Question for Lyle or others RE/building a HD soil scarifier?

There's a lot smart people on here that may be able to help me out. I'm fabricating a really heavy duty soil pulverizer/scarifier to break up the top 3" or 4" of hard pack on a moto-cross track. It will be similar to a Gil pulverizer but heavier without the roller on the back. I want a low maintenance implement that can be used when the ground is dry. It's too hard for a rototiller and a disc will break blades unless it's a fairly heavy disc. I could use a disc or tiller after the crust is ripped up though.

I have a 14"x105lb/ft H beam for the main frame. It will be 6' wide so my tractor can handle it. The question I have is regarding the teeth and spacing of the teeth. Originally I was going to use twenty five 1/2"x2" hardfaced flat bar teeth like similar implements use but after thinking about how good a backhoe bucket works as a rake, thought I could use pointed bucket teeth and just weld the adaptors on the beam. This would make for really easy tooth replacement. My track loader bucket is 6' wide with 8 teeth but that is too far apart and will just leave grooves like a box blade does. I was thinking 8 teeth on the front flange and 7 on the back in between the front 8. The teeth would be pointed almost straight down so they would rely on weight rather than trying to pull themselves in to the ground like a ripper tooth. I think it would be a lot easier to pull this way and I could use it in reverse as well. Do you think using the 15 bucket teeth this way would do a good job breaking up the hard packed crust? I was also thinking about making a drag attached to back (to break up lumps)made out of my old Cat tracks with triple grouser pads. The pads are in good shape but replaced because most of the bolts were loose. I'd weld the pads to the old rails and have about 3 pads for the drag that would free float over the ground. I'd make up enough sections to cover the width of the beam. Do you think this would work good to smooth things out? Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

That should work. Another thing you could do is find an old chiesel plow, that way you could set your depth. An old chiesel would be cheaper to buy then building that drag and buying all the backhoe teeth an adapters for it.??????

Thanks for your quick reply Lyle! Sure wish you
lived closer to Edmonton. I'd hire you for some
work. The operating engineers training center is a
mile up the road from me but they were not
interested in doing any work at my land. They said
they didn't have insurance to go on the road. I'm
directly south of them at the end of dead end
road. My neighbor is the only one who lives down
this road. It's kind of a shame because the
students would be working on an actual job type
situation instead of just playing in a field.

I got the H beam donated and the teeth and
adapters are about $18 a set so it's not too bad.
I only checked at Titan supply so maybe I could
find the teeth cheaper or get a discount if I by a
bunch? I need new teeth on the backhoe too. I may
put depth skids or gauge wheels on it. I'd have to
try it out first. It will be 3 pt. mounted so I
can pick it up and back up easily. My neighbor
looked at what I want to do and he's not sure a
chisel plow would even dig it when it's baked. A
chisel plow would probably take more power to pull
too. I can go over it a few times if I need to at
different angles. I have a box scraper and it will
stop the tractor if it digs in a little too much.
That's why I thought if put the teeth straight
down, they'd just rely on the weight of the beam
to scarify the surface,kind of like a really heavy
harrow. The packed soil is clay with sand mixed in
so it's very abrasive. That's another reason I
thought about using easily replaceable teeth. If
it works, it will get a lot of use.

After it's broken up I can water the track.
Watering it first helps but then I need to wait
for the water to soak in and soften it up. I
wanted something that I could groom the track
fairly quickly with that wasn't going to be prone
to breaking or need a lot of maintenance. In
videos of similar type pulverizers you can clip
along pretty fast. Often once the top crust is
ripped up, there's still a fair amount of moisture
in the ground. Weird Alberta soil I guess.

I just remembered, I built my own backhoe bucket one time and made my own tooth adaptors. I used 1 1/4 square stock and drilled holes then just bolted the teeth on. You might save a few bucks by doing that????