What did you do to or on your Kubota today?
- Thread starter gurn
- Start date
Almost forgot…
I installed the L8430 telescopic stabilizer kit too (from Messick’s). That was on the B2650 I had and I missed having that. Oh, and a plug cover for the block heater. It’s the little things.
I installed the L8430 telescopic stabilizer kit too (from Messick’s). That was on the B2650 I had and I missed having that. Oh, and a plug cover for the block heater. It’s the little things.
NCL4701
Well-known member
Equipment
L4701, T2290, WC68, grapple, BB1572, Farmi W50R, Howes 500, 16kW IMD gen, WG24
A few weeks ago, hooked up the chipper and noticed when it lifted it was canted off to one side. Pulled the lever for the rear remote on the tilt cylinder to level it. Got on the wrong lever (dumb move 1). Didn’t look at the hitch as it moved (dumb move 2). So the hydraulic top link tilted it in way too far.
I know it can’t be tilted up all the way without binding the PTO but why would I ever need to tilt it up at all. That and with my co-owner brother’s slight larger JD 5 series and quick hitch, not like I can really shorten it more than I already have. So yeah, it took two stupid errors but the shaft bound and my first notice was the sound of a casting somewhere cracking, which sounds a lot like a large vacuum being applied to my bank account.
So I shut down, got off, and started looking for what failed. Couldn’t find anything wrong with the tractor (almost happy but not convinced it’s ok until it’s under load and not spewing oil or worse). Couldn’t find anything wrong with the chipper or PTO shaft either but wherever it is, I know the sound of a casting cracking so I know something will show itself shortly. Ran the chipper no load at idle for a bit. Nothing. Slowly wound it up to normal operating speed. Nothing. Chip with it for a bit and it although it performs as usual, the crack finally shows. The rear pillow block bearing on the chipper cracked at its weakest point; where the hole is bored for the zerk.
It’s a standard size so I both called Woodland Mills and sourced local. Woodland Mills was as cheap or cheaper than local suppliers and other online suppliers so I ordered one from Woodland Mills. Replaced the bearing and checked bed gap this morning before church. Needed some wood chips in a natural area and had some stuff needing chipping. Ran it for about an hour with no issues. I’ve also put 3 or 4 PTO Hours on it brush hogging so no apparent damage to the tractor. $88.00 all in seemed like a minor miracle considering the egregiousness of my operator error.
Next, off with the grapple and chipper. On with boxblade and forks. Boxblade pulled gravel from ditches back toward middle of road. With top/tilt really didn’t take long.
Shortly after that, the people showed up to pick up Dad’s bees and associated equipment. Dad passed recently and we all know he wanted them to go to someone who would give them a real shot at continuing so that’s what we did. That’s what the forks were for. Palletizing the hives and equipment made loading relatively easy. Only person who got stung was me. Standing 30’ away totally out of any flight path just waiting with the tractor and forks while the new people got them ready to go, random honey bee flew straight into my right eye and stung my eyelid. I brought a can of moist snuff just for such occasions so it didn’t swell shut (yet) but it was kind of a poetic final f you on the way out.
Final chore for the Kubota today: off with the box blade and on with the trailer mover to retrieve the equipment trailer from the edge of the woods by the dam where it’s been for a bit over a week to make room for parking. All that stuff has quieted down now, so the trailer returned to its home in the carport.
No big jobs today but there were a lot of them.
I know it can’t be tilted up all the way without binding the PTO but why would I ever need to tilt it up at all. That and with my co-owner brother’s slight larger JD 5 series and quick hitch, not like I can really shorten it more than I already have. So yeah, it took two stupid errors but the shaft bound and my first notice was the sound of a casting somewhere cracking, which sounds a lot like a large vacuum being applied to my bank account.
So I shut down, got off, and started looking for what failed. Couldn’t find anything wrong with the tractor (almost happy but not convinced it’s ok until it’s under load and not spewing oil or worse). Couldn’t find anything wrong with the chipper or PTO shaft either but wherever it is, I know the sound of a casting cracking so I know something will show itself shortly. Ran the chipper no load at idle for a bit. Nothing. Slowly wound it up to normal operating speed. Nothing. Chip with it for a bit and it although it performs as usual, the crack finally shows. The rear pillow block bearing on the chipper cracked at its weakest point; where the hole is bored for the zerk.
It’s a standard size so I both called Woodland Mills and sourced local. Woodland Mills was as cheap or cheaper than local suppliers and other online suppliers so I ordered one from Woodland Mills. Replaced the bearing and checked bed gap this morning before church. Needed some wood chips in a natural area and had some stuff needing chipping. Ran it for about an hour with no issues. I’ve also put 3 or 4 PTO Hours on it brush hogging so no apparent damage to the tractor. $88.00 all in seemed like a minor miracle considering the egregiousness of my operator error.
Next, off with the grapple and chipper. On with boxblade and forks. Boxblade pulled gravel from ditches back toward middle of road. With top/tilt really didn’t take long.
Shortly after that, the people showed up to pick up Dad’s bees and associated equipment. Dad passed recently and we all know he wanted them to go to someone who would give them a real shot at continuing so that’s what we did. That’s what the forks were for. Palletizing the hives and equipment made loading relatively easy. Only person who got stung was me. Standing 30’ away totally out of any flight path just waiting with the tractor and forks while the new people got them ready to go, random honey bee flew straight into my right eye and stung my eyelid. I brought a can of moist snuff just for such occasions so it didn’t swell shut (yet) but it was kind of a poetic final f you on the way out.
Final chore for the Kubota today: off with the box blade and on with the trailer mover to retrieve the equipment trailer from the edge of the woods by the dam where it’s been for a bit over a week to make room for parking. All that stuff has quieted down now, so the trailer returned to its home in the carport.
No big jobs today but there were a lot of them.
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Indeed!Found a new use for duct tape!
The silicone couplers and hose clamps won’t arrive until tomorrow. For mock-up purposes…duct tape works great!
Mike
Looks like you dogged a bullet. Hearing the sound of the casting break must have been a heart-stopper.
What do you mean by "check the bed gap"? Is that the front-to-back movement, parallel to the shaft axis of rotation? Like what a thrust bearing would adjust?
Also, my condolences.
--eric
NCL4701
Well-known member
Equipment
L4701, T2290, WC68, grapple, BB1572, Farmi W50R, Howes 500, 16kW IMD gen, WG24
Bed plate is the anvil that’s taking the beating from the blades hitting the material being chipped. It’s adjustable to set the gap between it and the blades. After that kind of damage, figured it would be prudent to check it.
The front to back movement of the flywheel shaft (as best I could tell) is fixed by shoulders on the shaft that are retained by the pillow block bearings. I didn’t see any option for adjustment of the flywheel shaft in any direction.
Made sense the front bearing wasn’t damaged; no force applied to it as the front shoulder slid away from the bearing. The rear bearing took all of the force and (thankfully) was weaker than whatever it’s counterpart was in the rear ended of the tractor. Whatever that is in the tractor must be pretty stout. Definitely dodged a bullet on that one.
The sensor is known to sound the alarm/dash light when no water is present in bowl. Usually happens at idle and a slight incline in any direction, for me anyway.
GibbyESS9
Active member
Equipment
2020 Bx23s,BX2672 plow, Titan Forks, Land Pride 48” BB, FEL, Bestco Flail mower
After using my flail mower to clean up some trails I had to reorganize the basement/storage for Bessy’s attachments. Had to make room for her and the Ranger.
That's very similar to my stump bucket. You're right, they're very handy for trenching if you don't have a backhoe. Perhaps not quite as fast or clean, but they do the job.
The good thing about project creep is more seat time.
Yup, it will. Not much to be done for it. I normally dig 'em out, but that would leave a bomb crater right now, and you'd probably need a yard of top to put back on it. It'll still crater a little with time, but not like the sink hole that will form when micro critters and bugs eat that thing out. The WORST part about a rotting stump in the South is that it makes for a PERFECT homestead for yellow jackets. Yellow Jackets build in the ground because they want to be that little bit closer to Hell where they came from. Ground dwelling bumble bees MIGHT attack a soft pine stump, but they'll typically just build under deadfall.
So far this year, I've stirred up one ground dwelling bumblebee nest (like getting hit with a hammer in the back of the head and a headache that lasted for days), one yellow jacket nest with a couple thousand nest mates (dunno how I didn't get stung), and one baseball sized red wasp nest with about 50 bad boys on it. Fortunately, I'm not super allergic to anything, and even honey bees only swell me just a bit. Anything in the hornet family, however, triggers a rage you've never seen. Doc said it was the pheramones from the sting. Won't hurt me, but sure does piss me off. If one gets me, I locate the nest, then go back at night fall and share a drink of 87 octane or a can of Raid Hornet Spray with 'em. I make sure I get 'em all by waiting for 'em all to come home at night.
Looks good. Let me know how that turns out. I need to take mine off and do something with it, as well as paint the braces I made for it. When I take 'em off, I'll photo them and post pics. Have some on here somewhere, but unfinished (unpainted) and not very good angle after already installing.
Oh yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about now. I have a small gas-powered towable DR chipper and have read the instructions on checking and adjusting that.
This is an EXTREMELY crucial setting. As you might guess if you get it wrong, you're gonna destroy all 4 knives. Err on the side of caution, and set it at the max gap. ALSO, make sure you do the adjustment with the PTO shaft OFF, and thrust the flywheel shaft all the way toward the rear (max gap). It isn't supposed to move, but there is a slight thrust to those bearings, and it WILL hit the knives if you set it for minimum gap. Not my favorite thing to do on the WC-68, because it's pretty much eyeballing it. The anvil (stationary part) can also 'wobble' a little when setting it, leaving it not parallel to the knife edges. This presents a bit of a problem too. I'm working on a 'feeler' gage that I can reach down into the chipper with to properly set them quickly. I'd even suggest opening that gap up to 5/32 or 3/16 if you're chipping mostly large stuff. That doesn't work well for smaller brush though, especially stuff in the birch or elm family. Stringy bark doesn't chip well.
I got mine a little too tight at the top edge of the anvil when I set it the first time (didn't thrust the flywheel to the back) and put some minor gaps on the blades. Still usable, but certainly affected the performance. Just about time to rotate them now and order a backup set that I can use while I send the originals out for sharpening.
NCL4701
Well-known member
Equipment
L4701, T2290, WC68, grapple, BB1572, Farmi W50R, Howes 500, 16kW IMD gen, WG24
Yeah
Yeah, with the bed plate/anvil at the bottom of the flywheel housing it took a bit of thought to figure out how to set it properly with any reasonable precision. Ended up making a 3” wide by about 24” long “feeler gauge” out of a scrap white oak board so I’d have something relatively non-compressible that wouldn’t potentially dull the knives. Bandsawed it to about 1/4” and used a planer to get it to final thickness to ensure both faces were parallel. There’s a very visible gap at the back of the assembly that is left exposed so if it’s cocked at an angle that’s pretty easy to see/measure. Without the feeler gauge board I don’t know how you’d set it other than eyeballing it, which just didn’t seem like a good idea.
How did the event turn out Ken? Busy time here and could not getaway for it.
pokey1416
Well-known member
Lifetime Member
Equipment
Grand L4060HSTC, BH92 Backhoe, HLA Snow Pusher, Dirt Dog Tiller, EA DiscHarrow