My NX5510H

[mudplugger]

DieselBound,
That looks like one heck of a box blade...
Hope it works well for you.

We have very few uses for that sort of thing over here - and if we do need grading - I have a neighbour with a CAT dozer with a laser guided levelling blade. He's a contractor that builds roadways and ponds/lakes/slurry lagoons - so that's much easier!
Little levelling jobs we use a loader bucket on one of the tractors followed by a power harrow and roller...

 

[DieselBound]

My needs are a lot simpler, though they present a fair amount of complexities. I'm mostly working land for running fence lines. Right now I'm dealing with an area that is going through a VERY wet location. I'm guessing that I've put down (and mostly graded) between 324k lbs and 432k lbs (or even slightly more!) of material for 100' or so. Material gets transported via dump trailer behind the Kioti: one-way distance of about 1/3 to 1/2 mile. Most has been placed from the trailer, but the last 8 loads were dumped at the head of the spot I'm working because I needed to grade things down, and because navigation is really tight; yesterday I scooped and deposited most of this 8 loads of material deeper into the abyss:laughing: But "abyss" isn't too far from the mark. I've got several trees that limit the width that I can grade out: a CAT/dozer wouldn't fit. I run my B7800 (with 5' box blade) in to spread and smooth such that I can then get the Kioti in with more material. If I were to employ a dozer I'd have to go with a LOT more material; and, I'm sure that such operations might start to become more noticeable (I don't with to attract the attention of the authorities; my neighbors don't care).

I'll look to post some pictures later.

Oh yeah, clicked over 94 hrs on the Kioti: gotta look and see what maintenance is due at 100 hrs. HST is shifting into "M" better, though I swear it's getting harder to shift into "L.":confused3: The other day, without the aid of the manual , I figured out how to operate cruise Happy to find out that it works (I should have verified this earlier in case it was defective).

Also just ordered up a new PTO shaft for the Bush Hog 286 mower. The one that came with it was trash: I replaced a U-joint only to discover that the shaft was bent; previous owner had replaced the shaft due to being unable to find replacement U-joints- I suspect he hadn't spec'd the shaft properly and that that resulted in him stressing and bending this one. Not a big problem as I am wanting to concentrate on this one fence segment for now; but, really want to have this mower available for mowing as the Kioti is just WAY nicer to mow with than the B7800.

 

[DieselBound]

Here's pictures of the work I've been doing with the Kioti (and the B7800).

Before (I'd had a small excavator in at the end of summer last year or the year before and enlarged a hand-dug ditch; I'm slicing through this area, avoiding the ditch and slightly jogging between trees):


Current progress, looking back toward the area in the above picture:


Current progress, looking forward. Made a bit more progress following this picture. Have, perhaps, another 50' - 70' to go:


Objective is to run a fence (fixed knot woven wire) through here. I'll be putting in t-posts, so no need to bring in any equipment to get posts in. I suspect that over time I'll likely push out a bit here and there to make it easier to maintain: will see how things settle down, and how the existing trees coexist (one very big cedar will never be touched- stumps are just too difficult to deal with- I've done a MASSIVE cedar stump before and it was a LOT of work [was using a 19k lb excavator, and that was a bit undersized]; besides, I generally won't cut trees).

Oh yeah, the pictures, as always seem to be the case, are a bit misleading in that there's a fair amount of slope here. It's not flat.

 

[neopheous]

Staging the Hose Saver (HS) and I'm not liking how it looks. Some of this has to do with the length of the lines on the grapple- they're 6'. EA said that they were going to provide longer lines and it now looks like that wasn't a good choice. While the HS appears like it will support the 3/8" lines on the loader OK the grapple lines (1/2") have too much slack.

Another issue with the HS is that it seem too short, such that the hose couplings hang down and against the torque tube. If I were to lengthen the 3/8" lines to drop the couplers lower then the excess slack on that side (grapple) is going to be worse.

It's a pain trying to temporarily set things in place to check position/operation. I'll see if I can get a picture (need another set of hands).

I know you've already mounted yours, but I actually just ground the paint off of the same place where you had it welded and then I used JB weld to secure it. Used it some yesterday and seemed to work ok. It still seems to stretch out the lines at the grapple connections when fully closed and fully tilted down.... not sure if this is normal or not...

 

[DieselBound]

Kind of depends on the hose lengths. I'm actually a bit long: wish they were shorter. I'd also have liked to have had 3/8" couplers rather than 1/2": larger are bulkier and heavier.

Speaking of these hoses... the hose fitting on one of the hoses failed (at the rear). Pretty messy. A bit upset that a higher quality hose (higher abrasion resistance and higher pressure rating) failed due to a bad end. Not sure what I'm going to do about this. I'm pretty much caught up on all the stuff I was wanting to grapple in which case I removed the grapple (disconnected the hoses from the rear remotes) and put the bucket back on

Really had a workout with the box blade grading an area that I recently cleared. It was a lot of work but it got the job done. Running in reverse for the final touches is the ticket.

Was just about done with my grading work when the tractor died on me. I was running really low on fuel so I figured that I probably needed more. Dumped in 5 gallons. Fired it up and after a few seconds it would die. Repeated this a few times. Pulled the fuel line at the filter and discovered that I wasn't able to blow back through it (like I did when I suspected a blockage due to icing). Had a tank of compressed air with me and that wasn't able to clear the line. Hmm.... Crawled under the tractor and was starting to loosen the line at the bottom of the tank and I looked up and saw my first stick trophy! A chunk of wood pushed up alongside the fuel line and had pinched off the fuel flow! That 5 gallons of fuel allowed me to finish off my grading work (if I hadn't had that fuel I would have likely called it quits for the day- headed back to the house) :thumbsup:

 

[Turbys_1700]

That is a really nice blade there Diesel. I doubt very seriously that you will ever wear it out. You can do some serious grading with that unit. Get us some action photos moving dirt. What does that puppy weigh? I would guess 1200#.

 

[DieselBound]

Just pushed over 197hrs and the Kioti is still working like a champ. BUT, I just experienced an issue that I figured I'd alert others to....

I managed to pop out one of the 3pt arms' pins (tractor side). I wasn't paying much attention, didn't really know that that had happened, despite cursing that I was struggling to get a good cut with the mower (was digging in a lot). Kioti uses 10x1.25 bolts (50mm?) to hold those pins in and the one apparently made an escape on me. I was fortunate in that the pin managed to pop into the area below the PTO shaft and grass cuttings held it there (for several hours runtime!). Called the dealer and got the size of the bolt; they said they were going to let the factory rep know ASAP. I told them that I was going to put thread locker on the bolts: I have zero reason to remove the arms; don't know why anyone really would, but blue thread locker can be broken loose if the need did arise.

So, check those link arm pin bolts (I recommend using thread locker on them)!

Turbys, yeah the box blade weighs 1,200 lbs (or 1,250 lbs). I've been doing a LOT of grading, cutting up sod; actually, been doing so without the scarifiers, the cutting edge digs in hard and I can have it peeling sod like crazy: the sod will curl up and on to the box blade which gives me a TON more weight, which helps to really smooth things (I'll back off on the cutting and just run it around to smooth/level). I managed to break the mechanism that controls the scarifier bar (not sure what is going on, but the bar would keep drifting down on me and I wasn't paying close enough attention and while pushing with the blade stuff came under and pushed hard against the scrifiers and popped that linkage piece- was looking out back and saw it explode!). Ended up stuffing a 2x4 under the bar to hold it up. The scarifiers, I've found, really aren't needed, at least not for my use, not now, as the cutting edge (having that 1,200 lbs concentrating on the blade edge) bites really hard. I start to feel that I'm competing in a tractor pull:laughing:

I've got some pics, but the battery on my phone is currently low.

Kioti will be getting a bit of a rest as I'm now ready to dig post holes. I'll be renting a skid steer with an auger for this work.

 

[DieselBound]

Here's somewhat of an action shot. It's about 200' of a 500' fence line I'm clearing (have three additional lines of roughly the same length). Had to carve out a hump as the line comes to the front gate.

 

[DieselBound]

First longer-term issue has surfaced.



Noticed some weeping when I was servicing at 200 hrs. Looks worse than it is, but I'm not thinking it's going to heal itself. I've alerted the dealer and am waiting to hear back on what the course of action is going to be.

My left side door latch is becoming a little belligerent of late, requiring me to use the little tab to get the latch to lock. Not sure if this is the intended way to close, but I've always been using the hand rail to close and that's almost always been sufficient. Think I'll try lubing first and see if that helps.

And on a more positive note, the tractor just does everything I ask of it/want it to do. I recently rented a skid steer to auger a bunch of holes for fence posts and I was very impressed (as I've been with the excavators I've rented), but there's no mistaken why I shelled out money on a new (bigger) tractor, and that is because it's just hard to beat the versatility of a tractor. A skid steer (or an excavator) isn't going to be doing this (running 1/2 mile up the road to drop off some firewood to a neighbor):

 

[countrybumpkin]

I had the same leak on mine about 1-1/2 years ago, dealer fixed under warranty. As for the latch, take off the black cover and check the bolts that hold the latch to the door, mine did that during the first 10 hrs I had it, kept getting harder and harder to latch When closing the door. I think I may have put a drop of loctite on them, I'm at almost 500 hrs with no further issue.