and an updated trailer would be the best long term I’m guessing.

I imaging if you go to dropping logs in the spreader it will come apart on you. Also to second what others have said…you’ll probably trade tractors to get something with a loader. I looked for over a year for something for my ford 5610 (2wd) and ended up buying a 4wd deere with a loader for 3k cheaper than I could have put a loader on the ford.

When dragging stuff with the ford I used a rear facing dirt scoop to pick the end up and just chained the log short. Carried it about 6” off the ground so I didn’t get the front too high, steered with the brakes a lot.

Could you fab sides out of materials on hand (pipe or angle iron) and make a lower side with some structure built into it? Or just a section on each side next to the front so you had a “low spot” to toss the wood in?

Only other thing I can think of is to make a loading area where you back trailer in a low spot and basically make a loading area central to where your wood comes from. Would save dragging every piece all the way home. For that matter could split it before you load it and leave all of the mess in the woods!