Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

It's been 3 or 4 years now since my loader build. And for the first time I've had an opportunity to officially determine it's lifting capacity, at least with the pallet forks installed.


I'm about to put a roof on this house, and I'm planning? to use the loader extended boom to lift the shingles up onto the roof.


No guarantee it'll work but I'm going to try it and see.
First I had to get the loader to the house. And this is the first time I've transported the full rig. It wasn't too much for this trailer. But it was right at the limit of what you'd want to do.

But once I got there and got the loader unchained and off the trailer, I pulled up to a pallet full of shingles and tried to pick it up with 33 bundles of shingles on it. At 65 lbs per bundle, that's 2145 lbs. Not even close. The back end popped right up in the air, 400lb counterweight and all.


So then I simply removed bundles of shingles until it did pick it up.


And the answer is 21 bundles. At 65 lbs each, that's 1365 lbs. Not to shabby.


The back end is pretty light, so you could only drive around on a hard and level surface. But that's what it can pick up.


I think you could only drive around on turf with 800 or 1000lbs on the forks, which is well within the original design and expectations. I'm very pleased with it.

I'll post pictures later of the shingle lifting operation, if it actually works.


Bob

Quite a lift Bob. It’s lifting more than subcompact and some compact tractors. I think

Noel

Great to hear from you Bob. The pics were nice. Harry

Good lift rate Bob , How did you get roped in to shingling a roof . Did someone come asking for dads help ??? Good to see you getting some seat time out of it .

We're helping out our youngest, they just bought their first house. A real fixer upper, nobody can afford anything else these days.

Just finished new HVAC. Redoing the main bath. Expanding the master half bath into a full bath. And tons of general paint and drywall and repair.

But next thing is the roof. 23 squares, uncomplicated roof deck. No big deal.

Bob

While we're at it, my crazy idea worked. I took my old 3pt hitch-based pallet carrier and added a boom to it so that it'll hang level when suspended from a shackle.

The pallet carrier boom just pins in the upper 3pt hole and extends out over the load. 2 chains run from the boom back down and outward to the lower 3pt holes. Being chains made it so I could adjust it on the fly to get the platform leveled with its load in place.
It even passed inspection with Grandpa's helper.

It actually doesn't have to be incredibly strong, it'll never carry more than about 300lbs max. Today's load was 130lbs.

Then I installed the pallet forks and extended boom pole onto the tractor, and used a single shackle to attach the carrier to the boom pole. If I had used a chain, the carrier could have swayed and twisted too much. So the single shackle made the carrier maintain its front facing orientation and minimized swinging/swaying.
If the roof had been 4 inches higher, it wouldn't have cleared. But with everything at full height, it presented the shingles right where they were needed.

So I backed up about 15 feet, dropped the boom, got up and loaded two bundles of shingles, and then carefully/slowly lifted the load to full height and drove up to the building. I was tempted to try 3 bundles.. It probably would have worked. But I was already pretty nervous having that much weight slung that high with all that leverage. There's a real concern of tipping over sideways, only the rear tires are giving any sideways stability, and they're pretty close together with not very much ground pressure. I decided to leave well enough alone. Slow and steady, we ran 30 trips and put 60 of the 68 bundles up there. I'll carry the final ones up by hand when the time comes. I just wanted to make light work of the bulk of things.

I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Bob

thebuildist wrote: ↑Thu May 08, 2025 7:48 pm We're helping out our youngest, they just bought their first house. A real fixer upper, nobody can afford anything else these days.

Just finished new HVAC. Redoing the main bath. Expanding the master half bath into a full bath. And tons of general paint and drywall and repair.

But next thing is the roof. 23 squares, uncomplicated roof deck. No big deal.

Bob

Good for them , and good on you Bob . I have always felt that you value something you have worked on to get where you want it more than bought ready to go .

She is a cutie Bob . How many grandkids do you have now . ?

I'm up to 5 now. And I'm getting pretty good at it, I could have 5 more with no trouble at all!

Bob

thebuildist wrote: ↑Fri May 09, 2025 7:45 am I'm up to 5 now. And I'm getting pretty good at it, I could have 5 more with no trouble at all!

Bob

That awesome Bob .
If I new then what I know now I would have gotton grandkids first and not bothered with my own kids . They were just too much dam work .

Nice! That pole worked out well for that job. That could have been 60 trips up the ladder if you carried the whole bundle.

I got to see how much my 644 would lift using wood pellets that I heat with. Of course, it could not lift the ton, which is a full pallet of pellets. I remember it did not lift a half pallet. I do not remember what I could lift. I moved the bags closer to the back to see what that did and that is where I do not remember the real world lift.

I have a 648 now. It would not have lifted much the way I got it. The main valve is bypassing at 1,500 psi. I rigged up a bench setup and pumped oil from a grease gun until the gauge never passed 2,400 psi. I have to put it back together to run it and see if it is set correctly now. I started out with the bypass screw just backed out a half a turn. I wanted to see what pressure the setup could withstand. Then I forgot I have a gauge that tops out at 5,000 psi. It did max out the gauge. The grease gun said it could do 10,000. Until this project, I did not know you could fill a grease gun with oil.

I never have a problem with rear weight. I have filled with Rim Guard 29x12.50-15 tires as my everyday setup right now. Back then, I had a 3-point and the loader weight box. I was also fast enough to buy 10-75 lbs of steel in the perfect shape for tractor weights, just a couple of miles from my house. The guy was selling them for $20 each. He had a lot more left, but they were gone by the time I realized I should have bought more to sell. Eventually, I still need to mount the outer combine weights in the stock back spacing 12" or 10" x 15" ag wheels. Whatever the correct width is. I was very happy to find that the combine weights do fit all the way in the rim. Once I get the wheel weights on, I doubt I will need the weight box.