sunshade

[DesertRose]

Again, I want to say thanks for all the suggestions and experiences you all have posted concerning sunshades. I have thought about them a lot in the last few days. If I do install a sunshade I need one that is easily removable. Yesterday I was cleaning snow and ice along the side of my barn. The snow was melting in the day and dripping right down by the stall doors. At night it would freeze solid. I was using the FEL and back-hoe bucket to break the mounds of ice in front of the doors.

I noticed that the snow had slid down the metal roof but was still laying for about 8' of the roof right above the doors so I went inside the barn and got a rake and broom and stood up on the deck of the tractor to be able to pull that snow down so it wouldn't just slowly melt in the day when warmed by the sun. If I had a sunshade installed I wouldn't have been able to stand up to pull down the snow.

I probably would never want the sunshade installed in the winter. The sun shining in the winter warms the body and the soul so I wouldn't want to be sitting in shade in the cold of winter.

We can get temperatures of -20F in the winter and over 110F in the summer. I love feeling the warmth of the sun in the winter but love the shade in the summer so an easily removable sunshade would be the best for me.

I need to keep practicing climbing on and off my tractor while bent over...maybe it won't be this year I install a sunshade...but soon.

Thanks again for all your posts.

Tom

 

[davitk]

Sorry to hear about you physical problems, Tom. You are wise to gain some additional seat time before putting on a head-banger. When I was in my early 20's, I backed my pickup up to my parents hay loft door in the barn. The bed of the truck was about 3' lower than the loft floor so I put one foot up, grabbed the sides of the door opening, and lunged..... well I woke up (I'm guessing) about 5 minutes later, flat on my back with the worst neck/headache I had ever imagined....

 

[Westendorf-RR]

This is one that I've been looking at. No idea on price, but I will price one out when the new tractor is ordered. I like the easy-off bracket option - I figure to be putting the canopy on and off quite a bit. They come in 3 different sizes.

Shade canopy

Easy-off bracket

Pricing on the Cool Caps is listed below. Price includes the stationary bracket.
Small: 36" x 42" is $325
Large: 45" x 52" is $435 (most common size)
X-Large: 57" x 64" is $545

Easy-Off Brackets - Add $55.00

Canopy has adjustable tilt feature for ROPS that are not straight. Universal fit for ROPS up to 6" square. Remove in seconds without tools for low shed clearance or clearance under trees while mowing. Iso-Ceramic Finish (same composition used in space shuttle tiles) is more durable and resists UV to minimize sun fading. Includes reflector package and arched shape is attractive and adds re-sale value to your tractor.

 

[Hammy]

I just bought the Wells Ag after reading several posts and then taking Bird's advice. I got done installing it about 30 minutes ago. It was a breeze to install but I did need my wife to hold one end while I bolted it on the mounting brackets. I got the painted metal one and it seems like it is going to work out great.

I liked the idea of a metal one better then the fiberglass due to the fact that if/when I hit a branch or something, I don't see this ripping like a fiberglass one would. I will also be trailering my tractor with it on so it had to be able to hold up to that as well.

I paid $395 for mine but I think my dealer is steep (online I believe I found them priced at $310). I even introduced him to the product and now he says he might start carrying them. He wants a picture of it installed.

I'll post a photo of it in the morning.

Thanks Bird for turning me onto this one.

Craig

 

[Bird]

Craig, I hope you like it as well as I liked mine. And as you mentioned, I probably would have destroyed a fiberglass canopy. It came with a black plastic or rubber trim (I'm not sure of the right word) around the edge. My brother scraped part of it loose on a tree limb once and then so did I, so I just took that trim piece off and discarded it. But then I backed under a really big tree limb while mowing and bent the steel on the back, and I learned that it's some tough steel; hard to straighten. You can see the damage I did in the attached photo.

 

[jonbravado]

I bought the 'cheap' one from Tractor Canopies | Mower Canopies | Sun Guard Tractor Canopy Sunshades

it's actually very well made and easy to install.

Here it is on my L2350DT and it works very well and is very sturdy.

for 260 SHIPPED, you just can't beat it.

J

 

[Hammy]

Here are a few photos of the Wells Ag canopy installed. I installed a couple lights on the rear but they are not wired up yet. You'll see some wire wrapped around the ROPS, which is just temporary.

Craig

 

[Bird]

Ooops, you forgot to include the photos.

 

[Hammy]

Yeah, darn photos were too big so I had to go pull the tractor out again and snap some more. Here they are.

Craig

 

[Bird]

OK, so now we've got some good pictures and it doesn't appear that Wells Ag Company has changed anything about their canopies.

And you can find lots of discussion on Tractorbynet about photo manipulating and resizing. One popular program seems to be Irfanview, if I remember right. But I think I went the simplest route (and learned about it here on TBN) and that is to go to Microsoft Power Toys for Windows XP, scroll down to ImageResizer.exe in the right hand column and download that little file. Then when you want to change the size of a photo, all you have to do is right click on the file name of that photo, click on resize, select the size you want, and it makes a new photo of the selected size without changing the original at all. Very simple for folks like me who don't understand computers anyway.