Thanks for the post! Here's an update with just under 150 hours on the clock now.
- Most of my hours have come from cleaning up after some tree clearing and our recent house addition. After cleaning up all the stumps, rocks/boulders, etc. it was time to level things back out. Fortunately my father-in-law is a farmer so he brought up a larger tractor and pulled a chisel plow around to break things up for me. From there I pulled a 10-12' disc around and moved dirt around with my bucket as needed. I got about 2 of the 3 acres done and planted before it got too late in the season to plant grass. I've got just a little bit of touch up work to do in the spring before I can plant the last acre.
- I've got several hours running my neighbors 5' KK finish mower. It's the old side discharge style which I learned I will stay away from as a future purchase. It runs a lot better with the plastic belt guard off and the metal discharge chute also pulled off, but just doesn't clear the grass as well as I'm thinking a rear discharge setup would. I've learned I can knock down some tall grass quickly but I need to take multiple passes to be effective. First pass I keep the mower off the ground and second pass I can drop things down. If you try to take it all down in one pass it doesn't matter how slow you go it still folds a lot of the grass over. Already blew out one spindle bearing but they're pretty easy and reasonable to replace. I plan to buy a 7' finish mower in the spring since I'd like something wider than the wheels.
- Had my first flat tire... Fortunately it was a front, not one of the fluid filled rears! I used the FEL to hold up the front to pull the tire off which was pretty slick!
- Loaded more round bales and found out the rear
ballast is a must. Loading with the finish mower attached I always felt planted. Another round of loading bales I only had my 6' KK landscape rake on back and I could tell the tractor rear end was light. I'll be building a ballast box similar to the one posted above this winter.
- Still loving the cab and I can't wait to use it this winter. I had my eyes on a Erskine 6' front mount PTO driven tractor snowblower that sold for a reasonable price, but I also found a great deal on an 80 gallon air compressor at the same time which is what I opted to purchase. I think I'm going to make up a pair of my own "edge tamers" for this year and see how my standard bucket works. From there I can decide if it's worth it to buy a snow blower, pusher, plow, etc.
- I've had a couple more instances where I wished the FEL could lift a little higher. Two that come to mind right now are loading bales onto a flat bed and lifting my air compressor out of the truck. I can only single stack bales like I expected which isn't a big deal, but would be nice to double stack to make the most of each trip. As for the compressor, I was able to get around it but I had to be a little creative with my rigging. All that said, I don't think it would be worth the money for me to have upgraded based on FEL lift height....
- Still feel like the loader is a bit slower than I'd like, but I don't use the tractor for making money so once again I don't think it would be worth paying more for a slightly faster loader. It's a relatively small framed tractor so going slow helps make a guy go easier on things.
- I still haven't used the front hydraulics yet. I was going to borrow my father-in-laws grapple bucket when cleaning up the brush piles but it was pretty light duty and already a little bent up. I opted to spend a little more time with my own equipment than risk wrecking the already damaged implement.
- I purchased a set of bolt on hooks for my bucket. Just started on it last night so I've only got 4 holes through the top of the bucket done so far. I can post pictures of the finished product when I'm done.
- I also purchased a 6' KK landscape rake for all my dirt work. Overall I think this is a great purchase for the money. I really wanted an Everything Attachments setup but just couldn't come to justifying the extra money for the limited use I expect it to see after the yard prep work. For most of my use I found it to work best removing every other tine so it didn't plug up so much with clumps of sod. It has Italian tines and I think with a little extra steel I plan to weld on it will hold up just fine for me.
- The lights are ok but they are another thing on my upgrade list. I'd like to go with some LED's and have been doing a little searching so I can find something with better light output than the standard China setup, but also be a little more cost friendly than the Rigid LED's I'd love to own!
rlgustafson - in response to your post:
- My XR4155 came standard with 2 rear remotes, was before they added the 3-point raise/lower outside the cab, no rear windshield wiper, and CAT 1 hitch. When I looked on the LS website last I believe it still only listed 2 rear remotes for the XR series but I could definitely see them upgrading to 3 sets based on consumer feedback. I know the newest XR series have the 3-point raise/lower outside the cab. My dealer still owes me the update which I'm planning to do when I have some planned down time for the tractor. For me the rear windshield wiper was available as an option, but was not standard. Lastly I've read things about both CAT 1 and CAT 2 3-point setups on this tractor, but for whatever reason mine came with CAT 1.
- Brian's kit looks beautiful! I haven't posted it up for sale yet but I'm still planning to sell my old dealer setup and place an order with Brian. I did a lot of adjusting with my box blade and being able to do it from the cab like I planned would have been great....
- Must be sweet to own 2 tractors, I'm a little jealous!
