Kioti Maintenance

[12Bravo]

With me being new to tractors I wanted to take the time to start a new thread about maintenance and maybe learn a few things from past owners and experienced operators.

While at the dealership I was tole to check all bolts on rims and FEL every 8 hours of operation.

What other areas of the tractor should I be giving a little extra attention and looking for? Oil levels and stuff is the same in any machine, but what are some of the items as a new owner to a tractor should I be on top of?

 

[Looking4new]

Check and retorque all loader mount bolts/nuts including the wheel lug nuts until such a time as you don't get any movement out of them. And do it again when you service at 50, 100, 200 and so on hours.
Grease it regularly. Grease is your best friend. An even better friend than your wife.
I don't know about other brands, but on my Kioti there are two grease fittings that only take 1 shot of grease once a year. The rest of the fittings get liberal grease.

 

[k0ua]

With me being new to tractors I wanted to take the time to start a new thread about maintenance and maybe learn a few things from past owners and experienced operators.

While at the dealership I was tole to check all bolts on rims and FEL every 8 hours of operation.

What other areas of the tractor should I be giving a little extra attention and looking for? Oil levels and stuff is the same in any machine, but what are some of the items as a new owner to a tractor should I be on top of?

Check all the bolts for a while. Wouldn't hurt to put marks on them (lines) to monitor if they move or not. When you get to about 100 hours, you can check em at about every 100 hours. Get all your supplies ready for the 50 hour complete service. 50 hours might be a year away or might be a week away, depending on how hard you use it. Grease the loader and BH every 10 hours of usage. Obviously if you don't use either one like for instance you are mowing and rack up 10 hours, you don't need to grease the loader and Back Hoe. You just kind of have to estimate this.

Grease the chassis zerks at every 50 hours. It wouldn't hurt to check all zerks and grease upon delivery. Dealers have been know to miss them.
Check your air filter, I use a vacuum cleaner to suck on the outside of the filter instead of blowing air from the inside out. Check your radiator and front of the hood for chaff when mowing in high grass/weeds. This is very important to prevent overheating.

Check Battery connections are tight and greased. Be sure to check the ground connection to the frame also. Check that the battery hold down hardware is tight. You can't have the battery bouncing around. Tractor batteries take a beating. I grease the hardware threads too to help prevent corrosion in the presence of the battery fumes.

If storing the tractor outside, the key switch is notorious for getting water in it and is a common failure point. I used Fluid Film shot into mine, repeat annually. By the way a can of Fluid Film is great stuff to put on PTO shaft, and 3 point hitch balls. Good lube/protectant. You can get a can at Lowes or order from the internet.

 

[Fuggley]

...I don't know about other brands, but on my Kioti there are two grease fittings that only take 1 shot of grease once a year. The rest of the fittings get liberal grease.

Just wondering... what location are these two 1 shot/year fittings at?

 

[murphy1244]

Just wondering... what location are these two 1 shot/year fittings at?

One of them is the center steering joint.

 

[k0ua]

Just wondering... what location are these two 1 shot/year fittings at?

Front axle pivot bolt zerks, inboard and outboard. One or more of these are often missed. Also the 3pt zerks don't usually need much.

 

[murphy1244]

Front axle pivot bolt zerks, inboard and outboard. One or more of these are often missed. Also the 3pt zerks don't usually need much.

I blew the canister clean off my grease gun trying to force it.:laughing:

 

[Everhard]

I'll add my vote to keeping things greased. That's critical for tractors - the front axle given it's constantly pivoting/turning and has a fair amount of weight/stresses on it makes it very important to stay on top of. The front axle pivot points are known as being a pain to get grease into, if I'd known that when I got my tractor I would have greased them before the first time I used the tractor. As everyone else has said if you're using the loader or anything else with grease fittings keep on top of greasing those.
Regarding bolts my experience was that none budged at all - well not any that I'd expect. (loader etc) when I installed the rear remotes I had to loosen the fenders - that's where I found a couple loose bolts! literally I could spin them out by hand without any resistance. (tractor had approx. 200hrs at that point.)

Oh if you're not familiar with greasing a tractor - key is to take pressure off the joint you're greasing if you can't pump grease in. Ie with the loader move them controls as needed to get the weight off a joint or use the loader to lift the front of the tractor into the air to take the weight off the front axle for example.

E.

 

[handtools]

"Get all your supplies ready for the 50 hour complete service"

+1 on this point, 50 hrs snuck up on me really fast!

 

[747driver]

Agreed on the ignition switch. chased the wires and cleaned every connection in the starting system as the tractor would not start. Came across a post about cleaning the ignition switch. So i bought a can of Electro Contact cleaner and lube. Gave the key switch a few shots of the lube and now the tractor starts every time first time ! I get my filters from Nolts Equip online. $130 for all the filters for a 200 hr. service. They are OEM filters.