rjkobbeman
Platinum Member
I recently installed a new Land Pride Quick Hitch on my tractor and thought I would share my experience with anyone who is curious about it...
I have a Kubota M8540 which has a category II 3ph, therefore I purchased Land Pride's category II quick hitch (QH20).
My first discovery is that the bottom lift hooks on the quick hitch are category III size. This means you have to install bushings on your implement. One set of bushings comes with the QH. You have to buy extra sets for your other implements... unless you want to swap bushings from implement to imlement.. which would be silly. I went to the local Rural King and bought a bunch of category II to category III lift pin bushings. They worked perfect on all of my implements. (I actually cut some to length so there was no slack on the pins... but I probably didn't have to.)
Next, if you use a mower (or any other type of implement that the rear has to float), you need to purchase the top link float kit for the QH. I ordered mine with the QH. (You can order the QH and the floating top link kit separately or all at once under one part number.) The floating top link brackets accept category II pins. This caused a problem with my mower because the top link is category I size. I called the dealer and they are getting another part from Land Pride. (Apparently this is common, however it is not mentioned in the book/ordering manual.) While I am waiting for the correct "Part" to arrive, I went back to Rural King and purchased a generic pin that is category I in size (3/4" I believe). (They were next to the farm implement stuff.) I also bought a half dozen or so washers. The washers take up the slack of the pin length and they also prevent the category I pin from pulling through the category II hole. This actually worked out quite nicely! Since there is no stress on this bracket/pin except during transport, I feel pretty comfortable using this setup. I "real" part should be in soon.
When connecting my first implement, I noticed one of the lower lift hooks in the QH was a little tight in clearance. This meant the lift pins (which are now category III in size) would not seat properly in the lift hooks. About 60 seconds with the grinder solved this. Fits perfectly now.
A side benefit to all of this is the slight change in geometry. Without the quick hitch, I was forced to use my lower (out of three) top link attachment holes. I have three attachment holes. The top one is meant for implements that require no draft control. The middle and bottom holes are meant for implements that require draft control... the lower one providing the most sensitivity. Unfortunately, I could not use the top (and correct) attachment hole because the geometry would not raise the tail wheel of the mower. If I shortened my top link enought to get the tail wheel raised off of the ground, it would still be off of the ground when the mower was lowered. Using the lower attachment hole fixed this... but I didn't like using that hole. However, when I connected the QH, the extra length provided by the QH and the top link floating bracket meant I had to shorten my top link (shorten meaning screwing... not cutting). This corrected my geometry problem and I now have my top link in the top (correct) hole. Bonus!
As far as using it...well, it works great. The QH hooks and unhooks as advertised and was well worth it.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. For implement that do not require a floating top link, you just flip the floating top link bracket out of the way and use the fixed upper hook to grab the implement. Works pretty sweet.
I have a Kubota M8540 which has a category II 3ph, therefore I purchased Land Pride's category II quick hitch (QH20).
My first discovery is that the bottom lift hooks on the quick hitch are category III size. This means you have to install bushings on your implement. One set of bushings comes with the QH. You have to buy extra sets for your other implements... unless you want to swap bushings from implement to imlement.. which would be silly. I went to the local Rural King and bought a bunch of category II to category III lift pin bushings. They worked perfect on all of my implements. (I actually cut some to length so there was no slack on the pins... but I probably didn't have to.)
Next, if you use a mower (or any other type of implement that the rear has to float), you need to purchase the top link float kit for the QH. I ordered mine with the QH. (You can order the QH and the floating top link kit separately or all at once under one part number.) The floating top link brackets accept category II pins. This caused a problem with my mower because the top link is category I size. I called the dealer and they are getting another part from Land Pride. (Apparently this is common, however it is not mentioned in the book/ordering manual.) While I am waiting for the correct "Part" to arrive, I went back to Rural King and purchased a generic pin that is category I in size (3/4" I believe). (They were next to the farm implement stuff.) I also bought a half dozen or so washers. The washers take up the slack of the pin length and they also prevent the category I pin from pulling through the category II hole. This actually worked out quite nicely! Since there is no stress on this bracket/pin except during transport, I feel pretty comfortable using this setup. I "real" part should be in soon.
When connecting my first implement, I noticed one of the lower lift hooks in the QH was a little tight in clearance. This meant the lift pins (which are now category III in size) would not seat properly in the lift hooks. About 60 seconds with the grinder solved this. Fits perfectly now.
A side benefit to all of this is the slight change in geometry. Without the quick hitch, I was forced to use my lower (out of three) top link attachment holes. I have three attachment holes. The top one is meant for implements that require no draft control. The middle and bottom holes are meant for implements that require draft control... the lower one providing the most sensitivity. Unfortunately, I could not use the top (and correct) attachment hole because the geometry would not raise the tail wheel of the mower. If I shortened my top link enought to get the tail wheel raised off of the ground, it would still be off of the ground when the mower was lowered. Using the lower attachment hole fixed this... but I didn't like using that hole. However, when I connected the QH, the extra length provided by the QH and the top link floating bracket meant I had to shorten my top link (shorten meaning screwing... not cutting). This corrected my geometry problem and I now have my top link in the top (correct) hole. Bonus!
As far as using it...well, it works great. The QH hooks and unhooks as advertised and was well worth it.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. For implement that do not require a floating top link, you just flip the floating top link bracket out of the way and use the fixed upper hook to grab the implement. Works pretty sweet.
