Does anyone have any experience taking dirt out of a lake bed? The lake is currently down and has been down for about 3 months. I would like to pull some of the silt out and use it to landscape in other areas, but I do not want to get my machine stuck. I have a deere 240 skid steer. I am just running normal rubber tires. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.
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sterlclan
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- May 1, 2004
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good luck I have seen big machines just sink best bet do a little and get off for a while, that silt after wiggling or driving on it turns to a goopy liquid mess perhaps if you leave it for a while it may stiffen up I would have a tow vehicle standing by let us know how it turns out Jeff
And a set of tracks would surly help with increasing your surface area of your wheels to help prevent you sinking, if you can get hold of some tracks i would look at doing it. I agree with keeping a truck or another machine to help get you out if needed. You don't want to get bogged and then get heavy rain and loose your machine to the lake! i have seen it happen. They left the machines in the pit over night then a massive storm hit and they went under water.
Mr Jimi
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- Jan 30, 2006
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I would like to point out one big very important problem you may have? Do you have the owners permision to remove silt? From reading your post? I think you are the owner of lake.
I hope I didn't read that wrong?
Jim
I hope I didn't read that wrong?
Jim
A friend of mine has a rental yard and I believe he has tracks that will fit the deere. He has several of the same machine. As far as pulling it out when it gets stuck, I'll have to see if the neighbor will be around and if he will let me use his backhoe. Unfortunately my truck is only 2wd. I might be able to get ahold of a 4wd. But I really hate borrowing trucks. As far as the owners, it is my dad's property so we would be pulling from his lot. Although he does not personally own the lake it shouldn't be a problem as others have done the same thing in the past. I definetely appreciate the heads up and I will let you know how it goes this weekend.
Well, things went pretty well. I started from the shore line and started digging down into the silt. This kept me on pretty solid ground and I didn't have any problems as long as I did it this way. If I tried to start further out, I would have to push out with the bucket in order to get unstuck. Unfortunately I only got to work about an hour and a half before I had mechanical issues. It was the first time I have run the skidsteer. I bought in completely dissasembled, but it included a fresh John Deere crate motor. As with any project, there were a few bugs. The electric fuel pump sucked some large debris out of the tank and of course I gradually lost power and it shut down. Since the lake is coming back up in the next couple of days it was kind of scary at first. The only other problem is that one of the tires was apparently low and so it went completely flat after I finally got the fuel problem diagnosed and fixed. All in all I am very happy though.
