The Art of the Box Blade for Gravel Driveway Maintenance 

Glad it was helpful!

Glad it helped. Land planes are great for maintenance but are one-trick ponies and not nearly as versatile as a box blade. If you can only get one of them, go with the box blade.

I put a hitch ball on just about all of my implements.

Agree but it also depends on implement weight and lever arm. For a heavy implement you have to first overcome that before the top link can go into compression, so nominally it leans towards tension most of the time. I have run the box blade with my hydraulic top link floating (no resistance) and it stays very neutral much of the time which surprised me. I think the lower lift arms and the sway links bear the brunt of tension/compression loads (and are what most often gets broken when put into large compression).

Thanks 👍

You can do it for a few hundred dollars if you want to put together a top link kit yourself.

@@Lumber_Jack- you have to have the extra rear hydraulic function though too. Unless you have some way around that.

@@1wheeldrive751 You need rear remotes, or you could use front loader controls if the loader isn't needed. But most of us are using both the loader and box blade for these jobs so that is not always an option.

@@Lumber_Jack - Thanks for the reply. Yeah, this is what I thought too. I have a box blade, a grader blade,band a loader for my B2601. No matter which implement I have on the back, I’m almost always using the loader too. All of the less expensive options involve diverter valves and time sharing the control stick. I guess that is better than manual adjusters, but not ideal.

Driveway already has a healthy crown and by running the tractor and box down each side of the center, it is maintained. To establish a crown, a rear scraper blade is the best tool, since it will windrow material to the center.

​@@Lumber_Jack Ah! So that explains it! I really appreciated the video so much good info, but one thing that has always perplexed me was how to establish or maintain a crown. Much obliged!

Make sure the road has a crown so water runs off to the sides, and then you might need to cut a waterbar channel across the road in any steep sections, which will divert water to the side ditch and prevent it from washing down the slope. That is best done by hand with a shovel. Lumber or scrap metal can be used to maintain the waterbar channel shape so that it doesn't fill in due to traffic.

Thanks for the comments. Normally I leave my hydraulic side link off the tractor if I am not doing any tilted grading/cutting or crowning with the box. It will bleed down slowly, and requires periodic attention to keep the box set level. If I don't need it, I avoid that hassle by using the rigid side link. The hydraulic top link stays on the tractor 100% of the time though. It's useful with every implement I have. The different mounting holes are there to allow a trade between lifting height and lifting power. The bottom hole will let you lift implements higher but with less power. And vice versa. You really don't notice this unless the implement is very long, since the effect is all about the lever arm to the aft end of the implement. The only time I fiddle with this is with a bush hog or post hole digger, which stick out far from the tractor and may require that tweak to optimize operation.

Never heard of that but it sounds really interesting and worth trying.

We have a gravel load mix they sell here in Arizona, it has cement dust mixed in it and it holds better than the regular gravel available.

I've never had issues adding material on top and re-grading. But potholes are another thing all together. The fundamental issue with a pothole is poor drainage and standing water. The water washes the fines out of the gravel mix, and traffic activity splashes the water (and fines) away from the pothole, leaving loose gravel that will not bind together. More traffic over that will knock the loose gravel away from the hole. And you get this repeating cycle which gets worse and worse as the hole gets deeper and deeper. So the true fix for a pothole is to fix the drainage issues and/or regrade the area to move water away from that spot. Generally that means the fix is going to cover a larger area than the pothole. You might end up removing material or adding material, depending on what's required to fix the drainage issue. If you do try to fix just the pothole, leave material about 1.5" high after you compact it down. Then add more gravel around the hole to blend in to the existing grade. It should solve the local problem, though it might also move to the problem to a new "low" spot.

32HP L3200

There is a company called "a&i products" that sells generic ag parts and they have low cost top links and side links for all sizes of tractors. See www.aiproducts.com/. Both my top link and side link came from them, and were around $150-200 each back in 2015. For the L3400, I think you'll want model A-TLH001 for the top link. You can custom order hoses from www.discounthydraulichose.com and get exactly what you need for your setup. If you don't already have a rear remote valve, that will be required (plumbs into Kubota power-beyond circuit), or you can use the front loader control valve instead, assuming you don't need to use the front loader at the same time as the box blade.

Not bad but it's short so it has limited range in turns. I just kept getting in situations where I had to move trailers while spreading gravel with the box blade and decided to stick that on.

That would be a big mistake. It's super important to create and maintain a crown so that water runs off to the sides. Gravel driveways without a crown will deteriorate and form potholes very quickly.

The only good solution (if feasible) is to divert the water, otherwise it will be an ongoing battle with any type of gravel.

I bought a generic AI Farm Products cylinder with the right specs (www.allpartsstore.com/ItemList.htm?CategorySeq=S&SelcBrand=KB&SelcSectn=HPT&SelcSubsc=HPT12) and had the hoses made up by discounthydraulichose.com. Once you find the correct size cylinder (should be the correct "Category" rating for the tractor, with the right ends, and match the range of the original mechanical top link) you can google the cylinder model # and usually find a few sources online. All together it was under $250, which is quite a bit less than off-the-shelf kits. I took the same approach for the side link and found that cylinder as new-old-stock on eBay for $85. It came wrapped in newspaper from the 1990s, so it really was old stock, but worked beautifully. Hoses for that were about $60, so all total under $150 for the side link.

I use crusher run aka "3/4 minus" which is a mix of 3/4" on down to dust. It locks together over time (almost like concrete).

I brought in the gravel myself on a dump trailer (which you can see in some of the clips). It doesn't have the type of tailgate needed to spread. But in the past when I have had gravel delivered by dump truck, I would ask them to tailgate it down.

@@Lumber_Jack ahhh, sounds good. I don’t have trailer skill yet…but I would do as you did. Nice work.

I had thought that my tilting the back of the blade up with the front side of it down I guess in the digging position, that that would allow gravel to fall out under the back of the blade as I drove. You're telling me that I need to raise the front and lower the back to smooth it. I don't have new gravel on my drive, I'm just trying to renovate a very old driveway it's very packed with little gravel on it anymore. I had thought of using the prongs on the front to dig up the old gravel and expose it and then try to smooth it out. But again I was thinking if you lowered it in front raise it and back it would let the material fall out the back. Is there a step missing here between loading it up dropping it out and smoothing it how do you drop it out without smoothing it?

The "rippers" or "scarifier shanks" are only needed to break up heavily compacted material. They are rarely needed on a gravel driveway.

Crusher run.

Just welded up from scrap.

I think it's inevitable over a long period. My box blade is only about 8 years old and still doing OK but I do see wear for sure.

Yes don’t tilt the blade down so far lengthen the top link a little tilt goes a long ways.

Spend some time on the various tractor forums -- about once a week someone will show up with bent arms or a busted rear end because of this. Very common failure when folks don't know the limits.

No, it is really terrible for that since it has no ability to windrow snow off to the side, so it just collects in the box and spills back out. I've seen people try and it's really not worth the trouble. A rear scraper blade angled to ~15 degrees does very well though. I make two passes down my driveway -- out and back -- and I'm done.

@@Lumber_Jack , Thanks for the info.

Weeds like to grow in from the shoulder over time, in fact they have grown back in again since the recent grading work was done.

Crusher run (aka, "road base" or "3/4 minus").

I tailgate gravel out the back of the trailer on new driveways or when I know I want an even layer over an existing driveway, but for periodic maintenance it's much more surgical/strategic to place it manually.