Farmall Cub

When we do any road shoulder repair, it's usually miles after miles of it. Either pulling shoulders in with a grader moldboard mounted disc or with our shoulder machine hooked to a grader (which I'll post later on this spring). Behind them would be a pickup with a pull behind broom and a tractor pulling a roller. Well, I came up with the idea of mounting a broom on a tractor and making an offset tongue that would pull the roller. That would free up a worker to drive a tandem to haul rock. We had a very old hydraulic broom, so I made a quick hitch plate that would go on the loader of the tractor. After that was done, I built the swinging tongue to be used on the three point of the tractor. It has one hydraulic cylinder so the operator of the tractor is able to swing the roller off to the side. Tractor will be brooming on the road, plus rolling the shoulder with the roller all in one pass. I built this back in 09 and it has held up perfectly, only repair I have done is the tongue was starting to spread out a bit. But I cured that you'll notice in the pic. I won't go into details of materials used unless asked.



The tongue is in the straight back position here. Notice the arm for the stop and the jackstands (3 all together). Sits level on the ground when unhooked. Also notice the bridge on both sides of the main tube. I was afraid of that tube bending. Cured that!!



Here's the tongue, notice the inch thick blocks on the top and bottom. It was starting to spread the tongue out a bit. Cured that!!



Here it is swung all the way out to the side, just like how it is when actually rolling the road shoulder. That roller is prolly 6 - 7 ton. Broom is not mounted on the loader in the following pics. You can see the front grill guard I made for the tractor this spring. The grill was smashed in earlier in the year due to pushing logs into a burn pile.







Notice the broom for the tractor in this pic.



Thanks for looking
adam

Is your terrain all flat? Shoulders means DITCHES TOO to me though...I'm wondering if maybe there should be a breakaway at the pintle so if the crap hits the fan and the roller goes over, it won't flip the tractor too? Does the roller have it's own brakes? Also, being that far behind the tractor AND offset, it looks like it could come around on a downhill and steer the tractor? I'd like to hear from the driver how much you have to compensate with the steering wheel pulling that at full offset.
Not poo-poo-ing your invention...I just like to work safe!

Marion - I learn from critizism constructive that is

Our roads are sloped at 3/16 in a foot, our shoulders will be a bit greater than that. The shoulder is not the DITCH, the ditch begins at the shoulder break which is the front slope of the ditch. No this is not intended to be rolling the front slope. Our shoulders consist of gravel or asphalt millings and range in width from 2-8 feet. For a narrow shoulder, you would keep the roller a bit tight and the opposite for a wider shoulder. The people that have used this setup have stated that there isn't much wheel pull on the tractor. I was really curious about that too. You won't be in road gear, rolling shoulders in offset position. You also shouldn't be driving this reading the newspaper, on the phone, looking around, etc. People do have to pay attention to what they are doing. Going from job to job they will straighten the roller out and down the road they go. It is intended in offset to be rolling at slower speeds, IMO. And I voiced that as well. No, the roller does not have it's own brakes. Going downhill - again the driver does have to pay attention to his/her surroundings. Just as such as driving a heavy load. People do HAVE to look down the road a ways, not just in front of them.

adam

Adam:

Now that is slick

It is kinda like I imagined it from your previous description and I can see how this would really be useful when rebuilding the shoulders. I have seen how they lay the crushed rock or asphalt millings with a modified paver and then follow up with a front mounted power brush to clean the side of the road and then the smaller packers/rollers to compact the infill. This is a real labour saver and I can see why you did it. This is very looking forward to seeing the pics with the brush mounted as well.