Ford 640 Boom Lift Advice

Have a 1955 Ford 640 and thinking about picking up a boom lift. Appears to be two choices generally speaking, one regular and one heavy duty. The heavy duty one comes in square tubing and weighs quite a bit more than the regular one.

CountyLine Boom Pole $149.99
The CountyLine Boom Pole is ideal for loading items onto trailers, pulling up old fence posts, or other lifting chores.

3-point rear attach lifting pole with category 1 pins included
Front loop lift capacity - 500 lb.
Rear loop lift capacity - 1,000 lb.
25-1/2 in. H x 32 in. W x 85-1/2 in. L
66 lbs.

Countyline Heavy Duty Boom Pole $299.99
The CountyLine Heavy-Duty Boom Pole is ideal for loading items onto trailers, pulling up old fence posts, or other lifting chores.

3-point rear attach lifting pole with category 1 pins included
Front loop lift capacity - 1,000 lb.
Rear loop lift capacity - 2,000 lb.
24-1/2 in. H x 40 in. W x 95 in. L
150 lbs.

Recommendations....price isn't an issue....weight is however. If I have say the heavy duty one on the rear and I'm lifting something like a Linebach 240 disc harrow or similar implement weight wise or heavier, then alowly moving it to a different location, is the front of the Ford 640 likely to lift? Concerned about being safe. Anyone with a 640 or similar tractor have any experiences with a boom pole? Thanks
a155134.jpg
 
We used to use one on a 900, just slightly larger. We could lift a 3 bottom plow on the far hook without raising the front. You could move it using the inner hook and the use the outer hook to raise to put on a trailer.
 
When picking up to move some ungainly implement like my rotary cutter or landscape rake, my worst enemy is having it start to swing backward then forward, so I use the mid point connect on my square boom to limit its travel and share a little of the load. I have 140 pounds of front ballast.

Probably safer to use your drawbar for post pulling whenever you can get close enough.
 
I would go with the light duty. I find myself moving it around by hand, not doab!e with heavy one. Also, I blew a hydraulic line on my 2000 trying to lift something to heavy.
 
I have a cheap King Kutter boom pole that I have used and abused for 15 years. It has served me well and I would highly recommend one to anyone.
I would not want a heavy duty one.
Because a light one is more than a match for your 640 and because a heavy one is just that - heavy.
You will regret having it everytime you pick it up to install it.
If you want to double the effectiveness of your boom pole add a hydraulic top link.
Photo shows the 4000 I used to have trying to wrassel a heavy mower. The 4000 is much more tractor than a 640 and even with the extra front weights on it it did not hurt my King Kutter.
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Wow, thanks for the great comments everyone. Yeah, probably limited use and the regular round one should do the job just fine. I agree that I would probably hate the heavy one everytime I had to try to it to attach it.

Ultra....in that last picture with the front of the tractor raised, does it sit back down once you get the mower up to a certain height? I imagine hooking at one or the other attachment point (front or back) also makes a difference balance wise. My main concern is safety as I mentioned. Can a tractor flip over with a boom pole if you stay within the weight lifting limits? Some additional picures of my implements I would possibly use the boom pole on. I also have a Woods post hole auger that I don't have a photo of, but it's fairly light, like the regular boom pole itself.

The last picture shows a couple of poly bins when I picked them up at a winery. I'm using those to store bulk feed that I use in my deer and elk feeders. They hold one ton each as far as weight caspacity. However probably would only fill about 1/2 full. Perhaps 900-1100 lbs. Don't really plan on directly lifting that much weight for any distance height wise, but rather straping under the bin through the fork lift slots and using the boom pole to slowly restrain and slide them off a small tilt trailer one at a time.

Thanks again for all the help.
 
Hobo, thanks for the link. May just do that modification. Noticed in your picture that it appears that you have a ford tractor. Any front end coming up issues when using the boom?
Thanks
 
(quoted from post at 01:06:49 03/25/17) Hobo, thanks for the link. May just do that modification. Noticed in your picture that it appears that you have a ford tractor. Any front end coming up issues when using the boom?
Thanks

Sure drove it with the brakes a many time...
 
Even with all the weight on the front of my 640 I've had the front tires off the ground more times than I can count.
Good part was I picked up my TSC boom on clearance for $49.
Also have a hand winch I mounted on it so I can take up the slack before lifting.


 
If you do get one, be careful who you let use it or even "help" you with hooking things up to it. I have the "heavy Duty version with the square tubing and I was moving a 3 point backhoe attachment off of a trailer several years ago and had gotten it off of the trailer already on my own when my neighbor saw what I was doing and come over to "help". I hadn't gotten it balanced properly while it was on the trailer so one side was hanging down and dragging the ground, so I had set it down to change the chains so I could move it across the yard to where I wanted to store it. I was done re-connecting the chain and getting back on the tractor when my helpful neighbor decided to do something with the extra chain that was hanging unused and he wound it around one end of the backhoe frame and hooked the end back up at the top of the chain at the end of the boom pole, but I hadn't seen him do that. When I raised the lift the geometry change caused the chain to tighten and put stress on things. It only lifted the backhoe about a foot off the ground before it wouldn't lift any higher. Luckily the "Heavy Duty " boom pole was the weakest thing and the boom bent slightly and I stopped trying to raise the lift before anything else got damaged. At that point the whole assembly, boom pole, chain and backhoe, were stuck tight and I couldn't raise or lower the arms. I had get out a bunch of lumber and a floor jack and raise up one side of the backhoe to take the weight off of the chain to undo what he had done in order to be able to lower it back down.
 

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