King Kutter disc is a piece of garbage

[Chain Bender]

I
I'm not much with all the picture posting, but I'll try to take some pics this morning before I go to church to show the "poblems" I have encountered.

Bottom line is that with the configuration the disc is sold in it is impssible to adjust the gang set without completely removing a 5/8 inch bolt (adjustment pin) and loosening a pair of 5/8" bolts on each interior gang. Then and only then can you move the gangs. Then you can drop the center (adjusting) bolt back in, re-tighten the two bolts on the gangs, then tighten the center bolt. Repeat this for the other set of gangs if you wish to adjust them too.

Oh, wait a minute. There's this problem with a 3/8" thick piece of metal bumping up against the main frame preventing the gangs from moving more than one adjustment hole.

Maybe I'm the only one to experience the problem, but I doubt it.

CB

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Here's some pix of the design flaws:
As you can see in this picture, the gang frame is butted up against the main frame, prohibiting any forward adjustment of the gangs, even if all the bolts are loosened to the point of falling off.

a downward picture of the limited adjustability caused by the main frame and gang flange hitting.

Here are pictures of the flat bar welded on the flanges so tight up against the center rail of the frame that you can't move/change the gang setting, even using an 8# hammer!

 

[Ford850]

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Here's some pix of the design flaws:
As you can see in this picture, the gang frame is butted up against the main frame, prohibiting any forward adjustment of the gangs, even if all the bolts are loosened to the point of falling off.

a downward picture of the limited adjustability caused by the main frame and gang flange hitting.

Here are pictures of the flat bar welded on the flanges so tight up against the center rail of the frame that you can't move/change the gang setting, even using an 8# hammer!

It looks like you have the gangs slid too far towards the center on the tubes. Loosen the U-bolts and slide each gang outwards. Or loosen all the U-bolts and then make the angle adjustments to the gangs, then tighten the U-bolts after you know there will be clearance. You just don't have it adjusted right.
As for the small cleats welded on, they are to keep the gangs from changing angles independently. Otherwise you would have to crank all the bolts down tight every time and even then they wouldn't hold. With some use they will wear in and get some slop to them. If you already ground some off then they will be sloppy now and might get more loose later on. But after looking at other brands they are sloppy when new so yours should be fine now after grinding. You shouldn't need the 2 bolts (one on either side of the center bar) tight. They should be loose enough so you only have to remove that one center bolt on each pair of gangs to move them. Good luck and have fun disking. I've got 3 more inches of snow this morning so I am envious of you if you can get in the field today.

 

[Ford850]

I did not catch that Ford, however, The dealer would probably do the same swap out or money back. In addition the dealer could send some one out with correct parts to make the repair. Ken Sweet

Agreed. If I were upset with it, I would call the dealer to correct the issue or figure it out myself and figure I have no complaint if I assume responsibility. Things like this don't bother me when I'm buying a relatively lower priced implement. I know the risk going into the deal. Overall these middle quality brands have been very good to me with few minor tweaks.

 

[Chain Bender]

It looks like you have the gangs slid too far towards the center on the tubes. Loosen the U-bolts and slide each gang outwards. Or loosen all the U-bolts and then make the angle adjustments to the gangs, then tighten the U-bolts after you know there will be clearance. You just don't have it adjusted right.
As for the small cleats welded on, they are to keep the gangs from changing angles independently. Otherwise you would have to crank all the bolts down tight every time and even then they wouldn't hold. With some use they will wear in and get some slop to them. If you already ground some off then they will be sloppy now and might get more loose later on. But after looking at other brands they are sloppy when new so yours should be fine now after grinding. You shouldn't need the 2 bolts (one on either side of the center bar) tight. They should be loose enough so you only have to remove that one center bolt on each pair of gangs to move them. Good luck and have fun disking. I've got 3 more inches of snow this morning so I am envious of you if you can get in the field today.

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I went out and looked at the "cleats" you are talking about. Apparently they use some sort of jig to simulate the size of the center rail when welding the cleats onto the flanges. There is actually about 30/1000" clearance between the actual flange plates and the center rail. That clearance is caused/provide because the cleats are too close together and will not allow the flange plate to lay flat across the center rail. Same thing goes for the bottom flange plate. That's why the flange plates look bent when you tighten the bolts holding the flanges to the gang tube. If I get the gangs adjusted I still am faced with having to loosen those bolts before I can adjust the set. Removing 2 bolts and loosening 4 is a lot of trouble just to change the set.

My dad has an old disc that all you have to do is pull the center pin, slide the gangs to the set you want and drop the pins back in. Off the tractor, change the set and back in the seat in less than 3 minutes. His disc is bigger and heavier than mine and it has no cleats. The only thng he has replaced on it in the 27 years he's had it is the discs from being worn paper thin or broken.

I've used the cheap angle iron lightwieghts. I'm hard on my equipment so I bought the heavier box frames disc. It has obvious problems and I'll get them sorted out. But why should I have to go back over the whole discs and loosen and adjust things that should have been done by quality control?

As a side note, almost every lock washer on the disc was under so much stress from being over tightened that most were in a long "C" shape and actually squeezed out from under the nut.

 

[Chain Bender]

Agreed. If I were upset with it, I would call the dealer to correct the issue or figure it out myself and figure I have no complaint if I assume responsibility. Things like this don't bother me when I'm buying a relatively lower priced implement. I know the risk going into the deal. Overall these middle quality brands have been very good to me with few minor tweaks.

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I'm new at buying implements and thought $1100 for a small 5' disc was a pretty high price. And I especially thought since it was the only disc sold at the Kubota dealership that is was pretty good quality.

I think I have figured it out myself and will cut, grind, hammer, beat and bang it into a condition acceptable to me and will assume all responsibility for my modifications. But with only a few moving parts, you'd think they would at least "move".


The dealership won't be open again until Tuesday. I have a heart cath scheduled for that day.

I'm better now. Maybe I should change the title to this thread to "misfit" instead of piece of garbage. Think I'll go try to do that now.

CB

 

[LD1]

Now that I see what we are dealing with here, I see nothing at all wrong with that KK disk or how it is designed.

As an other poster mentioned, loosed the u-bolts and move the gangs out. That was probabally an assembly problem. Probabally at YOUR dealership, so no fault of KK there.

As to it being tight to slide, well, it is still new. It will wear in in short order. If they made them sloppy like you want, someone else would just complain about that.

And personally, if I were mine, I'd get rid of the 5/8" center bolts and go to a pin and clip.

 

[gwdixon]

The KK disc is exactly like the Howse mentioned earlier.

The disc is compacted for shipment. Notice how much room is on the end of the gang tubes. The U-bolts need to be loosened and the gangs moved outward. Others have mentioned this.

The center "slide" is also tightened for shipping. Otherwise the gangs could move around - not much, but some.

The center "slide" has bolts with nuts containing nylon "lock" inserts. This is so those can be left a bit loose so the unit can slide along the center frame tube. I also replaced the center bolt with a pin and clip rather than using a bolt and nut.

The guides welded onto the slide keeps the gangs in proper alignment when the bolts/nuts are a bit loose.

I had exactly the same issues that you describe and simply set up my disc for work from the original shipping configuration. But I did pick my up from the train dock rather than from a dealer. Your dealer could (should) have adjusted the disc before delivering it to you.

Can't say much about the split lock nuts being over torqued to the point of destruction. Some newbie must have gotten too enthusiastic with the air gun.

 

[kebo]

XXXXXXXXXX

Here's some pix of the design flaws:
As you can see in this picture, the gang frame is butted up against the main frame, prohibiting any forward adjustment of the gangs, even if all the bolts are loosened to the point of falling off.



a downward picture of the limited adjustability caused by the main frame and gang flange hitting.

Chainbender, it's been my experience that the two bolts in the picture above need to be somewhat loose to allow for limited flexing when the disc harrow is being pulled. I didn't read this in any of your posts, but it seems like maybe you are thinking these two bolts should always be tighted down as tight as you can get them? I think they should be a bit loose. Now, if they are loose, and you are having to loosen them even more to adjust the gang angles, then that is a problem. If the plates are too tight, maybe you could try adding a couple of fender washers under those plates? That should let you snug those two bolts up (but not all the way), yet still have some space in there to make it easy to adjust the gangs.

As for those two cleats that are welded too close together, maybe you could look at having two new plates made (with cleats) but have the cleats welded on so there is a little more distance in between them? One shouldn't have to do that on a brand new harrow, but you've already started down this path of fixing it yourself so that might be an option.

Honestly though, if you leave those two bolts a little loose and start using the harrow, the usual wear should start giving more clearance and make things a bit easier to adjust.

 

[Chain Bender]

Now that I see what we are dealing with here, I see nothing at all wrong with that KK disk or how it is designed.

As an other poster mentioned, loosed the u-bolts and move the gangs out. That was probabally an assembly problem. Probabally at YOUR dealership, so no fault of KK there.

As to it being tight to slide, well, it is still new. It will wear in in short order. If they made them sloppy like you want, someone else would just complain about that.

And personally, if I were mine, I'd get rid of the 5/8" center bolts and go to a pin and clip.

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I can tell you are one of the "peace makers" around here so I'll bow to your opinion on this disc. Admittedly I was furious when I was was off in the woods and was trying to adjust something that was "un-adjustable". Came home and just got more mad as I tried to adjust this "unit". The more I cut myself on the discs and beat and banged on what should have been an easy slide adjustment wouldn't budge. I'm standing on my head trying to see things from the bottom up and the top down.

I've replaced the flange bolts with longer ones and have slid the gangs outward about an inch and a half. Flange bolts aren't as tight as I would like for them to be, but if I tighten then any more they won't slide/adjust. I'll use if for a while and hope all the paint gets rubbed off and the metal gets worn in. Then I'll tighten the flange bolts again and hopefully that will be the end of the saga.

So here and now I admist I was more than a little haste in my judgement and retract my statement about KK being a piece of garbage. And further admit if it was assembled at my dealership they will get a piece of information to chew on Wed. when I go back down there.

There are NO nylon insert nuts anywhere on the disc. But I will certainly be looking for some to replace the existing nuts and destroyed lock washers. I have already replaced the adjustment bolts with drop in pins.

My bad...............

Chain Bender

 

[kebo]

One last comment.... I own a Frontier harrow, I've had a Lowery disk harrow before and we also have a Leinbach disk harrow at the hunt club. I don't think ANY of those harrows have those two little cleats on the plates that go above/beneath the center bar. As a suggestion, why don't you take the plates off, flip them over (with the cleats facing away from the main center bar) and see how that works?? I bet it will make it easier to adjust the gang angles. Yes, the gang angles will flex some as the harrow is pulled, but they won't flex too much. Certainly not enough to bend anything, but as I said before they need to flex some.