Just kind of stumbled across this thread...
I got my
B7800 (HST) back in 2010. It had 748 hrs on it. I believe it's a 2006. It had been heavily used: came with a new bucket; I think the hood was also replaced (I promply managed to dent the heck out of it!). It's been to war with me since. Now has about 1,800hrs, so I've put well over 1,000 hrs on it. It'll be that last piece of equipment I part with. Although I've broken some things on it I've been able to repair/fix. It's dented up and looks the part of something that's got 1,800hrs and has been at war, but it just keeps going, always ready to do the work I ask it to do. It's nearly indestructible. I've tried! I've done stuff with it that would freak out most people: four-wheeling on and over top of a bunch of brush (not really knowing what's underneath), using it pry out stumps (with bucket levered under a part of the stump and literally bouncing the rear of the tractor, which would be off the ground, to pop out stumps- and no, that's not how I blew out a loader cylinder). I wouldn't dare try to be as harsh with my Kioti NX5510. I now use my Kioti more (got it new and now have 550 hrs on it): it does the heavy lifting and now most of the mowing. The
B7800 was really built for the rental market, expecting to see extreme abuse. Recently did major maintenance on it (including adjusting valves; repaired leaky joy stick control block/valve- very happy to finally deal with that leak!). Don't think that there's any tractor today that's as bullet proof as the
B7800.
1/4 inching valve just flat out sucks. As someone who is more than versed in operating one of these it's second nature to me; but, when I go to turn this thing over to my wife to use for mowing around the homestead area I'll learn anew how much it sucks: with positioning I can tell her to just move the lever to number X and be done with it (rather than: "look behind you, move the lever until you see the desired height," whatever that may be- almost always a trial and error thing.
Best addition: bucket tooth bar (Landpride- from dealer); managed to bend it (had to use a sledge hammer to straighten it out) but not the bucket!
2nd best addition: ballasting the rear wheels
3rd best addition: a real alternator (Kubota kit), which I needed in order to add lights
Still looking/wanting to replace the lower link turnbuckles with adjustable links.
Items broken/replaced (in over 1,000 hrs of my use):
- Tie rod
- Bucket curl cylinder
- Seat (broke while doing a lot of mowing and I finished mowing without a seat- ouch!)
- Battery (I think only one)
- Leaking loader joystick control valve
- Loader hydraulic hose (I've got a couple more that should be replaced)
- Lower front grill piece (cheap plastic)
- Engine compartment side panels (the clips wear out- I came up with a solution that has worked, but couldn't explain it here, and I don't have pictures)
Why you keep your smaller tractor (to rescue your bigger one! my Kioti was pinned in with my dump trailer which was starting to slide off into the abyss- had to dump the contents of the dump trailer, spread it around with the
B7800 and then get the trailer back up onto the path/road via come-a-long and
B7800):
The
B7800 owed the rescue as the Kioti had once had to pull it out of being stuck
Oh! My avatar is of my
B7800 with a load of wood in the bucket and towing a car/truck hood (I went through several to skid with) with a bunch of wood. Recently sold that box blade; did a TON of work with it: pushing debris forward with the bucket and then backing up and pushing another debris pile with the box blade!
