I recently added a QH15 to my tractor. I looked at the speeco due to the price but I saw different pictures and videos that showed the lower hooks leaving a gap between it and the pins. Now that I have the QH15 I'm happy with my decision to spend a few more bucks and get what I really wanted. The bottom hooks are tight to the bushings and with the bushings there is a lot of material holding everything tight. I was considering the Pat's but how does it keep from binding when you are tilting your attachment? I am very pleased with the quality of the land pride QH.
I got my QH15 a few months back. It's great for my box blade and "top and tilt", and I'm sure it will be fine for the LP cutter that should be here any day now. (Although I don't imagine I'll be doing much "top and tilt" with the cutter, but who knows?)
But the QH15 didn't work at all for my hay rake or my baler, so I just got the Pat's QH. I'm done haying for the season, but it looks like it'll be fine for my hay rake and baler. But I can also see that the geometry isn't quite "true" for my box blade.
They say that experts see more details than beginners. I'm far, far from being an expert, but installing the Pat's, truing it, and hooking it to various implements is definitely getting to see more detail than I've noticed in the past. For one thing, it looks to me as though the far ends(?) (the ends farthest from the tractor), of my bottom links are canted in a little bit until they're maybe 30" apart. So when they're only 26" or 27" inches apart they're not quite parallel. Is that normal?
The other thing I've noticed is that the bottom links seem to be canted in a bit from being perpendicular to the ground, and that canting in gets more severe the higher they're lifted. Is that normal?
Neither of these "slightly off from true" issues is important with no QH or with the standard QH15 sort of design, but with the Pat's it does seem like it (the being slightly off), could be an issue.
I'm gonna futz a bit with the truing of the Pat's to see if I can get them truer, but I'm concerned that the bottom links themselves, and the way they move, will make that hard.
If I was made of money, I'd keep both, but I was hoping to return the QH15. Now I fear I'm faced with needing both, the Pat's for haying season and the QH15 for the rest of the year. I'm not too thrilled with that conclusion.
Thoughts?