Kubota cab roof-unimpressive

[DieselnHooters]

Moral of the story could be: As good as they are you can still go wrong with a Kubota

 

[MODiesel]

Anyone else have prioblems with theirs? Mine has an upper/lower halves which are sort of welded together pieces of plastic that meet at a seam. They have split and now the roof leaks.:thumbsup: Mine also has what look like stress fractures just behind the roof mount upper front lights. I guess it's time to caulk the leaks with clear caulk. :ashamed: 3 years old and leaks.

Tractor is pretty solid otherwise, but the roof is too frail & thin/cheap for my liking.

My L5030 spends a lot of time getting whacked with limbs, and up until recently it was pretty durable. But....I happened to back under a tree with the mower and didn't realize a trimmed limb was pointed right at the seam in the rear of the cab, by the "passenger's side" work light. I kept going and then heard a huge "pop." The limb had broken and punctured the roof. Dang...

Well, I did some research on how to fix it and with the help of the guys at Urethane Supply Company, we determined the roof is HDPE. The problem there is that nothing glues or sticks to HDPE very long, if at all. But, they make a plastic "welding" kit for just that sort of thing, and using that I was able to not only fix the puncture, but also replace two of the nuts on the inside that had shattered out from the collision.

I've got pics of it all, just need to post them up. I'll try and get that done in the next few days so anyone else that needs repairs can use that as something of a guide.

 

[Builder]

I tried "Quad", which is a high quality roofing caulk. Doesn't look like it worked.....

 

[montelatici]

My L5030 spends a lot of time getting whacked with limbs, and up until recently it was pretty durable. But....I happened to back under a tree with the mower and didn't realize a trimmed limb was pointed right at the seam in the rear of the cab, by the "passenger's side" work light. I kept going and then heard a huge "pop." The limb had broken and punctured the roof. Dang...

Well, I did some research on how to fix it and with the help of the guys at Urethane Supply Company, we determined the roof is HDPE. The problem there is that nothing glues or sticks to HDPE very long, if at all. But, they make a plastic "welding" kit for just that sort of thing, and using that I was able to not only fix the puncture, but also replace two of the nuts on the inside that had shattered out from the collision.

I've got pics of it all, just need to post them up. I'll try and get that done in the next few days so anyone else that needs repairs can use that as something of a guide.

I've used this stuff called "Gook" for such issues. It is an ugly repair but it does seal quite well on almost anything.

 

[MODiesel]

Here are some pics of the damage...

 

[MODiesel]

Here are some pics of the plastic welding process.

1. First rough pass with (closely matched orange) HDPE sticks:

2. Here's where one of the nuts broke out of the roof. I used some steel mesh in the kit and melted that into the surrounding plastic. The Al metal tape is there over the black rubber seal so that I didn't melt that.

3. Here's the hole with plastic melted into/over the steel mesh and the excess screen trimmed away:

4. I drilled a hole in the plastic and then popped the nut back in. After that, there was still some wiggle in the nut, so I used more plastic rod to build up around the edges and secure it firmly. It doesn't move at all now:

5. A shot of the main cracks after some light sanding.

6. Finished weld. According to the company, you can keep sanding this with progressively smaller grit until it shines about like new. I didn't really worry about that since the work lights sit right in the way of the damage.

 

[Builder]

The M-series roof is a china doll. If I had more time, I'd fab up a forrestry guard for the perimeter.

 

[daveinnh]

MODiesel:

HDPE is high density polyethylene. Used to make plastic gasoline containers so its pretty tough; also used in natural gas distribution mains.

It can only be heat seamed for fabrication and repair.

Dave

 

[MODiesel]

It can only be heat seamed for fabrication and repair.

Yes, that's essentially what I did. I used the KC Welder kit from Urethane Supply (link below), which also included the steel mesh and your choice of PE sticks (obviously, I chose orange). It worked quite well.

KC Welder