greenhorn with orange dream machine

[JOHNTHOMAS]

Congratulations on the fine Orange machine and I to enjoyed your story of conquering those long lasting problems that are now history and a memory.

[TripleR]

Very nice equipment indeed and good write up.

[Barnone]

Nice story of your new serious tractor. Seeing your Dodge in it's fine condition means you will keep the Kubota in top shape too.

[gilbertmsg]

You have nice equipment and a very nice yard. Now time to get to work on where you removed your pet rock.

Eddie

[texasjohn]

Great story, great machines you have there

[s219]

Great read, and I like the truck!

[rmilho]

great story...thanks for sharing!

[Aj10523]

Congrats. Great looking tractor.

[Lefty7]

What a pleasure to enjoy your comments, compliments and good wishes on a Sunday morning, (or anytime).

Yes, the D100 Adventurer is a few steps lighter in color. It was a 1978/one-year-only color called Sunrise Orange, hence the truck's name. It's substantially older than the 'Bota; let's pretend it's just faded. (But it's not!)

As far as the story goes, glad you enjoyed it. You were owed; folks here have been very good to me.

So, an update or two:

The larger rocks I am using to build up the dam in our creek. Eventually, I want to be able to drive across the dam, (which will preclude having to drive around to the other side using the public road). I'm creating a chute for the water, hoping to be able to use it to generate electrical power with a hydro-turbine. The final rock I extracted would classify as a small boulder, and was right next to our long-established fire circle. This was yet another drive-around mower/truck issue. The part sticking out of the ground was about the size of a large party punchbowl (inverted), but in the whole rock, in reality, is about 20% the size of a Volkswagen beetle. It was very rounded, with no edges to grab on to, and it took some doing to get it up out of its hole using the backhoe but I did it. Later that day, I removed the front loader bucket and installed the pallet forks, to get under, lift and move all of the newly-freed rocks to the dam. Or so I thought. Actually, the method worked well for all of the rocks except this one. It was too big to move, just plain too heavy! The Kubota's hydraulics simply wouldn't lift it, but learning the machine's limitations is an important part of this get-acquainted process. The rock looks like it is rose quartz maybe. (There is another even bigger one made of the same stuff at the far corner of our property. Both were brought here and deposited by the glacial movement, no doubt.)

Thanks for the weight spec estimate, magicheater. I was wondering!

gilbertmsg, always thinking ahead, sir! The ground craters, (there ended up being 4 of them, not counting the plumbing in the garden plot), are already filled and graded. Used the FEL to lift manageable carpets of live sod off of the proposed garden expansion, and re-sodded the wounds to heal them. (I'm not too good at this yet. Getting them about 5-6" thick, when what I want is more like 3".) A few more rains, a few more months, one would be hard pressed to recognize the rock sites.

I'm having fun. Wish you the same.

[Lefty7]

I'm at a little over 40 hours on it now - coming up on my first oil change. I finally got done with all the little backhoe chores, and decided to remove it and get on with the 3-point stuff.

I can see that one has to take operator's manual info with a grain of salt. The BH92 book tells you to remove the backhoe's mounting pins while the stabilizers are still 15" off the ground. (P. 17). But common sense prevailed.

Unfortunately, more than that was needed. It was at that point I noticed, (although it took me awhile to figure it out), that the dealership had installed the pins the wrong way for a L3940HSTC. They should both be installed from the inside. They installed them from the outside, and to pull them out, there's not enough room to do so; the inner sidewall of the rear tire won't allow them to clear. The dealer sent a guy out to take off the rear tires to get the pins out. It was an understandable mistake. I guess on many models, they are supposed to be put in from the outside. Also, the machine had been sitting there at the dealer, waiting for the R1s to show up - it had had R4s - and so the BH was already on when they put on the wheels/tires, and they never noticed the error.

Anyway, slight stutter but I finally got the 3-point on, and the Phoenix T10 tiller is poised and ready for action. It hits the dirt tomorrow.