Pics of my new Kubota L3940

[beppington]

Posted for pic only; Ignore

 

[beppington]

I got a new bucket, actually a grapple-bottom bucket (the bottom half of a grapple), from Wild Kat (in Denton, NC 336-857-2564) off eBay, to let me lift piles of debris/ branches/ bushes or push the teeth into the ground & pry roots/ saplings out. This one is 66" wide & they call it their "HD Deep Grapple" ... "Deep" because the teeth are long for penetrating deep into the ground, & "HD" because this thing is definitely heavy duty! All 7 teeth & their triangular braces are 1/2" thick steel. The verticals are 5/16" steel. I don't know what thickness the horizontal members are, but this thing is really heavy; maybe actually too heavy for my tractor, but so far so good, though I haven't tried lifting anything really heavy with it, yet.

I did have a problem with this bucket in that my Kubota's SS QA securing pins didn't press against the Wild Kat bucket's QA securing surface. There was a gap of about 3/8" - 7/16" of an inch, so the bucket could literally move all around sloppily. I was afraid it would actually fall off, or damage/ twist my loader, so I contacted Wild Kat. They said they had never heard of this problem, but UPS'd me 2 additional "lap plates" to have welded on to take up the gap. I took the bucket & the plates to a local guy who welds, & he charged me $30 to prep the area & weld the plates on. I brought the bucket back to the tractor, tried it out & now the fitment is nice & tight with no more play/slop. I wire-brush cleaned the lap plates, welds & general area, spray painted it black, & it's done.

Other than that issue, this thing is built like a beast! Welds seem really good, strong & complete, running along all edges of all joined metal pieces (as opposed to occasional tacking).

The full, complete 66" HD Deep Grapple is $1,700, & Wild Kat sold me this bottom half for $700 + $162 shipping.

- - - - -

OEM Kubota bucket fitment; Note how the sloped surface of the securing pin is jammed tight against the bucket's securing surface, as it should be, which secures the bucket nice & tightly:

The gap:

I measured the dimensions of all of the various structural SS QA members on both my Kubota OEM bucket & the Wild Kat grapple bucket, & they were very similar, within about 1/16" of each other. I happened to notice a gap in between the OEM Kubota bucket & the Kubota SS QA mounting surfaces, seen in this pic, that I think must've been the difference between the 2 fitments:

Here is the fix:

Unpainted:

Painted:

Final:

 

[Grateful11]

I like the idea of getting the bottom half of a Grapple, never really thought about it. I assume it has everything already welded on if you wanted to add the rest of the grapple later. I can't swing the 3rd function conversion right now. There's about 3 different companies making skid-steer type attachments in Denton. I live about 45 minutes from there. Probably can't mention all of them on here.

 

[beppington]

I like the idea of getting the bottom half of a Grapple, never really thought about it. I assume it has everything already welded on if you wanted to add the rest of the grapple later. I can't swing the 3rd function conversion right now. There's about 3 different companies making skid-steer type attachments in Denton. I live about 45 minutes from there. Probably can't mention all of them on here.

I actually thought I'd be getting the entire bottom half, including the hinge pieces welded on as shown in the pic below, so that I could add the rest of the grapple later if I wanted to, but more importantly to me so the back/ vertical part of the bucket would be a little taller, but you can see in my pics above that they did not provide those. I would think they would if you just ask, though. I didn't realize I needed to ask.

 

[Grateful11]

So it appears they welded one up just for you. I too would have thought they
would have just left off everything for the grapple and shipped you a bottom
half with those pieces.

BTW: Wife has a 2010 L3940 HST-3 also, she has 290 hours on it, how yours doing so far?

 

[beppington]

So it appears they welded one up just for you. I too would have thought they
would have just left off everything for the grapple and shipped you a bottom
half with those pieces.

BTW: Wife has a 2010 L3940 HST-3 also, she has 290 hours on it, how yours doing so far?

Mine is great! :thumbsup: Could not ask for more really. It's just the right size for my "needs". A cab would be nice sometimes, but I go thru woods a lot, & I jump on & off the tractor a lot, so this open station with sun shade is the perfect compromise; I'll just have to wear a coat when it's cold, & I also have an umbrella stored, laying across the rear fenders snug up against the ROPS. I have a little over 300 hours on it now, so about the same as hers. Gonna need to do the 400 hour service not too long from now.

 

[Grateful11]

Mine is great! :thumbsup: Could not ask for more really. It's just the right size for my "needs". A cab would be nice sometimes, but I go thru woods a lot, & I jump on & off the tractor a lot, so this open station with sun shade is the perfect compromise; I'll just have to wear a coat when it's cold, & I also have an umbrella stored, laying across the rear fenders snug up against the ROPS. I have a little over 300 hours on it now, so about the same as hers. Gonna need to do the 400 hour service not too long from now.

and I believe that includes a complete change out of the hydraulic fluid that's going to be expensive. The filter are bad enough. The 2 filters alone are pushing $100.

 

[beppington]

Pics of my '07 Kawasaki Mule 610 Camo:

More ... click on these to see them bigger:

 

[beppington]

The pics of my Mule 610 are with new Carlisle All Trail tires on it. Carlisle says they're intended for hard surfaces, & I agree ... They give a very rough ride while riding around on my property. On pavement they're great.

Right now they're at full pressure (20 or 22 psi, can't remember which). I'm going to try reducing the pressure a little & see if that helps.

I wanted something more than the 7 psi max my previous Carlisle AT 489 tires would hold, but this is just too much, too rough, at least at full pressure.

 

[beppington]

Some dimensions of my 66" wide Wild Kat "HD Deep Grapple" grapple-bottom bucket (the bottom half of a grapple):