Arbor Trolley soft ground wheels wanted

flashover604

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Lancaster Ohio
Hi all. I've got an Arbor Trolley and love it. That said, I've run into a problem on soft ground. With a decent load, the stock tires are too narrow. They dig into the ground and leave ruts. Anyone know if a replacement that would hold the weight but spread it out over a bigger footprint? Any ideas other than lighter loads or plastic mats laid down to pull it over?
 
Plywood highway.

I like the idea is a sleeve that would fit over and pin to the axle allowing wide or dual wheels.

You know people would start overloading it.

Replacement wheels/tires are approaching $100/EA, shipped.

I think a single, wide pneumatic might work, but would wooden the width, lessening access, but stabilizing a wider load. There are bakery extensions built for this wider load, already.


It would need matching height tires, or need the axle lifted.

Maybe a simple approach would be a clamp-on tube steel axle that would mount on the underside of the axle, adjusting the height to the wheels. I see lots of 10" and 13" low speed tires. IMG_20170319_083649919.jpg IMG_20170319_083649919.jpg
 
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After posing the problem to a buddy, we've come up with an idea. It's completely unnecessary and will more than likely be a huge waste of time, but we get to fabricate stuff for the fun of it. He works in a robotics shop. Another buddy buys junk four-wheelers (quad bikes to the chaps across the pond) and parts them out. He's got a stack of rear swing arms with the axles still in them. We're going to take a swingarm, rigid mount it to the axle and back bone of the AT, put an electric gear reduction motor above and in front of it and use a 12V deep cycle battery to run it. We'll replace one of the hand grips with a twist throttle off of an electric scooter for the speed control. The four wheeler tires are 8-10" wide, so they'll take care of the sinking in/flotation problem. The electric motor will take care of the extra drag of the larger tires plus the extra hundred pounds or so of swingarm, motor and battery and generally make life easier. Think of it as the Tesla of Arbor Carts...

I'll take a hundred pounds less capacity for not having to drag half a ton of weight by hand.

Or we'll waste a weekend, have a lot of fun tinkering, drink a few beers and put the AT back to stock.

Either way, time well spent...
 
After posing the problem to a buddy, we've come up with an idea. It's completely unnecessary and will more than likely be a huge waste of time, but we get to fabricate stuff for the fun of it. He works in a robotics shop. Another buddy buys junk four-wheelers (quad bikes to the chaps across the pond) and parts them out. He's got a stack of rear swing arms with the axles still in them. We're going to take a swingarm, rigid mount it to the axle and back bone of the AT, put an electric gear reduction motor above and in front of it and use a 12V deep cycle battery to run it. We'll replace one of the hand grips with a twist throttle off of an electric scooter for the speed control. The four wheeler tires are 8-10" wide, so they'll take care of the sinking in/flotation problem. The electric motor will take care of the extra drag of the larger tires plus the extra hundred pounds or so of swingarm, motor and battery and generally make life easier. Think of it as the Tesla of Arbor Carts...

I'll take a hundred pounds less capacity for not having to drag half a ton of weight by hand.

Or we'll waste a weekend, have a lot of fun tinkering, drink a few beers and put the AT back to stock.

Either way, time well spent...

Sounds fun! Post some pics
 
Now there is an idea. An All Terrain Motorised trolly, now add remote control or robotics with sensors. With sensors, it can drive it self to the truck from the back yard ;)
 
I play with this idea too.
How much power is needed to run such a trolley, heavily loaded of course and on a decent slope ?

I'm thinking on the mini K-boom too, but that should be the following step :/:
 
I welded up a trolley and put lawn tractor tires on it and it holds up pretty well in the soft stuff. Works great for hauling game out of the woods too.
 
And add a mini k-boom to load/unload itself.

Lol I've decided this is gonna be my project this summer. I have an arbor trolley and a log arch, but it's finally time to mechanize. I looked very hard into a mini skid, but the ones i tried did too much ground damage to be used here. So i think I'm gonna do this. I obviously can't afford to just buy one, so an order to surplus center and a few weekends welding will have to suffice. This is the lowest ground pressure thing i can think of, and i can build it small enough to fit thru a gate, because most of my work is backyard stuff. I still haven't decided on a grapple saw or the shear plate type, but i think this would work pretty slick. And it would make the work safer by taking saws out of my ground guys hands (aka my wife could do ground work as well). Still in the idea phase obviously.

alstor-8x8-01.jpg
 
Sweet keep some blueprints if you can or at least a parts list. I would love to fab up something similar.
 
Flushcut, don't you have the baileys road trailer version?

And i will def post prints if i build it. I have found time spent designing on paper saves so much time on something complicated like that. I'll also calculate the forces on the boom, so that it will be actually rated for what it will pick up. I was gonna use a larger outrigger spread than the alstor pictured to get more capacity without weight, and make one of those atom splitter things with an extra cylinder to finish the split to break up large trunks so the grapple and saw can finish them
 
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Kyle, consider buying a grapple (BMG,imo). $3k invested. Rent a mini when you need one.

I took out this oak in small mill log sizes with almost no impact. $130 in 5/8" "shop-grade" plywood roadway, remains in good condition for the next job.

We've already exceeded our average annual rainfall!

You can decide how much impact you have, similar to ripping out versus bombing wood and brush.

IMG_20170320_120955254.jpg
We had more impact from boots, saw dust, and scattered mulch by far than the machine, which never touched the lawn. This back lawn was half moss (not rooted like grass, which should bounce back better with the moss raked out. The front lawn is sunny and is curb-appeal type lawn, for lack of a better word.
 

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Flushcut, don't you have the baileys road trailer version?

And i will def post prints if i build it. I have found time spent designing on paper saves so much time on something complicated like that. I'll also calculate the forces on the boom, so that it will be actually rated for what it will pick up. I was gonna use a larger outrigger spread than the alstor pictured to get more capacity without weight, and make one of those atom splitter things with an extra cylinder to finish the split to break up large trunks so the grapple and saw can finish them

Rajan is the name pronounced Ra-gin. No I have always wanted one of those but a 2 ton chassis with a rear mount grapple would fit my operation perfectly. I am a mini skid guy but would really like to build a mini pup trailer that would be really handy in some of my tighter gigs with long runs out. Plus I enjoy fabbing my own gear. WeldingWeb and Garage Journal have been my daily reading on top of this place.
 
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