L305DT rescued from the salvage yard

[Daren Todd]

It's nice to have access to sources like that. He helped me out with my parts, and to get rid of some of the confusion with the grey model too.
I was talking to a guy a few weeks ago who picked a couple kubotas that went through the tornado. Bout a couple of miles from where you drove through the damage on the interstate. Picked up both of them for about 500$. One had a fel, both the same model and dt. One with the fel had a tree land on the back end. The other had the front end torn off. Seperated both at the clutch housing put the good sections together and had a working tractor with fel in a weekend.

 

[D2Cat]

Daren, you wanted to see the headlights I used. I got them off of Ebay. 27 watt, I think. Alum housing with metal brackets. I modified them to fit the holes because that's all that was there. I made it so the bolt would fit in the bottom of the three holes. I took a die grinder with a tapered cutter to simply move the hole down some as I enlarged it.

I had to modify the mounting bracket, but an angle grinder and 10 minutes gets it done.

 

[D2Cat]

Here's the final look.

 

[Daren Todd]

Those look great!!!!! Really nice clean look with it too. I like those better then the ones I put on mine. Nice job on the tractor

 

[CaveCreekRay]

HOLY MOLY!!!

And I thought I bought a "banged up" tractor!

Good for YOU!. Its wonderful to see someone with patience and ingenuity take on a restoration to bring back what is actually a perfectly good machine. Too bad it sat out so long. It would have been nice to have gotten ahold of it a month after the fire.

Great shots of the "crispy bits." Can't wait to see her all done. Keep the pictures coming.

Ray

 

[D2Cat]

Ray, I understand what you're saying, "Too bad it sat out so long. It would have been nice to have gotten ahold of it a month after the fire." however, the price dropped dramatically with age, I'm sure. The damage was done and then they had to set and look at it for a long time! I also got a 6' Woods brush mower that they no longer needed.

 

[CaveCreekRay]

D2,

That always seems to be the case. Guess they don't want to take a beating. They probably tried selling it but nobody was willing to do what you are taking on. They end up taking the beating but, they just get accustomed to the idea over time.

At 120 hours, my tractor had a mobile home axle roll off the back of the FEL and crash on the hood of the tractor taking out the hood and the lights. The other end of the axle cracked and gashed the fiberglass roof. It was a sorry looking machine. In fact, when I found the tractor on Craig's List, I repeatedly asked for pictures and he wouldn't send me any of the "dented hood." I guess the few locals that saw it got back in their cars and left. I needed to put the tractor to work so I pulled the hood off and used it for almost a year before getting the hood beat out and repainted. But, he let the machine sit outside all Spring and Summer and the paint on the upper FEL shows sun damage. Otherwise, its in great shape.

Before:

[URL=http://s307.photobucket.com/user/CaptStark/media/Kubotahood.jpg.html][/URL]

Midway:

[URL=http://s307.photobucket.com/user/CaptStark/media/Kubotahood-3-2.jpg.html][/URL]

After:

[URL=http://s307.photobucket.com/user/CaptStark/media/TractorRoof-2.jpg.html][/URL]

I was just beginning a 18 month remodel so I had no time for repairs. Plus, I was using my tractor non-stop. Managed to get this done working a couple hours each morning this last summer. Nothing like the task you undertook.

Ray

 

[D2Cat]

Ray, you did a nice job on the body work!

I was wanting to see how much damage was done to determine if it was a workable tractor or just parts. If you look at the picture of the headlights you can see the top of the hood. Ripples here and there. I got them worked out a little bit but I just wanted a tractor to work. I can put up with 85-90% perfect. Mechanically excellent, pretty....much less so. The loader is a Massey 1246, designed for a 30HP Massey tractor. Built by Woods. A Massey 30HP tractor is much shorter then a 30 year old Kubota. It required some modifications and adjustments to get it to fit. Nice joystick controls also. Found it in Beebe, Arkansas on Ebay.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Body work is easy!

Try picking one up that some "genius" mechanic had gotten ahold of, and preceded to destroy the insides of the transmission!
It really helps to put the right parts in the right places before you tighten the bolts up!

 

[Daren Todd]

Body work is easy!

Try picking one up that some "genius" mechanic had gotten ahold of, and preceded to destroy the insides of the transmission!
It really helps to put the right parts in the right places before you tighten the bolts up!

Your a gluten for punishment aren't you would have been my luck to get it all back together and realize I forgot an o'ring

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Your a gluten for punishment aren't you would have been my luck to get it all back together and realize I forgot an o'ring

It's a GST Transmission, and there are over 90 O-rings in it.
Yea leaving even one of those little buggers out was a bit of a concern!
And yea it was a little bit of a challenge but it runs like new now, and all for the fraction of what it would have cost me if I bought it running!

 

[Daren Todd]

It's a GST Transmission, and there are over 90 O-rings in it.
Yea leaving even one of those little buggers out was a bit of a concern!
And yea it was a little bit of a challenge but it runs like new now, and all for the fraction of what it would have cost me if I bought it running!

I would have a full blown ulcer if I attemped one of those all though, there are times when a large bottle of super glue has it's place

 

[CaveCreekRay]

I know my limits. Ihad my hood body work done by a pro. Took him five days and ran me $350 where a new hood from Kubota without stickers runs $950.

Wolfman,

How did you fix the broken gear box casting? Swap over to a new unbroken case? Or a few tubes of JB Weld?

 

[dtbprc]

wire brush the muffler system and paint it with high temp paint. it will look awesome! I have done all my snowmobiles and atv's like that. no issues. also used it as I restored an old 100 year old wood burning stove and put it into my man cave pole bldg. you can also get that paint in a few diff colors.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

I know my limits. Ihad my hood body work done by a pro. Took him five days and ran me $350 where a new hood from Kubota without stickers runs $950.

Wolfman,

How did you fix the broken gear box casting? Swap over to a new unbroken case? Or a few tubes of JB Weld?

Funny story about the case:
I bought the tractor only after doing some research "knowing" I could find a new case, only after getting it home did I get the call that the case I was buying was broken too.
So I too also know my limits, My welding skills and my welding equipment are not up to the task! I took it to a welding/machine shop in town. The best $125 I've ever spent on a welding/ machining job, everything went back in perfectly!

 

[CaveCreekRay]

Wow.

Precision welding on a casting is like the pinnacle of welding I hear. Getting the gear train centers to line up takes verrrrrrrry careful work.

Good for you!

 

[Daren Todd]

Funny story about the case:
I bought the tractor only after doing some research "knowing" I could find a new case, only after getting it home did I get the call that the case I was buying was broken too.
So I too also know my limits, My welding skills and my welding equipment are not up to the task! I took it to a welding/machine shop in town. The best $125 I've ever spent on a welding/ machining job, everything went back in perfectly!

You couldn't find anyone around here willing to touch something like that. Let alone good enough to weld that you got yourself one hell of a welder

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

You couldn't find anyone around here willing to touch something like that. Let alone good enough to weld that you got yourself one hell of a welder

Living in the land of logging has it's advantages, there are some really good welders, machinist, and fabricators around here.
There are some real nut jobs too but that's a whole different story!

D2Cat,
Sorry didn't mean to walk all over your thread!
I think you've done a great job with reviving the L305, and I know your still working on getting more parts for it!

 

[D2Cat]

Here's a picture of the original hyd. filter. Then the new improved version. North Idaho Wolfman directed me to this setup. The bracket was out of my "bone pile", a support for an air conditioner. I will eventually improve that.

 

[davesl708]

Great find. Should give you a lifetime of service.
Great project too.
Looking forward the finished project pictures.