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A-Salt truck. 2002 International 4900

Skid steer prices are too high for us and I don't really want a project skid. Stopped to check out a skid for sale on the side of highway 13 on Friday. Thought maybe it's be a cheap enough off brand. Nope. $38k.

Took these pics to show friends that asked me how I got the truck out of the mud.

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Skid steer/dozer work looks pretty cheap once you factor in gravel at something like 350 a load now . I had 4500 in gravel in my home build that’s including rocking my slabs and my drive . Panzer is giving solid advice ( no pun intended ) . If you don’t do that you’re going to wish you had especially if you’re budget conscious . How long is your potential future drive ? A half day of dirt work goes a long ways on a drive . Also, the dirt work will be a lot cheaper than the hit you could take when a concrete truck gets stuck in your drive cause it wasn’t done right and you eat 10 yards of concrete AND have to fork up a recovery bill to pull it out . Food for thought !
 
JNHEscher said:
Skid steer prices are too high for us and I don't really want a project skid. Stopped to check out a skid for sale on the side of highway 13 on Friday. Thought maybe it's be a cheap enough off brand. Nope. $38k.

Took these pics to show friends that asked me how I got the truck out of the mud
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I assume the one chain is attached to a deadman and the two spool up on the rims and act as a winch?
 
M92PV4U said:
I assume the one chain is attached to a deadman and the two spool up on the rims and act as a winch?
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One chain attached to a stump or stout tree and two spool up between the rims. Works perfectly. This is what I wanted to do the day I got it stuck, but I only had one chain on hand at that time.
 
Leadfoot21 said:
Skid steer/dozer work looks pretty cheap once you factor in gravel at something like 350 a load now . I had 4500 in gravel in my home build that’s including rocking my slabs and my drive . Panzer is giving solid advice ( no pun intended ) . If you don’t do that you’re going to wish you had especially if you’re budget conscious . How long is your potential future drive ? A half day of dirt work goes a long ways on a drive . Also, the dirt work will be a lot cheaper than the hit you could take when a concrete truck gets stuck in your drive cause it wasn’t done right and you eat 10 yards of concrete AND have to fork up a recovery bill to pull it out . Food for thought !
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I'm in this boat too. The cost may suck now, but it's definitely better to eat the pain of doing it right up front. You will then have a lifetime of problem free driveway instead of a PITA hitting you for 600$ a year in gravel forever
 
Getting a delivery truck will get you put on the do not call back list. 486 is right about buying, borrowing, or renting a skid loader. May not be the right tool for the job but will get it done. Also did you try calling a excavator and getting a quote.
 
Your probably not gonna want to hear this but In all honesty if you have another way to haul your lumber I would sell the dump truck. Use those funds to build the road. The gravel is actually more expensive if you haul it yourself with those little loads than to let me bring the big ones. The only exception is if you are within a mile or two of the quarry and they are friendly to little loads. If your 10-15 miles away your losing money.

A poorly built driveway is allways a poorly built driveway.

Story

3 years ago I helped a guy fix his driveway. He followed my advice and dug out the topsoil put down fabric stone then gravel. He used $4500 in materials. I didn’t hear from him until a few months back. He needed a load of gravel to put on the back side of his shop. Asked about his driveway and he was extremely happy. Did not sink one bit during the breakup.

Like I said do it how ever you want, Im just passing along my 30 years of experience in doing this shit. I’ll leave you alone now :flipoff2:

Keep us updated how it goes!
 
One word. Compaction.

Like Panzer said, you have to strip the topsoil garbage off 1st. For a good permanent driveway/parking area, you want minimum 3-4" of compacted material. Then you lay rock down on top of that.

Your best bet to keep it DIY is to do to your calculations on how much material you need, haul it all in yourself and stockpile it. Then rent a skidsteer remove the top soil and spread your base material. Without knowing the size of the area Id say its a 2 day job. Return the machine and do all your compaction. Then you can rent a machine again to spread your rock.
 
ThePanzerFuhrer said:
Your probably not gonna want to hear this but In all honesty if you have another way to haul your lumber I would sell the dump truck. Use those funds to build the road. The gravel is actually more expensive if you haul it yourself with those little loads than to let me bring the big ones. The only exception is if you are within a mile or two of the quarry and they are friendly to little loads. If your 10-15 miles away your losing money.

A poorly built driveway is allways a poorly built driveway.

Story

3 years ago I helped a guy fix his driveway. He followed my advice and dug out the topsoil put down fabric stone then gravel. He used $4500 in materials. I didn’t hear from him until a few months back. He needed a load of gravel to put on the back side of his shop. Asked about his driveway and he was extremely happy. Did not sink one bit during the breakup.

Like I said do it how ever you want, Im just passing along my 30 years of experience in doing this shit. I’ll leave you alone now :flipoff2:

Keep us updated how it goes!
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Also true. If I ever needed more than a couple dump trailer loads for a job, I'd just have it delivered.
 
PAToyota said:
Other than stripping off the topsoil, the geotextile fabric is the other must-have. No matter what you lay it on, without the fabric it is just going to mix until the underlying soil pushes up through the stone and gravel.
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I've only ever used it on 1 job in Houston where the client wanted it. It was a commercial building that an oil field co was building. They specifically wanted the material layed down and crushed brick and block used. I was ok with it, but it didn't come out anywhere as nice as if I could've just used road base and then asphalt millings on top.

Oh, OP asphalt millings is another good option for a top layer.
 
Sounds like neither my wife nor I are worried about it at all, still.

We're at Menards right now and going to see if they have anything that looks like it would work to rebuild the gate release. Either that or need to put an air cylinder on with a longer stroke.
 
The gate release works again. I still need to remove the hook pin on the other side to replace it.

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What I originally thought what a return spring in the air cylinder that I was fighting to release the gate by manually turning the shaft with a 3' breaker bar turned out to be some major crud solidified inside the square tubes that the shaft passes through.

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I guess I missed it, what part of Mo did you move to? I ran up through there this week, right from Joplin through STL.
 
HillbillyDeluxe said:
I guess I missed it, what part of Mo did you move to? I ran up through there this week, right from Joplin through STL.
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About 30 minutes east of Springfield is where our property is. We're not settled down there yet. Still bouncing between Concordia area, Springfield and Ava while we make one last transition.
 
I know it is a beat horse at this point but I bought my house with a poorly built driveway.

I spend about $700 per year on gravel, year after year after year after year...

It never stops sinking in the winter so I top it off each spring.

Listen to Panzer and cry once
 
crispins said:
I know it is a beat horse at this point but I bought my house with a poorly built driveway.

I spend about $700 per year on gravel, year after year after year after year...

It never stops sinking in the winter so I top it off each spring.

Listen to Panzer and cry once
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You'll have more fun if you spend the same amount on paddle tires. :flipoff2:
 
ThePanzerFuhrer said:
Unless you put a foot of 3” down and it on top of fabric, expect to have mud boiling up through it every spring. It’s probably the worse thing you could possibly do is to build a road on top of topsoil.

Do what your budget allows, as a guy whose done this shit my entire life I have seen what happens. I’m also the guy who gets screamed at because my gravel “failed”, when in reality they didn’t listen and dumped it on the topsoil.
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I need to fly you up here this spring for an expert opinion on an area around the hangar and barn at the homestead. Every april/may it turns into a quagmire when the snow melts and stays that way until mid june. It's clay a few feet down and all of the hills drain through it. A few years ago we dug the whole area out 2-3', put down fabric and hauled in close to 100 loads of good fill from the runway with the 6x6. Now it's doing the same shit again.

Shit picture of not the right area, but all I have. It drops 6ish feet behind the equipment into a swampy area.

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Damn HEUI systems. Went to drive it yesterday and it died after a few seconds of idling. Same thing today while poking around at it. Really wanted to know what the fuel pressure was and decided to pull the Schrader valve to confirm that it uses 1/8"NPT. The fuel that came out was the color of the engine oil.

Ordering a set of injector seals from Bitterroot unless I can find a local place that has them in stock. At least this engine is easier and cheaper to work on than the 6.0
 
AK_F250 said:
Every april/may it turns into a quagmire when the snow melts and stays that way until mid june. It's clay a few feet down and all of the hills drain through it.
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did you fill with clear gravel or road base that ain't gonna drain at all?
any drain tile?
water's gotta go downhill, faster you can get it past where you're having trouble...
 
[486] said:
did you fill with clear gravel or road base that ain't gonna drain at all?
any drain tile?
water's gotta go downhill, faster you can get it past where you're having trouble...
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It’s the freeze thaw he’s fighting. Frost is still down deep top layer un thawed and wet.

How they beat that in our area is 2 ways. Brute force it with 3” clear breaker stone. Essentially build a bridge with the stone and then you don’t care what happens underneath it.

2 way is as 486 described is to put down a layer of clear stone, which in my state is called open grade that’s made just for this application. This method will need a place for the water to naturally drain too.

@ak f250 is gonna have to come up with a creative solution as he is in bfe ak. I’m sure the road materials are insanely expensive/ not available for his location. He’ll have to do something stupid like buy a bunch of cable and use that to make a large mats made out of trees. Basically build a corduroy roof under his parking lots. Definitely not the best but it would help him out with the soft spots.
 
I'm in iowa, we kind of have a cutoff. Over 7000 lb traffic use 3" - 4"
Anything less is a waste of time.

Sure it's a little rough at first but it seems to hold great.
 
Wife is grabbing the injector seals from NAPA on her way home. Feels like I need to adjust some valve lash while I'm in here. All six injectors are already remans.

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Didn't get seals until today. High wind and another freeze on the way, so I'm just cleaning up the nozzles for now.

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This injector reseal put off plans for a few days. I should have it running again by Saturday eve. Then we start moving down to Springfield.
 
Cleanup up the injector bores and set all the valve lash to 0.025". Just finished re-ringing all six. Here's hoping it runs better than it did.

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Make sure you wash out all that crud in the bottom of the bore where the copper seats. I'd go through at least a can of brake clean every job
 
Dethmachinefab said:
Make sure you wash out all that crud in the bottom of the bore where the copper seats. I'd go through at least a can of brake clean every job
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Already did. Spent most of my time on it today just cleaning out the crush washer seats.

All injectors are back in their holes and the harness is in. Think it's valve cover time.
 
Engine started losing power on the way back to Springfield from our property Monday. Figured the filter was done for. Got fresh filters and the OE water separator from Rush Truck today. Swapped them out in the hotel parking lot. Took it for a test drive and it's a mean machine now.

The injector o-ring(s) that went south ended up blowing a bunch of oil into the fuel tank. Looks like the filter caught a bunch and restricted the flow quite a bit.

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Believe I can finally make a gravel run tomorrow. The rain has been nearly non-stop, so this should be fun.
 
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