ATV Forwarding Trailer

[lumberjack]

Anyone use one before?

My quad is significantly better on soft terrain than my mini, due to the super low PSI tires (5-7psi). During the rainy months, I always have jobs that get put off for a long time because the yard is too wet. Currently I have 5 jobs that fit that description. The idea of the forwarding trailers came to me while doing another super soft job this past weekend/Monday. The four wheeler could work where the tractor was laying frame. FWIW, the mini got stuck in the same area last May (start of the dryish season).

For those who don't know, my quad is a Can-Am Outlander 800r XT. 71hp, 4x4, 670lbs. I haven't tested it yet, but I suspect it can out pull my Thomas mini skid by a fair margin.

It wouldn't be used on every job, but it seems they lift more than my mini at max reach (9-11'), and carry a considerable weight. I would get the flotation tires which should have the pressure in the 10psi range. The downside to those tires is they prevent highway service, but that's not a big deal. It also appears they could load over the side of my goose neck, which would be far safer than driving the mini up and down ramps to load.

Various MFG. I don't think Jussi has a presence in the US. Super strong and light though, German engineering.
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Comparatively a good operator in this one.
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Canadian made Anderson M90. Waiting to hear a price on it.
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Silly operator and poor grapple design:
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[SkwerI]

For your area it seems like a great idea, Carl. I remember seeing a lot of very low, wet properties there.

 

[sawinredneck]

I looked into them Carl, they are neat, but fairly limited and take a tremendous amount of trailer space making it a two trip job most times. They are also rather pricey, $6-8k near as I recall. I know Bailey's sells a brand of them.
I could see if you had some land and were gathering firewood in large amounts or wanting wood to mill off of land close to home they would work, but I think transporting them would be a real PITA! Just my .02.
What happened with your track idea? Seems tracks might help you in some of the described situations?

 

[stig]

Magnus would probably know.
They are widely used in Sweden.

 

[lumberjack]

I could fit the mini, quad, and trailer in my gooseneck no problem. $6-8k would buy the loader. The list price on the M-90 by itself is $8.2k, the trailer lists for $3.5k. Given proper thought, I might could fit the grinder as well, but probably not. The track idea is still there, but its more work than I care for. Plus if it's too wet for the mini to go over the grass, going up the ramps is plain scary. We did one job in particular a week before the wreck that took far longer and was far scarier just because the ramps were wet. A different design on the ramps would fix that, but so would loading over the side. Also the four wheeler is way faster than the mini at moving from A to B. Being able to forward material with it would open options on several jobs. Have to drive plum around the property to get to the truck? No big deal when you can go as fast as you want! Customer's car in the way? Just go around the block! (Happened yesterday)

Buying one of these for firewood production instead of tree work would be a bit... backwards. Fire wood is a crap load of work for $75 a pick up load (here). Tree work in comparision is far more money for far less effort. I have considered alternative sources of income/help this could provide, but the main justification would have to be tree work. Just like the mini, it can do alot more, but tree work is where it earns its keep.

I called Bailey's first today, trying to get information. The dude kept telling me to call the mfg. I asked if I could order just the boom, he said call the mfg and see if you could get it from them. Hopefully he wasn't in sales. I'm still waiting to see the height/reach chart for the M90.


You're right, Stig. They are far more prevelant in the UK and even moreso Europe than they are here. There are a couple threads on arbtalk.co.uk, and on the forestry forum, but nothing related to residential tree work.


If you do tree work the same way everyone else does, you make the same money as everyone else.

 

[arborworks1]

The m90 seems like a good choice. The adjustable axle will make a big difference in floatation and maneuvering. Pretty slick setup as well. A little pricey but if it gets into a job that others would shred the yard then it's worth it. Turf tires for the quad?

 

[sawinredneck]

I wasn't sure on the price, been a while since I'd priced them out.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea at all, just pointing out the problems I discovered for my use and wanted to make sure you had thought that through, which you have.
As for firewood, prices vary wildly for that, I was just stating that if a person had the land and a place to store it all safely, it's the cats ass for that type of work. I wasn't suggesting you get into that business.

 

[lumberjack]

Oh it'd be awesome to do like the Euro folk and go out harvesting small wood. It'd be ideal for that, no doubt! I'm still waiting to see a reach/height diagram and a load chart, but I could back the trailer into the goose, put the four wheeler on the gooseneck, the grinder behind the trailer, and the mini behind the cab on the truck.

That'd be a sight to see pulling in a driveway!

I might get into firewood at some point, but only if I can mechanize it. Another thought was harvesting "exotic" species for folks that are otherwise hard to harvest. The dirt bucket attachment might even prove helpful here and there. If I made my own trailer I could perhaps make it better suited for residential tree work rather than just having the bunks for stacking logs.

 

[rskybiz]

I have a friend who has a Berco all aluminum He could load over the side of my f350 not quite reaching the center. Could be pulled by truck also as agricultural.
I would think with the mini though that this would be a pricey toy. My .02 Fwiw

 

[brendonv]

Interesting idea Carl. I just think it would suck in the fact it's soo small, your regularly do some bigger stuff and it'd get frustrating being limited. I'm going to watch to vids.

On another note, I'm going to be going Euro now. Chip less, haul more wood. Want to heat with wood and the convenience of the loader it'll be nice.

 

[lumberjack]

I checked out their website today (Bercomac) but I they didn't list the loaders any more. Kinda strange. How tall were the sides on the 350? My gooseneck is ~7'.

The forwarding trailer can lift more than my mini at full reach (way more up close), can carry at least 2klbs of "stuff" and can be moved as quickly as the terrain allows. Also, with flotation tires it should be able to go far more places than the mini with minimal damage to the turf as well as lift the load higher into the air. If I can't load over the side of the goose, it's not worth it.

Conversely, the mini can only carry 500lbs, give or take, moves at 4mph max, and isn't very capable off road. Granted it still has its place for certain, I'm just looking for options. The trailer would be cheaper than the mini, so long as you exclude the already purchased quad.

I've printed off the list of jobs from the last year, to see how many jobs I would have used it on.


ETA: Check out the 4th video first, B. That's the best looking canidate thus far. Dad also thinks its not that great of an idea, but he also thought the same thing about the mini. He said I should buy a bigger loader like I had planned. I pointed out that this costs 30% of what the loader would cost. I didn't point out that a bigger loader still wouldn't let me do the "sensitive access" work I have during the winter.

 

[brendonv]

You would know your terrain the best. It would be nice to load over the sides, carry brush, logs, chicks, whatever. Sides on my 350 are 6' right now, going down to 5' by Fall hopefully (I think you were asking me). You think you'd have enough room to carry the trailer and quad with tree in one trip?

 

[rskybiz]

Close to 6ft Carl so Im sure it went almost 8ft high, Suprised by them not listing them also but the cost of alum, would make sales tough I'm sure. I could move it by hand also fairly easy which was nice a few times.

 

[arborworks1]

I too am leaning the way of chip less haul more oak wood. Going to try heating with wood exclusively the upcoming winter! I still think tracks on the trailer would make the ultimate sensitive area forwarding solution!

 

[lumberjack]

I was asking Joel mainly, since he has the friend with a similar unit.

I admit I'm a bit scared of the mini coming off the trailer in a bad way. With the smaller dump it wasn't as big of a deal, 2' to the ground. The gooseneck is a little over 3, which is more than I can easily high step. So far we've only had one time where something went "wrong" with the new trailer. The machine didn't roll, but it reaffirmed my fears that there's a good chance that it'll eventually end up on my leg in an uncomfortable fashion.

I also admit that while I'm thankful I have work to do, I wish I could be caught up/had no one waiting. That way I don't have to stay around town incase the weather cooperates, not to mention being more prompt with service to my customers.

I'm still uncertain of my next "big" step purchase wise, I don't consider the forwarding trailer to be a big step since I could pay cash for it. I do consider it would likely exclude getting a jet ski this summer. If I ended up with a grab truck/fullsize grab trailer/adding a loader to the goose, grabbing off the back of the forwarding trailer would be pretty quick and easy I would think. If I ended up getting a chipper it could either feed it or hand off to the mini.


I couldn't haul much of a tree with it and the quad, but that's no different than the current setup taking the grinder/mini to the jobs. Since getting the goose I haven't put the mini on the back of the truck, fwiw.

Still, all the comments thus far help me form a better opinion. Thanks for that.

Tracks suck for turning, Scott. Plus I wouldn't think they wouldn't like zipping down the road, as well as being quite expensive compared to tires. Tracks would offer the lowest pressure, but I still don't want to deal with them. Generally speaking our ground offers ample bearing capacity excluding a couple neighborhoods that were ill concieved, not much sand around.

 

[SkwerI]

I thought you had a chipper? And a chip truck? Or are they no longer functional?

Way back in the AS days on one of my road trips I worked a couple days with a guy who had a quad on a small trailer (4x. He would tow the quad to the job on the trailer, unload it, then hook the trailer to the quad. That was his 'forwarder' which was loaded by hand and brought everything out of the back yards to the chipper. It was also an excellent garbage can for picking up rakings.

 

[tntree]

that berco could carry the ATV at least to the job,
Bizarro idea
you need the trailer to brake down - integrate into your dump trailer some how
the loader pins on the gooseneck some how and then loads the trailer forwarder on
other pin on rack/holders easier said than done if that even made sense

 

[tntree]

how about mounting a boom to an Iron Horse . .. oh yeah you is trying to justify your AToyV

 

[lumberjack]

Floatation tires don't do highway speeds very well at, heat build up leads to blow outs pretty quick.

The ATV is justified, not worried about that. Iron horses aren't any faster than a mini, don't load over the side, don't have a loader, and have tracks. If I needed to park on a hill I guess I could use it to scotch the tires... Geeze, it looks like an Iron Horse costs near $12k+!? Hell I'd buy another Outlander!


Turns out we have a thread on Iron Horses!

 

[sawinredneck]

I'd be afraid of that thing running me over with my luck!
Just throwing this out there, would an articulated loader get better flotation than the mini? Seems by the time you bought all this other stuff you'd have the same money to buy a new one?

 

[rskybiz]

I could picture being run over also given the right slopes and conditions.
You forget the reason/excuse to own a quad Al?

 

[lumberjack]

Flotation is mainly about tire pressure, the articulated loaders are roughly the same as the minis. You can lower the pressure in the tires, but you give up stability and load capacity as the front tires squat under the added weight.

The flotation tires on the A300 are at 28 psi, I believe. The AL140 turf tires are at 30psi, the construction tires are closer to 60. My mini is at 35psi. The trailer would need about 12.5psi in the stock tires to support 3klbs.

Regarding cost, the trailer ready to go would cost about 30% what the AL340 would cost me ready to go.

 

[thattreeguy]

did you go to baileys online
i was looking at their loaders and highway trailers
spendy thou

 

[tntree]

duals on the AL 540 with air conditioning

 

[lumberjack]

Yeah, Cali Dave. I checked them out online, called them first yesterday, but every question I asked was either answered incorrectly, or they said to talk to the mfg. Don't see me buying from them.


The Gehl brain figured out air conditioning finally?