Glad to have my B7800 home again

[Fjord]

A couple of months ago I was caught up on projects so I lent my tractor to a friend who had some work to do fixing up his barn and getting it ready for horses. Since he brought the tractor back last night I thought I'd use the hoe instead of a shovel to pop out a rock that I kept hitting with the lawnmower. Boy am I glad I had the hoe back- turned out to be a lot more rock under the ground than I could see. Took about 2 minutes to get the rock out and 10 minutes to go back to the fence row and get a bucket of dirt to fill in the hole. Now I have to start looking for little projects again.

 

[bialecki]

WOW, you lent out your B7800! I don't think I can ever bring myself to do that. You machine is excellent. I also have the B7800 with the Woods BH. The BH is a great attachment, very happy with the Woods BH-70X. The thumb is a nice feature as well. Here are a couple of photos when I was clearing some property to make my lawn bigger so I could use the MMM.

 

[Fjord]

Somehow the thumb and bucket together look like hungry pelican. When I lent my tractor out the only job I'd done with the new hoe was to dig a hole to bury our aged (31 yr) horse. Now my buddy has more experience with it than I do. I took it off today just to see how it would go and it seems to sit pretty solidly on a couple of those el-cheapo car wheel dollies from Princess Auto. Also, with the extra height of sitting on the dollies, I havn't had to remove the 3 pt hitch arms when mounting or dismounting it.

 

[bialecki]

I like the dolly setup for ease of maneuverability of the BH while off the tractor. I have seen the dollies at Harbor Freight as well. Is this setup stable?

Thanks

 

[Fjord]

Yes, it seems very stable. I tried rocking it and it seemed pretty solid, and then I wheeled it about 10 ft to where it's sitting now. I put a piece of 2 x 12 plank across the dollie that has the main frame sitting on it and positioned it just ahead of the stabilizers. Because the main frame is sitting up on the plank and the bucket is down in the dollie I had to extend the boom slightly to get it to sit level. With the boom slightly extended, I couldn't do up the transport lock, and since I'm not sure if it will sag over time without the transport lock done up I've put a scissor jack under the boom just to be safe. Hope this helps.

 

[Fjord]

One thing I forgot to mention about the wheel dollies. If you get the same ones that I got, make sure you put the head of the bolt on the bottom and the nut on top when bolting on the casters. If you put them the other way, the bolt sticks down just far enough that the wheel hits it when the caster tries to swivel which is a royal PITA since there are 16 bolts per dollie to take out and turn around. I've got 10 of these dollies now and I only put the first set together the wrong way. Live and learn.

 

[bialecki]

Thanks, the beauty of TBN, one can learn from others. By the Winter I will be garaging my BH and your setup is ideal!

 

[bandit67]

Hey guys,

Since you've both got some time on your B7800's and BH70X's, I'm wondering what you think about the hoe? I think I've ruled out the BH80X just because of the size and weight of it hanging so far off the back of the machine, because I have a sloped mountain property, and I am concerned about tractor stability. So now I'm considering the smaller BH70X or Kubota BH75 for a B7800 or B3030 that I'm looking into.

Do either of you find yourselves regularly wishing you had the larger BH80X? Or are you fairly pleased with the capabilities of the smaller BH70X on those machines? Basically, if you had it to do all over again, would you stick with your current setup?

Thanks

 

[bialecki]

Hey guys,

Since you've both got some time on your B7800's and BH70X's, I'm wondering what you think about the hoe?

Do either of you find yourselves regularly wishing you had the larger BH80X? Or are you fairly pleased with the capabilities of the smaller BH70X on those machines? Basically, if you had it to do all over again, would you stick with your current setup?

Thanks

Hey bandit67, the BH-70X works great I rarely dig deeper than 6 feet so the hoe suites my needs. I have used it for trenching, digging holes, to place concert Sono Tube forms into, moving boulders and planting shrubs. The Woods BH-70X is balanced nicely for the B7800, the BH-80X is too large for the machine. I do have my rear turf tires filled with "Rim Guard" which adds approximately 180 pounds per tire. I also have the 4 point hitch which is very stable and easy to engage and disengage the BH. I have the hoe operating off of the Kubota pump. I did not go with the separate reservoir and pump, no need since the Kubota hydraulics and pump handles the demand on the BH excellently. If you have other questions drop me an email.

Dennis Bialecki

 

[Fjord]

I also am pleased with the BH70-X, although I havn't yet got much experience on it. At this point any problems would likely be due more to lack of operator experience than the machine itself. The one big hole that I dug took quite a while due to the 12" bucket, but I expect most of my work to be trenches and ditches so the small bucket suits me. If I was digging holes most of the time I would probably go for a wider bucket. I did the installation of the subframe myself and it wasn't too difficult. When I did it I was just home from a hernia operation so I did all the lifting with an engine hoist, and as a result, didn't have to remove the wheels. If you end up going this route I can post some pictures.Everyone that I talked to recommended the subframe mount for a tractor this size so that's what I got.(Better safe than sorry). Hope this is somewhat of a help.