85Hokie
Moderator
Staff member
Lifetime Member
Equipment
BX-25D ,PTB. Under Armor, '90&'92-B7100HST's, '06 BX1850 FEL
After a couple of years of "looking" for a good canopy, and finding many, but all of them north of $300. I decided to "build" one!
Lil Foot lit the fire under my butt ! (thanks Lil Foot
) We were talking about finding an old golf cart top and working with that......so, I did a little digging and found a place near by that sold carts and tops and everything else!
$55 got be what I call a very lightly used top! It measures about 58" x "42"
Problem #1 - it is too wide and too long to fit on the BX correctly, well it would stick out to the end of the hood if mounted even with the ROPS
Problem #2 for me, I did not want to mount on top of the ROPS, it would not longer go inside the shed, and it would be so far off the seat, the sun would still hit my old ass everywhere but noon!
So.......I have a top that does'nt fit! ....yet!!!!
After "thinking" about it for a couple of weeks, the only viable answer was to notch the top ...mmmm.......this ought to be fun! I measured about 14 times and laid out my lines......
what to cut with, jigs saw? aint gonna work.....Reciprocating saw? naw .........
so - after a little thought, the multitool is the ticket!!! Worked perfectly. Those that have never used one, they are the best thing since sliced bread!!
So after a dry fit - I had about 12" overhang towards the rear, which will work perfectly for back hoe work, and about 43" toward front, 3" would be held to the ROPS.
Now the hard part, what to support it with? Aluminum is the best answer, and I could have had this done, but I am too impatient to wait for the AG guys next door to TIG this and test and refit ......
I decided to go with WOOD! Yup - good ol' fashion wood! And believe me that it is awesome. Somewhat heavier than aluminum but not as heavy as one might think.
I bought some U bolt brackets from Amazon, total for 4 of them was right at 20 bucks. The wood was free and once painted black - almost looks like metal
Designed it to have the LED lights tucked inside the cover - so if out in the rain/snow - these lights would not get drowned in the wetness. Added a light bar on front and reused the 4" LEDs I had already for the hoe side.
Took a piece of plexiglass and painted the backside Kubota orange and used that as my switch plate.
So far - the canopy is wired and working well - stronger than I thought it would be!!!
thoughts?
total cost with new light bar, right at $100
Lil Foot lit the fire under my butt ! (thanks Lil Foot
) We were talking about finding an old golf cart top and working with that......so, I did a little digging and found a place near by that sold carts and tops and everything else! $55 got be what I call a very lightly used top! It measures about 58" x "42"
Problem #1 - it is too wide and too long to fit on the BX correctly, well it would stick out to the end of the hood if mounted even with the ROPS
Problem #2 for me, I did not want to mount on top of the ROPS, it would not longer go inside the shed, and it would be so far off the seat, the sun would still hit my old ass everywhere but noon!
So.......I have a top that does'nt fit! ....yet!!!!
After "thinking" about it for a couple of weeks, the only viable answer was to notch the top ...mmmm.......this ought to be fun! I measured about 14 times and laid out my lines......
what to cut with, jigs saw? aint gonna work.....Reciprocating saw? naw .........
so - after a little thought, the multitool is the ticket!!! Worked perfectly. Those that have never used one, they are the best thing since sliced bread!!
So after a dry fit - I had about 12" overhang towards the rear, which will work perfectly for back hoe work, and about 43" toward front, 3" would be held to the ROPS.
Now the hard part, what to support it with? Aluminum is the best answer, and I could have had this done, but I am too impatient to wait for the AG guys next door to TIG this and test and refit ......
I decided to go with WOOD! Yup - good ol' fashion wood! And believe me that it is awesome. Somewhat heavier than aluminum but not as heavy as one might think.
I bought some U bolt brackets from Amazon, total for 4 of them was right at 20 bucks. The wood was free
and once painted black - almost looks like metalDesigned it to have the LED lights tucked inside the cover - so if out in the rain/snow - these lights would not get drowned in the wetness. Added a light bar on front and reused the 4" LEDs I had already for the hoe side.
Took a piece of plexiglass and painted the backside Kubota orange and used that as my switch plate.
So far - the canopy is wired and working well - stronger than I thought it would be!!!
thoughts?
total cost with new light bar, right at $100
