King Kutter disc is a piece of garbage

[Chain Bender]

I
I'm not much with all the picture posting, but I'll try to take some pics this morning before I go to church to show the "poblems" I have encountered.

Bottom line is that with the configuration the disc is sold in it is impssible to adjust the gang set without completely removing a 5/8 inch bolt (adjustment pin) and loosening a pair of 5/8" bolts on each interior gang. Then and only then can you move the gangs. Then you can drop the center (adjusting) bolt back in, re-tighten the two bolts on the gangs, then tighten the center bolt. Repeat this for the other set of gangs if you wish to adjust them too.

Oh, wait a minute. There's this problem with a 3/8" thick piece of metal bumping up against the main frame preventing the gangs from moving more than one adjustment hole.

Maybe I'm the only one to experience the problem, but I doubt it.

CB

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Here's some pix of the design flaws:
As you can see in this picture, the gang frame is butted up against the main frame, prohibiting any forward adjustment of the gangs, even if all the bolts are loosened to the point of falling off.

a downward picture of the limited adjustability caused by the main frame and gang flange hitting.

Here are pictures of the flat bar welded on the flanges so tight up against the center rail of the frame that you can't move/change the gang setting, even using an 8# hammer!

 

[Ford850]

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Here's some pix of the design flaws:
As you can see in this picture, the gang frame is butted up against the main frame, prohibiting any forward adjustment of the gangs, even if all the bolts are loosened to the point of falling off.

a downward picture of the limited adjustability caused by the main frame and gang flange hitting.

Here are pictures of the flat bar welded on the flanges so tight up against the center rail of the frame that you can't move/change the gang setting, even using an 8# hammer!

It looks like you have the gangs slid too far towards the center on the tubes. Loosen the U-bolts and slide each gang outwards. Or loosen all the U-bolts and then make the angle adjustments to the gangs, then tighten the U-bolts after you know there will be clearance. You just don't have it adjusted right.
As for the small cleats welded on, they are to keep the gangs from changing angles independently. Otherwise you would have to crank all the bolts down tight every time and even then they wouldn't hold. With some use they will wear in and get some slop to them. If you already ground some off then they will be sloppy now and might get more loose later on. But after looking at other brands they are sloppy when new so yours should be fine now after grinding. You shouldn't need the 2 bolts (one on either side of the center bar) tight. They should be loose enough so you only have to remove that one center bolt on each pair of gangs to move them. Good luck and have fun disking. I've got 3 more inches of snow this morning so I am envious of you if you can get in the field today.

 

[Ford850]

I did not catch that Ford, however, The dealer would probably do the same swap out or money back. In addition the dealer could send some one out with correct parts to make the repair. Ken Sweet

Agreed. If I were upset with it, I would call the dealer to correct the issue or figure it out myself and figure I have no complaint if I assume responsibility. Things like this don't bother me when I'm buying a relatively lower priced implement. I know the risk going into the deal. Overall these middle quality brands have been very good to me with few minor tweaks.

 

[Chain Bender]

It looks like you have the gangs slid too far towards the center on the tubes. Loosen the U-bolts and slide each gang outwards. Or loosen all the U-bolts and then make the angle adjustments to the gangs, then tighten the U-bolts after you know there will be clearance. You just don't have it adjusted right.
As for the small cleats welded on, they are to keep the gangs from changing angles independently. Otherwise you would have to crank all the bolts down tight every time and even then they wouldn't hold. With some use they will wear in and get some slop to them. If you already ground some off then they will be sloppy now and might get more loose later on. But after looking at other brands they are sloppy when new so yours should be fine now after grinding. You shouldn't need the 2 bolts (one on either side of the center bar) tight. They should be loose enough so you only have to remove that one center bolt on each pair of gangs to move them. Good luck and have fun disking. I've got 3 more inches of snow this morning so I am envious of you if you can get in the field today.

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I went out and looked at the "cleats" you are talking about. Apparently they use some sort of jig to simulate the size of the center rail when welding the cleats onto the flanges. There is actually about 30/1000" clearance between the actual flange plates and the center rail. That clearance is caused/provide because the cleats are too close together and will not allow the flange plate to lay flat across the center rail. Same thing goes for the bottom flange plate. That's why the flange plates look bent when you tighten the bolts holding the flanges to the gang tube. If I get the gangs adjusted I still am faced with having to loosen those bolts before I can adjust the set. Removing 2 bolts and loosening 4 is a lot of trouble just to change the set.

My dad has an old disc that all you have to do is pull the center pin, slide the gangs to the set you want and drop the pins back in. Off the tractor, change the set and back in the seat in less than 3 minutes. His disc is bigger and heavier than mine and it has no cleats. The only thng he has replaced on it in the 27 years he's had it is the discs from being worn paper thin or broken.

I've used the cheap angle iron lightwieghts. I'm hard on my equipment so I bought the heavier box frames disc. It has obvious problems and I'll get them sorted out. But why should I have to go back over the whole discs and loosen and adjust things that should have been done by quality control?

As a side note, almost every lock washer on the disc was under so much stress from being over tightened that most were in a long "C" shape and actually squeezed out from under the nut.

 

[Chain Bender]

Agreed. If I were upset with it, I would call the dealer to correct the issue or figure it out myself and figure I have no complaint if I assume responsibility. Things like this don't bother me when I'm buying a relatively lower priced implement. I know the risk going into the deal. Overall these middle quality brands have been very good to me with few minor tweaks.

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I'm new at buying implements and thought $1100 for a small 5' disc was a pretty high price. And I especially thought since it was the only disc sold at the Kubota dealership that is was pretty good quality.

I think I have figured it out myself and will cut, grind, hammer, beat and bang it into a condition acceptable to me and will assume all responsibility for my modifications. But with only a few moving parts, you'd think they would at least "move".


The dealership won't be open again until Tuesday. I have a heart cath scheduled for that day.

I'm better now. Maybe I should change the title to this thread to "misfit" instead of piece of garbage. Think I'll go try to do that now.

CB

 

[LD1]

Now that I see what we are dealing with here, I see nothing at all wrong with that KK disk or how it is designed.

As an other poster mentioned, loosed the u-bolts and move the gangs out. That was probabally an assembly problem. Probabally at YOUR dealership, so no fault of KK there.

As to it being tight to slide, well, it is still new. It will wear in in short order. If they made them sloppy like you want, someone else would just complain about that.

And personally, if I were mine, I'd get rid of the 5/8" center bolts and go to a pin and clip.

 

[gwdixon]

The KK disc is exactly like the Howse mentioned earlier.

The disc is compacted for shipment. Notice how much room is on the end of the gang tubes. The U-bolts need to be loosened and the gangs moved outward. Others have mentioned this.

The center "slide" is also tightened for shipping. Otherwise the gangs could move around - not much, but some.

The center "slide" has bolts with nuts containing nylon "lock" inserts. This is so those can be left a bit loose so the unit can slide along the center frame tube. I also replaced the center bolt with a pin and clip rather than using a bolt and nut.

The guides welded onto the slide keeps the gangs in proper alignment when the bolts/nuts are a bit loose.

I had exactly the same issues that you describe and simply set up my disc for work from the original shipping configuration. But I did pick my up from the train dock rather than from a dealer. Your dealer could (should) have adjusted the disc before delivering it to you.

Can't say much about the split lock nuts being over torqued to the point of destruction. Some newbie must have gotten too enthusiastic with the air gun.

 

[kebo]

XXXXXXXXXX

Here's some pix of the design flaws:
As you can see in this picture, the gang frame is butted up against the main frame, prohibiting any forward adjustment of the gangs, even if all the bolts are loosened to the point of falling off.



a downward picture of the limited adjustability caused by the main frame and gang flange hitting.

Chainbender, it's been my experience that the two bolts in the picture above need to be somewhat loose to allow for limited flexing when the disc harrow is being pulled. I didn't read this in any of your posts, but it seems like maybe you are thinking these two bolts should always be tighted down as tight as you can get them? I think they should be a bit loose. Now, if they are loose, and you are having to loosen them even more to adjust the gang angles, then that is a problem. If the plates are too tight, maybe you could try adding a couple of fender washers under those plates? That should let you snug those two bolts up (but not all the way), yet still have some space in there to make it easy to adjust the gangs.

As for those two cleats that are welded too close together, maybe you could look at having two new plates made (with cleats) but have the cleats welded on so there is a little more distance in between them? One shouldn't have to do that on a brand new harrow, but you've already started down this path of fixing it yourself so that might be an option.

Honestly though, if you leave those two bolts a little loose and start using the harrow, the usual wear should start giving more clearance and make things a bit easier to adjust.

 

[Chain Bender]

Now that I see what we are dealing with here, I see nothing at all wrong with that KK disk or how it is designed.

As an other poster mentioned, loosed the u-bolts and move the gangs out. That was probabally an assembly problem. Probabally at YOUR dealership, so no fault of KK there.

As to it being tight to slide, well, it is still new. It will wear in in short order. If they made them sloppy like you want, someone else would just complain about that.

And personally, if I were mine, I'd get rid of the 5/8" center bolts and go to a pin and clip.

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I can tell you are one of the "peace makers" around here so I'll bow to your opinion on this disc. Admittedly I was furious when I was was off in the woods and was trying to adjust something that was "un-adjustable". Came home and just got more mad as I tried to adjust this "unit". The more I cut myself on the discs and beat and banged on what should have been an easy slide adjustment wouldn't budge. I'm standing on my head trying to see things from the bottom up and the top down.

I've replaced the flange bolts with longer ones and have slid the gangs outward about an inch and a half. Flange bolts aren't as tight as I would like for them to be, but if I tighten then any more they won't slide/adjust. I'll use if for a while and hope all the paint gets rubbed off and the metal gets worn in. Then I'll tighten the flange bolts again and hopefully that will be the end of the saga.

So here and now I admist I was more than a little haste in my judgement and retract my statement about KK being a piece of garbage. And further admit if it was assembled at my dealership they will get a piece of information to chew on Wed. when I go back down there.

There are NO nylon insert nuts anywhere on the disc. But I will certainly be looking for some to replace the existing nuts and destroyed lock washers. I have already replaced the adjustment bolts with drop in pins.

My bad...............

Chain Bender

 

[kebo]

One last comment.... I own a Frontier harrow, I've had a Lowery disk harrow before and we also have a Leinbach disk harrow at the hunt club. I don't think ANY of those harrows have those two little cleats on the plates that go above/beneath the center bar. As a suggestion, why don't you take the plates off, flip them over (with the cleats facing away from the main center bar) and see how that works?? I bet it will make it easier to adjust the gang angles. Yes, the gang angles will flex some as the harrow is pulled, but they won't flex too much. Certainly not enough to bend anything, but as I said before they need to flex some.

 

[Chain Bender]

Chainbender, it's been my experience that the two bolts in the picture above need to be somewhat loose to allow for limited flexing when the disc harrow is being pulled. I didn't read this in any of your posts, but it seems like maybe you are thinking these two bolts should always be tighted down as tight as you can get them? I think they should be a bit loose. Now, if they are loose, and you are having to loosen them even more to adjust the gang angles, then that is a problem. If the plates are too tight, maybe you could try adding a couple of fender washers under those plates? That should let you snug those two bolts up (but not all the way), yet still have some space in there to make it easy to adjust the gangs.

As for those two cleats that are welded too close together, maybe you could look at having two new plates made (with cleats) but have the cleats welded on so there is a little more distance in between them? One shouldn't have to do that on a brand new harrow, but you've already started down this path of fixing it yourself so that might be an option.

Honestly though, if you leave those two bolts a little loose and start using the harrow, the usual wear should start giving more clearance and make things a bit easier to adjust.

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I agree that the bolts need to be slightly loose. If they are tight that compresses the flanges into the adjustment/center rail and all movement ceases. But, if I loosen the existing bolts enough to allow movement, the bolt is too short and only runs about 1/2 way into the nut. That won't last long and the nut will work it's way off and be gone.

I've resolved the issue with a temporary fix. I think some nylon insert nuts should cure it now that I've moved the gangs out and put longer bolts in it. But I still reserve the right to say the wrong bolts/nuts are being used in the original configuration.

 

[sweettractors]

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I'm new at buying implements and thought $1100 for a small 5' disc was a pretty high price. And I especially thought since it was the only disc sold at the Kubota dealership that is was pretty good quality.

I think I have figured it out myself and will cut, grind, hammer, beat and bang it into a condition acceptable to me and will assume all responsibility for my modifications. But with only a few moving parts, you'd think they would at least "move".


The dealership won't be open again until Tuesday. I have a heart cath scheduled for that day.

I'm better now. Maybe I should change the title to this thread to "misfit" instead of piece of garbage. Think I'll go try to do that now.

CB

Best of luck on the heart cath . We will have you in our prayers. Ken Sweet

 

[Chain Bender]

Best of luck on the heart cath . We will have you in our prayers. Ken Sweet

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Thanks Ken. I appreciate the thought. Probably should sign up for an anger management class too!

CB

 

[LD1]

Well, I'd consider myself ANYTHING but a Peacemaker on this forum.:laughing:

And KK , while they arent the absolute BEST money can buy, does have a pretty good reputation. And there was a rep for KK on here a few months ago as well.

I mean you NO disrespect when I say this, but the first posts you make on this forum is bashing a pretty good product name. Those of us that have been around here for awhile see it all the time. Some new guy signs up, has nothing but negatives to say about this brand or that brand. And 9 times out of 10, it is NOT the fault of the MFG.

And since you are new here, we really dont know you that well or your abilities with a tractor. You'd actually be supprised about how little some people know when they first buy a tractor. The kind of stuff that is just natural for most of us that grew up with it. Now if someone that has been around here awhile, with 1000+ posts, then I would have taken it a little more seriously. Again, no disrespect, but since you were new, I wasn't just going to sit by and let you bash a good company without knowing EXACTALLY what you were having issues with. That is why pictures are a MUST.

I think you understand now that this was clearly NOT KK's fault, and you know who to blame. I am glad we were able to resolve your issues the best we could. To quote a line from one of my favorite movies Shooter "Its about evidence and finding the truth"...or something like that.

It does IMO look like a very well built disk. I doubt you will ever be able to tear it up with a L3200. I hope we didnt beat you up too bad and you stick around here for awhile and post often. It really is an addicting forum.

And good luck on tuesday with the heart cath. Like Ken said, our prayers are with you.

 

[sweettractors]

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Thanks Ken. I appreciate the thought. Probably should sign up for an anger management class too!

CB

We all have days when things don't go right. I had one Friday. The electricity was out part of the day and that had the computers down. I could have said a bad word, if I had not restrained myself Ken Sweet

 

[Chain Bender]

I understand your postition and can't/won't argue with it. Usually cooler heads prevail. Mine was far from cool yesterday.

I guess I was so upset I couldnt see the obvious problems (other than myself). I never for a minute thought it needed to be "serviced" before it could be properly used. I also couldn't imagine having to tote around a 12" crescent wrench and a 15/16" box wrench to adjust the set on the gangs. Granted it should have been taken care of at the dealership. I'll have a long discussion with the salesman Wed while we stand and look at one just like mine sitting on the back lot. Maybe he'll see my point and donate some 5" grade 5 bolts and nuts to the cause.

I was wrong, I admitted it on national TV. Sorry to stir up so much commotion. I haven't been disrespected, just shown the error of my ways.

Again, my bad.

Lee

 

[kebo]

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Thanks Ken. I appreciate the thought. Probably should sign up for an anger management class too!

CB

No, you just need to drop your membership from the "Jump the Gun" club! :laughing:

Seriously, good luck with the heart cath too.

We had a guy at work that had one done a couple weeks ago, he was in his early 40's and never suspected he had a heart problem. However, after the procedure he had some upper back pain that magically went away. He always attributed the back pain to something else. You never know, just need to watch for all the little warning signs.

 

[Ford850]

Chain,
Glad to hear you're getting it in working order. It does sound like longer bolts and nylon lock nuts will make for a better arrangement.
When you go to use it, you might want to add more weight on it for better penetration too. I add a couple hundred pounds on top of the frame of my disk to cut in the soil or sod much quicker on the initial passes. It's more wieght to deal with but I like the results better.

 

[LD1]

I understand your postition and can't/won't argue with it. Usually cooler heads prevail. Mine was far from cool yesterday.

I guess I was so upset I couldnt see the obvious problems (other than myself). I never for a minute thought it needed to be "serviced" before it could be properly used. I also couldn't imagine having to tote around a 12" crescent wrench and a 15/16" box wrench to adjust the set on the gangs. Granted it should have been taken care of at the dealership. I'll have a long discussion with the salesman Wed while we stand and look at one just like mine sitting on the back lot. Maybe he'll see my point and donate some 5" grade 5 bolts and nuts to the cause.

I was wrong, I admitted it on national TV. Sorry to stir up so much commotion. I haven't been disrespected, just shown the error of my ways.

Again, my bad.

Lee

Well, I really hope you stick around the forum for awhile.

You were wrong, you knew it, and admitted it. It takes a big man to do that. That is saying something for you. And I have a whole lot more respect for you and people like you who can admit when they are wrong, which isn't easy to do sometimes. We all have our bad days and jump to conclusions too often. but is is how we act once we cool down a bit that tells of the kind of person you are.

If your dealer is a good dealer, they will make it right with you and may supply you with the bolts. Maybe they were like you and honestly didn't know there was any set-up required. At least this may be a learning experience for them that way the next customers don't have to go through the trouble that you had to.

 

[Chain Bender]

Chain,
Glad to hear you're getting it in working order. It does sound like longer bolts and nylon lock nuts will make for a better arrangement.
When you go to use it, you might want to add more weight on it for better penetration too. I add a couple hundred pounds on top of the frame of my disk to cut in the soil or sod much quicker on the initial passes. It's more wieght to deal with but I like the results better.

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Some of the stuff I' trying to cut-in has never been turned over in the 150+ years that the proprety has been in the family. My dad has finally turned over the reigns at the age of 89 and I intend to clean up the property lines and old fence rows while I'm still able.

I've got 12 old sub ballast weights I use for added weight around the house. They're lead and only 4X4X12 roughly. They average 51#. I'll have to build a frame on the disc to lay them in. That shouldn't be a problem. There are a lot of honeysuckle vines and stuff growing around/over the old fence rows, so that's going to be a tuff cut-in. Hope to get the initial discing done before I have my left knee replaced late this month. So much to do and so little time left to get it done before I have the surgery. I need to bush hog down through the pines since we burned them last week. We finally had a good rain last night to wash down the ashes a little. Hope to get started one day this week.

My dad's old disc is so heavy we had to weld three 30" pieces of railroad iron onto the front bumper to keep the front end on the ground when the disc was raised. His old 135 has served him well since 1972. Hope my Kubota lasts me that long.