Tom,
Sorry I haven't responded to your private message yet. May as well do it here in case anybody else is interested.
The tiller showed up Thursday afternoon. I didn't have time to play with until Friday. After marking the PTO shaft to cut it down, I tried to get the tiller end off. This proved very difficult, and ended up taking me the next 2 hours of frustration. The shield on that end is very difficult to work around. I ended up taking the A-frame mast off, and the outer section of the boot, and was finally able to get into the small access panel. I then struggled to get the bolts off the input shaft end, only to discover that the clutch was frozen onto the shaft. It was obvious the tiller had been sitting outside a while due to the faded paint, so I guess it's no surprise the shaft was rusted. It was so nice out that day, I decided to work outside rather than in the shop. I finally came back to it Sunday morning. A little WD40 and a small pry bar, and the clutch came off the shaft without much trouble.
I then proceeded to tear down the clutch to check for rust. There was a little, but nothing to worry about. Finished cutting the shaft down, cleaned up as much rust as I could, then put it all back together on the tractor (with liberal amounts of grease everywhere). Total time elapsed over the two days, about 6 1/2 hours, though I was working alone.
Next tried to get the clutch adjusted. I tightened all the clutch bolts down until the springs were completely compressed, then backed them off 3 full turns. This allowed the clutch to slip without much trouble when I lowered it to the ground. I then tried tightening the bolts one full turn, then tried it again. This time, it starting really chewing into the ground. When I hit the rocks (inevetible around here), the clutch did not slip. It began chewing up the rocks, and even broke several of them, when the engine began slowing down. By the time I got the tiller raised up out of the hole, it had nearly stalled the tractor. It's kind of a catch-22, because with the engine so heavily loaded, the hydraulics were pretty slow raising it up. Anyway, I lugged the engine pretty good, but only a few seconds, and it never did stall it. Hopefully no damage, but there's nothing I can do about it now. I loosened the clutch bolts another 1/2 turn, and things seemed to work better this time. For testing, I moved to an area that was a little less difficult, and ended up tilling about a 25 ft swatch. I hit a few rocks, but it just spit them out, and there was no noticeable strain on the engine at all. I have a feeling the clutch is still a little tight, but it was about to start pouring down rain, so I gave up for the day. Before going back out with it, I will back it off another 1/6 or 1/3 turn and try again.
As for my impressions, after only actually using the tiller for about 5 minutes: I think that for the price, I got a pretty good deal. The fit and finish is reasonable. It would have been nice if it hadn't sat outside so long, but that was the dealer. The manufacture date was 10/00, so the machine was sitting somewhere for a year and a half. One annoying thing was that it was shipped in the offset position. I got the 48" so I wouldn't have to offset it. Part of the 6-1/2 hours was moving it back to center.
The offset function is 6-1/2" or nothing. The top-mast moves to a different set of brackets towards the center, and the clevis-style lower lift points unclamp and get moved as well. If you want to be able to offset/center as situations dictate, this is probably not the machine for you. Something I consider a design flaw is that the input shaft on the tiller is only directly aligned when in the offset position. With it centered, it's off almost 6 inches. If you get one, be sure you measure the shaft in the position you will use the tiller. Fortunately, I left mine a little longer, thinking I could always take a little more if necessary. This ended up being just abour right with it centered. Also, with the built-in offset of the drive shaft, you need to make sure you disengage the PTO before you get near full lift on it. It starts to make some bad noises and vibrate a bit over the last 2 or 3 inches of lift, which from some other posts sounds like I'm exceeding the angles for smooth operation.
So much for the down-side. On the positive side, the 25' swatch I did came out absolutely beautiful. I let it till to full depth on the first and only pass, and the result was nicely tilled (all ground up, but not dust). The back flap covering the tines left it very well distributed and smoothed out. As I said before, I did hit a few rocks, one of which was about 8 x 5 x 4 inches. It chewed on it for a few seconds, the engine never seemed to notice, then it ended up leaving it lying on the surface for me. Aside from forgetting to send a manual (or maybe the shipping company "misplacing" it??), my experience with the dealer was pretty good. He answered all of my questions via e-mail, and I only called them to actually place the order. They normally ship FOB, but there is at least one carrier that can do curbside with a hydraulic tailgate, which is what I had them do. For value, I think I did quite well. The tiller was 839.95, tax 54.60, and shipping about 75 (with curbside).
If I had to do it again, I wouldn't feel it was a bad choice to go with this tiller. However, I might want to look around a bit more. Since ordering it, I found reference to a Sicma tiller that sounds in the same price category. If I could have the opportunity to "kick the tires" on the Caroni and others, I might make a different choice, but since dealers are scarce around here (except for big-name stuff, with big-name price tags), that probably wouldn't have been practical anyway. As far as the size goes, I would definitely not go over what I got, the 48" width and 400lbs. The tractor seems steady enough with the tiller fully raised, but intuition says I was getting to it's limit (all I had on the front end was the FEL, empty).
Hope that helps.
Kevin
PS. Whatever tiller you go with, don't forget to check the lubrication of everything before using. Fortunately, there was a sticker near the gearbox reminding me it was shipped dry. I also greased up the PTO shaft where there were zerks. I would not be surprised if other companies shipped them dry, or at least less than full capacity.
