Ramps and Driving things up them.

I borrowed my father in law's roto tiller to clean up a section of the yard that was all lumpy from some excavation we had done a while back. I was lazy and waited too long to do anything about it, so tilling it and raking things out before reseeding was the easy solution.

He used the bucket on his skid loader to lift it up and I just had roll it onto the tailgate. I don't have the luxury of a skid loader at my house, so we borrowed some 6' ATV ramps and I had a heck of a time keeping it straight on the way down.

I'm a little nervous about getting it back in the bed to return it. Would longer ramps make things easier, or is this something that most people would use a trailer for?

 

LOL... dude, sack up and run that thing up the ramps. what does a RotoTiller do anyway, 3MPH?

Here's a trick about ramp placement. Measure center to center of the tiller's tires with a tape measure. Place the ramps using the tape measure. Wheel the tiller up and get the tires on the ramps. Measure again at the top of the tailgate to make sure the ramps didn't move closer or apart as you rolled it on. Run that sucker up the ramps!

 

They definitely moved coming down. The wheelbase is so narrow that I think I'm going to ratchet strap them together when I go back up the ramps.

 

find a hill to back up to, or even a ditch you can drop your rear wheels into. Will lower rear end and lessen the ramp steepness.

 

How big is this tiller that it can't be lifted by 2-3 people? Just curious...

 

This.
Pick the thing up and toss it in.

 

Back up to a curb. Anything to get the tailgate closer to the ground and make the ramp not so steep.

 

Maybe 300lbs, but a very awkward 300. I ended up backing up to a hill and things were pretty manageable without the steep incline. Oh starting it up and putting it in gear made things a lot easier.

 

I figured that was a given