ROPS for L245DT

[rrawhide]

I have owned a 1978 Kubota L245DT for the past 30 years and I love it. I only have 868 hours on it and it has done everything that I have ever asked it to. It does not have a ROPS on it. Kubota has a safety program going and will ship me a ROPS for my tractor for $148. Since I am in CA the shipping is about $100-150 and tax makes it over $300. Not too bad but a friend of mine gave me a ROPS off of his NorTrac 20 hp tractor this morning and wow what a piece of steel. Except, of course, does not fit so has to be modified. My question is should one ever cut and weld on a ROPS system? It needs to be cut and narrowed about 6 inches and new base plates made. Since I have never had one of these, I suppose, anything is better than nothing. By the way, I do live on a hill and primarily use the tractor for grading roads, pulling out stuff, lifting and carrying stuff. Kubota safety notice states that approximately 250 deaths a year is caused by a tractor rolling over. So, after thinking this all through and typing all this it might just be cheaper to order from Kubota. Your comments please.

thanx

rrawhide

 

[Bulldog]

On my tractor my rops is a two piece from the factory. It has a piece of channel that is slid in each side of the tube about 6" on each side. It has a nut welded on the inside of the channel and is bolted from the outside of the rops.

I would use a cut off wheel or a port-a-band to cut the center of the upper cross bar and narrow it there and use this same method that Kubota used to put it back together. I would use two bolts on each side as opposed to their one. Cut them bottom mounts off and weld the new ones on and put some gussets for extra strength.

I wouldn't use a torch to do the cutting just to keep the metal from getting so hot but other than that I can't see a problem in making the one you already have fit.

I built a canapy for mine and painted the upper portion of my rops orange so you can tell where the seperation point is in the picture. You can see one of the bolts that hold it together on the near side. If it meets safety specs done this way I don't see why anything would be different on yours.

Sorry about the picture quality but I couldn't get it to clean up any more than that. I cut it out of a photo that I already had just to show that one place on the rops and that is as clear as I could get it. I hope this will help.

 

[bky]

other than liability issues if you ever sold the tractor.