Looking for tractor to maintain 8.5 acres in NH

[jeff9366]

What are the 3pt stabilizer bars and extendable/TELESCOPING 3pt LOWER LINK arms? WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF RIGID STABILIZER BARS Versus NON-RIGID CHAIN STYLE TURNBUCKLES?

Are these usually add-ons or do some of the tractors come with these? Are there different versions of 3pt hitch on these tractors?

The two lower arms on the Three Point Hitch are properly called the LOWER LINKS, often improperly called Lift Arms. The the end of each LOWER LINK arms there is an articulated "Bull's Eye" hole in which the corresponding lift pins on the implements fit, with minimal clearance. LOWER LINKS vary greatly in size/strength from tractor to tractor. With small/light tractors and corresponding light implements it is sometimes not too difficult to jockey the implement manually to line up the implement pins with the LOWER LINK bull's eye holes to mount the implement. (review: minimal clearance)

With heavier tractors you have to repeatedly back up the tractor until the bull's eye holes match up to the tractor implement pins, because (as you pass 50 years of age) the implements are too heavy to move manually. As a newbie, I often moved the tractor 6-8 times to achieve the match. Telescoping LOWER LINKS do just that, they telescope/extend longer so you do not have to move the tractor, the LOWER LINKS, including the bull's eye holes, extend/retract independently, three inches or so.

When an implement is mounted on the Three Point Hitch and you move over even slightly uneven ground the implement will swing and sway, hitting the moving tractor tires. Three Point Hitch stabilizers adjust to remove slack in the LOWER LINKS, preventing the implement from hitting the moving tires. So, after mounting implements it is usually necessary to adjust the stabilizers to remove slack relative the the specific width implement you intend to use. On economy tractors the LOWER LINK stabilizers are flexible turnbuckles, sort of like adjustable chains. You screw an adjusting nut on each side to remove LOWER LINK slack. Turnbuckles are strong PULLING with the tractor moving forward, but provide no support when when the tractor is in reverse, pushing an implement; rather the turnbuckles will bend, requiring replacement. (Replacement metric turnbuckles are absurdly expensive.)

Rigid, pinned stabilizers adjust easily by moving one pin on each side into a selection of holes, setting the desired LOWER LINK slack. Rigid stabilizers, if of heavy enough structure, provide almost the same support to implements whether the tractor is moving forward or in reverse. Pushing implements is most often and critically an issue operating Box Blades but same issues occur when using 180 degree reversed Rear/Angle blades and 180 degree reversed Landscape Rakes, which are pushed.

Both these quick, easy adjustments fittings require more complex and usually heavier LOWER LINKS + stabilizers therefore are more expensive to manufacture. See photo, below.

You will often drop and add implements during hot afternoons when your body is overheated from working.
If you are over age sixty or will be operating your first tractor after age sixty, avoid the potential for a heart attack, option the tractor for both telescoping LOWER LINKS and pin adjustable, rigid LOWER LINK stabilizers.

Photo: Aftermarket pin adjustable, rigid stabilizers {14.4 pounds} versus (bent) factory original turnbuckle stabilizers {3.7 pounds}.


LINK: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...opic-stabilizers-check-chains.html?highlight=

 

[RalphVa]

Some more posts, bringing up more things to consider.

R4s are MUCH tougher. Absolutely no tire trouble so far with R4s. Think they're actually better for pushing snow but not worth a **** for turning in snow. Ergo: need for two sided brakes.

I vote for non folding ROPS IF you can get one like I had on my 4010 where it would fit underneath a normal height garage. Why? Because you won't ever raise the ROPS otherwise. If you raise your folding ROPS and rip out a garage door opening, you'll be very sorry. I'd love to have my non folding ROPS from my 4010 back. I NEVER raise the ROPS on the 2025 after almost taking out my garage door frame on the 1025. Our guvmit needs to rethink what its doing to us on this issue.

If you park our implements on dollies on concrete flooring, you do not need extendable 3ph arms. Maybe they're an alternative if you don't want the dollies nor concrete flooring. I've changed out 3 implements with my dollies all in the same afternoon. Without anything, I had a **** of a time getting my bush hog back onto the tractor the first time I dumped it.

If you can, get adjustable arms on the 3ph. The 2025 has them. The 1025 did not. Think the Kubota B has them. Not sure.

Oh, DO NOT buy a tractor like the BX if you want to drive it on uneven terrain or into bush. It has an underneath plastic cooling fan for cooling the hydraulic cooler. The fan blades will get ripped off similar to the way I had a dipstick ripped from my Gravely tractor. Lots of people with JD 2210, 2305, 2310 and Kubota BXs posted here about their ripped up hydraulic fans.

Ralph

 

[airbiscuit]

The two lower arms on the Three Point Hitch are properly called the LOWER LINKS, often improperly called Lift Arms. The the end of each LOWER LINK arms there is an articulated "Bull's Eye" hole in which the corresponding lift pins on the implements fit, with minimal clearance. LOWER LINKS vary greatly in size/strength from tractor to tractor. With small/light tractors and corresponding light implements it is sometimes not too difficult to jockey the implement manually to line up the implement pins with the LOWER LINK bull's eye holes to mount the implement. (review: minimal clearance)

With heavier tractors you have to repeatedly back up the tractor until the bull's eye holes match up to the tractor implement pins, because (as you pass 50 years of age) the implements are too heavy to move manually. As a newbie, I often moved the tractor 6-8 times to achieve the match. Telescoping LOWER LINKS do just that, they telescope/extend longer so you do not have to move the tractor, the LOWER LINKS, including the bull's eye holes, extend/retract independently.

When an implement is mounted on the Three Point Hitch and you move over even slightly uneven ground the implement will sway, hitting the moving tractor tires. Three Point Hitch stabilizers adjust to remove slack in the LOWER LINKS, preventing the implement from hitting the moving tires. So, after mounting implements it is usually necessary to adjust the stabilizers to remove slack relative the the specific width implement you intend to use. On economy tractors the LOWER LINK stabilizers are flexible turnbuckles, sort of like adjustable chains. You screw an adjusting nut on each side to remove LOWER LINK slack. Turnbuckles are strong PULLING with the tractor moving forward, but provide no support when when the tractor is in reverse, pushing an implement; rather the turnbuckles will bend, requiring replacement. (Replacement metric turnbuckles are absurdly expensive.)

Rigid, pinned stabilizers adjust easily by moving one pin on each side into a selection of holes, setting the desired LOWER LINK slack. Rigid stabilizers, if of heavy enough structure, provide almost the same support to implements whether the tractor is moving forward or in reverse.

Both these quick, easy adjustments require more complex LOWER LINKS and stabilizers therefore are more expensive to manufacture. Pushing implements is most often and critically an issue operating Box Blades but same issues occur when using reversed Rear/Angle blades and reversed Landscape Rakes, which are pushed.

You will often drop and add implements during hot afternoons when your body is overheated from working.
If you are over age sixty or will be operating your first tractor after age sixty, avoid the potential for a heart attack, option the tractor for both telescoping Lower Links and pin adjustable, rigid LOWER LINK stabilizers.

Photo: Aftermarket pin adjustable, rigid stabilizers {14.4 pounds} versus (bent) factory original turnbuckle stabilizers {3.7 pounds}.


LINK: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...opic-stabilizers-check-chains.html?highlight=

What he said! :thumbsup:

I guess that's more profound than "Didn't think they were a big deal until I had them"

 

[RoyJackson]

The two lower arms on the Three Point Hitch are properly called the LOWER LINKS, often improperly called Lift Arms.You will often drop and add implements during hot afternoons when your body is overheated from working.
If you are over age sixty or will be operating your first tractor after age sixty, avoid the potential for a heart attack, option the tractor for both telescoping LOWER LINKS and pin adjustable, rigid LOWER LINK stabilizers.

I've seen them called "Draft Links" more often then "Lower Links"

Photo: Aftermarket pin adjustable, rigid stabilizers {14.4 pounds} versus (bent) factory original turnbuckle stabilizers {3.7 pounds}.


LINK: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...opic-stabilizers-check-chains.html?highlight=

IMHO, a Quick Hitch, or even Pat's Easy Change, is as good an option as telescoping links.
If the implement is QH compatible (some older ones aren't), a QH makes life simpler...especially with something like a rotary cutter or box blades.
If an older implement isn't QH compatible, the Pat's Easy Change works with any implement.
Two caveats:
1) One still has to hook up the PTO driveshaft
2) Both the QH and PEC extends the implement about 4" further aft. This may necessitate a longer PTO shaft or using a PTO extender.

 

[IslandTractor]

I've seen them called "Draft Links" more often then "Lower Links"



IMHO, a Quick Hitch, or even Pat's Easy Change, is as good an option as telescoping links.
If the implement is QH compatible (some older ones aren't), a QH makes life simpler...especially with something like a rotary cutter or box blades.
If an older implement isn't QH compatible, the Pat's Easy Change works with any implement.
Two caveats:
1) One still has to hook up the PTO driveshaft
2) Both the QH and PEC extends the implement about 4" further aft. This may necessitate a longer PTO shaft or using a PTO extender.

I think the adjustable telescoping lower links are more useful. With Pat's and similar systems, you still need to line the tractor lower links up perfectly so each is in position at the same time. The Pat's type give a bit more leeway than with rigid links but not more than half an inch or so. With adjustable telescoping links, you don't need to be perfectly perpendicular to the implement much less at the exact right distance. Each side adjusts (telescopes) independently so one can be 1" off and the other 3" off and you can still hook up easily. The only downside I've found (compared to Pat's) is that after hooking up, you need to remember to back up with the implement on the ground (or back into a tree if the implement has wheels or rollers). The backing up is necessary to pop the spring loaded telescoping parts back into a firm working locked position.

 

[varmint]

Kudos to Jeff for taking the time, and the thought, to write out a text-book explanation of 3 point hitch fine points! Well done. Note that many tractors (not only Kubota L's) can have their turnbuckle stabilizers replaced with factory aftermarket telescoping stabilizers- or custom ones like those Jeff used, which look to be first class. Be nice if they would just come that way, but maybe that's another nicety that Kubota reserves for the Grand L's.

 

[jeff9366]

A Quick Hitch, or even Pat's Easy Change, is as good an option as telescoping links.

ROY JACKSON:

Every OEM telescoping Lower Link installation I know of includes pin-adjustable, rigid stabilizers in the OEM package.

Does Pat's ECS do anything to reinforce the Lower Link stabilizers when PUSHING implements under load? (Tractor operating in reverse.)

Does a Quick Hitch do anything to reinforce the Lower Link stabilizers when PUSHING implements under load? (Tractor operating in reverse.)

PUSHING implements is most often and critically an issue operating Box Blades but same issues occur when using 180 degree reversed Rear/Angle blades and 180 degrees reversed Landscape Rakes, which are pushed.

 

[RoyJackson]

ROY JACKSON:

Every OEM telescoping Lower Link installation I know of includes pin-adjustable, rigid stabilizers in the OEM package.

Does Pat's ECS do anything to reinforce the Lower Link stabilizers when PUSHING implements under load? (Tractor operating in reverse.)

Does a Quick Hitch do anything to reinforce the Lower Link stabilizers when PUSHING implements under load? (Tractor operating in reverse.)

PUSHING implements is most often and critically an issue operating Box Blades but same issues occur when using 180 degree reversed Rear/Angle blades and 180 degrees reversed Landscape Rakes, which are pushed.

In answer to to the PEC, probably not
In answer to the QH, maybe, as the rigid QH probably distributes the load between the links.
Both of the above answers are opinions, not facts!

The 3PH is is for pulling a load, not pushing. Regardless of what type draft links one has, there's stresses on the draft links. It's up to the operator to use a degree of common sense when operating.
I have used a rear blade to push snow (in reverse gear). Since my blade did not have the capability to rotate 180 degrees, I pushed with the convex side of the blade. The convex side tends to ride up over an obstruction or frozen snow/ice.
However, I don't do that any more...the only implements I use in reverse occasionally are wheeled (rotary cutter and RFM).

 

[jeff9366]

The 3PH is is for pulling a load, not pushing.

Harry Ferguson, inventor of the Three Point Hitch, would have agreed with you during his life. He evolved the Three Point Hitch over twenty years, patenting each improvement, before licensing his patents to Henry Ford in 1939 for the Ford 9N tractor. However, Ferguson's fixation that his hitch and his tractors were perfected and could not be improved, allowed competing tractor producers to take business from him, without licensing Ferguson's patents. (Ferguson was blind to the markets desire for >30-horsepower and 4-WD tractors for years.)

However, the combination of telescoping Lower Links and pinned and adjustable rigid stabilizers, as executed by Kioti, LS and Kubota at least, are designed to be amply strong for the horsepower and weight of tractor with which they are packaged and the implements that will be pushed.

There are no warnings in Kubota operating manuals about stressing the Three Point Hitch operating in reverse when equipped with Kubota telescoping Lower Links and pinned and adjustable rigid stabilizers. In four years I have never read on T-B-N of an instance of FACTORY telescoping Lower Links and pinned and adjustable rigid stabilizers failing when being used to push implements. ~~~(Others may have read of failure.)

Machinery evolves, usually for the better. I think Harry Ferguson would rate today's telescoping Lower Links and pinned and adjustable rigid stabilizers as a WOW!

You should evaluate FACTORY telescoping Lower Links and pinned and adjustable rigid stabilizers together when comparing the pair to PECS or QH.

 

[RoyJackson]

I think you need to evaluate FACTORY telescoping Lower Links and pinned and adjustable stabilizers together when comparing the pair to PECS or QH. To do otherwise sub-optimally serves the readership.

You stated your opinion...I stated mine..simple as that. Others will make up their minds.