Tiller General tiller opinions, questions

[HappyCPE]

Regarding the width of the tiller, my garden beds are surrounded by grass [former pasture] strips which get cut with a weedwacker or a brush cutter. That way I can reach into the 60" wide beds from either side. Anything wider and you have to work in the soft dirt, defeating the purpose. Of course if your garden is a big area of upturned earth then this doesn't matter.

If I were doing it again I'd have looked for a 48" tiller that dug deeper than the 8" my Frontier machine does. At four feet the wheels of my tractor would straddle the seedbed and I wouldn't have to fool with offsets.

 

[rickster]

TSC has 12 months same as cash till the 25th . 60" kk tiller for $1200.00
Are any of you going to take advantage of this deal?

 

[flusher]

I'll second that. That's were I purchased my tiller a 4.5' model. A few dings on the sheet metal but unit was so quite I had to turn around to be sure it was running. Tines on mine were almost new and still had lot of paint on them. Does a better job than I had ever expected.

I'm using a pre-owned Yanmar RS-1200 tiller (4-ft wide) to do the landscaping around my new house. Paid $300 for it at my local grey market tractor dealer. Added another $150 for a decent pto shaft and slip clutch. The shaft that came with the tiller was shot and the unit doesn't have a shear bolt anywhere. I had to install a 6" long shaft extender on the tiller to keep the slip clutch from hitting the sheet metal on top of the tiller.

The lower lift arms on my Kubota B7510HST are too short (26") to accommodate the shaft extender, slip clutch and pto shaft. So I installed the longer lift arms (34") from my MF-135 on the 7510. The pto shaft is one of the short ones from TSC that I cut to length to accommodate the tiller.

The tiller works OK in ground that I previously plowed with my middle buster. It struggles with dry, undisturbed soil. I sure beats hanging onto a walk-behind tiller while it bounces around.

 

[hemiguy]

I'm looking for a small (4 footish) tiller that I can use on either my JD2520CUT (22PTO hp) or JD455 L&G (18PTO hp and yes its 540rpm and a CAT1 3pt). Today I looked at Farmtrac RTS48 (chain drive, 4 tines/flange, 330lbs) and RTM48 (gear drive, 6 tines/flange, 440lbs) . Both have a slip clutch. $1300 for the RTS48 and about $1450 for the RTM48. Anybody out there have a Farmtrac brand tiller of any size?

 

[JC-jetro]

TSC has 12 months same as cash till the 25th . 60" kk tiller for $1200.00
Are any of you going to take advantage of this deal?

I did get one for $1200. It looks good. Took it to my place. I had to service it prior use by greasing the shaft bearing zerk and the U-joints of the PTO shaft. I had to also fill the gearbox and the drive gear assembly. Ground was too soaked to try it out. Looking forward to try it next week on my plowed out garden site. The tiller is built though but the finish is not the best. KK is not particularly well known for paint quality. What bothers me was the shaft hub on the opposite of gear assembly is not centered uniformly. as I rotate the shaft by hand it rotates without catching but on the bottom is so close to the hub lip. does anyone have an opinion about it?




The shaft is not centerd in the hub but is not touching the hub


Tiller shaft and the Bearing hub

 

[ronbo3]

There is a place in Canton, Texas that sells used tillers and other tractor equipment. Name of the place I can't exactly remember, something like LCI Equipment....I was told that most of their tillers come from Japan, and some are more used than others. The price was $100 a foot (5ft tiller=$500), although when I went back to buy one, I was told the price was $125 a foot......I don't know if you're ready to drive to East Texas to look at tillers, but this place may be worth a look if you don't want to spend a lot of $$$.
Long story short, I decided to buy a new KK 5' tiller, and it has been great.

 

[SCDolphin]

Can you send those picts to KK and see what they say??

 

[JC-jetro]

Can you send those picts to KK and see what they say??

I talked to their engineering department ( I guess) and explained the situation. At first he said a little bit of out of round is okay, then he said the bearing is self aligning and compensate for misalignment. I then told him I have the cut sheet in front of me and looks to me that the bearing sits in there tight with no wiggle room. Then he said " well ... I reckon you just best take it back where you bought if from... I reckon" and I said ...well... much oblige. The guy reminded me of the Cletus the "slack jawed yokel" character in Simpsons. He was indeed friendly though. I called my Local TSC and the manager asked me to bring it by for a replacement. right after work I went to my place picked it up and took it to store. it was close to quitting time and just about everyone came to the yard and analyzed the problem with varying comments. I then promptly pulled out my pics and the parts breakdown and the manger asked " you're an engineer type .. ain't ya" and I promptly said "yep... you got it" . Any how they all agreed that tiller Will not last long or at least I will end up with premature failure of the shaft seal. It is note worthy that out of 8 tillers that they had none showed the misalignment I had. I reckon that's just my luck . I'm glad I noticed it before I used it. If I brought it back after use, I'm sure then they would have attributed the problem to " engineer's type , city slicker, operator error".

 

[HayDR]

You are doing the correct thing in returning the tiller and swapping it for another tiller. Even if there was nothing wrong with the tiller in your mind you suspected something was wrong.
Last year TSC returned over 500 tillers to K. These tillers were reworked and repainted and sold at many of the auctions as new K tillers. I know the man that handles K's re-run business.

 

[Bird]

I'm glad I noticed it before I used it. If I brought it back after use, I'm sure then they would have attributed the problem to " engineer's type , city slicker, operator error".

Maybe, but not necessarily so. It might depend on the individuals, but I bought a box blade from TSC a few years ago, used it to move dirt an hour or so and had welds break. They exchanged it for another one with no problem, and I broke the second one, too. They apparently just had a run with some inferior welds that did not penetrate. I told the manager that it appeared to just need proper welding and asked if they had a welder employed. They did not. But he said if I wanted to weld it, he'd pay a reasonable amount, if I wanted to take it to a welder, have it welded, and bring him the receipt, he'd pay for it, if I wanted to exchange it for a third one, he'd do that, or if I just wanted a refund of my money, he'd do that.

It's unfortunate, and annoying, when a company sells defective equipment, but it can happen to any company, and I don't know any way TSC could have reasonably done more than they did to make it right.