Thanks dfkrug. that's was a major concern of mine. how would the hydraulics match up if I found a smaller bh that would do what I need but was half the size of what is recommended for my tractor. Hate to see something cheap cost me a bundle in tractor repairs.
That's exactly what I did....we often needed a hoe for a small job so I found a small 3pt hoe and used it on our JD530 - which is a moderately heavy farm tractor. Mounting that little 3pt hoe on a Category II 3pt hitch looked a bit odd, but even a small hoe can out-dig a whole group of people with shovels. And to my surprise, it could even throw the back end of the tractor around. A small hoe can't lift much or very high or far, so it makes up for the shortcomings by having a high "bite" pressure as the bucket curls. So check that the bucket curl force is high...that will be the sign of a good small hoe. High bucket curl force means that the bucket itself will need to be heavily constructed and will look rather overbuilt for that size of hoe. You can spot a commercial duty backhoe right away just by looking at how heavily built that the bucket is.
If you use a small hoe on a large tractor it would pay to get a real stout one. Having used one like that for a decade, most 3 pt hoes look a bit flimsy to me. Particularly the buckets.
The hydraulic connections to the farm tractor aren't a problem. Hydraulic pressure on any tractor with open center hydraulics like Kubota uses is close enough to the same 2500# regardless of RPM. But you need to keep the flow rate low to avoid slamming the backhoe around. Flow rate is directly proportional to RPM. On our tractor and probably on yours this just means that the tractor is restricted to running at a low idle when the backhoe is working.
However, if your low idle is still too much flow and slams the hoe around then either mount a flow diverting proportioning valve setup in the hoses to the backhoe, or get the kind of hoe that has it's own hydraulic pump and reservoir to be drive by the tractor's PTO. I ended up with that kind and actually liked the PTO type better as it mounted farther back away from the tractor and so it had more ability to get into a small area. It costs more, but has more room for an operator's seat right on the hoe. You want a little hoe to be mounted as far back from the tractor as it can be. Otherwise you will be working not much past the shadow of the rear tires!
One thing about small hoes and especially small 3pt hoes is that they don't lift a load up very high. Mine did better than most, and it still wouldn't even load a standard pickup truck. So check how high it will load a bucket full with the bucket still curled around a load of dirt. It may surprise you at how little height it really has.
BTW, 3 pt hoes have one BIG DANGER!!! BE SURE to disable the 3pt draft control when the hoe is mounted. Three pt backhoes have a bad reputation for killing people who forgot that. o
What happens is that if draft control is left enabled, the 3pt hitch can repeatedly cycle and fold up the entire hoe around the lower arm pins - trapping the operator.
That happens because the top link on a 3pt hoe is rigid and so any down pressure by the bucket will cause the top link to compress which just happens to be the signal that draft control tractors use to automatically raise the lower 3pt arms a tiny bit.
Draft Control was intended to work with implements that allow pivoting at the arm ends, but a 3 pt hoe has to be mounted rigid or it won't do any work. Even worse, once the draft control cycles the first time, it farther compresses the top link and so the 3pt will automatically continue to raise until something breaks. A category II 3pt hitch is tremendously powerful.
I'd not bother with finding a hoe that would fit your tractor that was big enough to clear 10 acres. Our
M59 comes close to being made for that type of work, and if I had to do that I'd hire the rough work done by a dozer and then use the
M59. Save your tractor for what it's built to do. And it'll run a little hoe no problem. Ours did.
good luck!
rScotty
