Things I didn't consider when buying

[Bullwinkle123]

I'm a new tractor owner. Things are going great, the tractor and attachments are 6 kinds of awesome.

Now that I have it, despite thinking everything to death prior to purchase, I'll just throw things on here that I didn't think of and am realizing after the fact.

1. I have all these forest trails I want to clear, and the brush hog is nice on them. Only ... the last logger left a bunch of big and too-tall stumps for me drive over. Oops! Changes how I must approach the problem.
2. I have a Kubota branded grease gun. What I didn't consider, the grease fitting is impossible to get on/off the zerks. The Lock-N-Lube is a life saver.
3. All my socket sets and 10" adjustable (or other) wrenches which have stood me in good stead for all my small project and home ownership chores are mostly useless on the tractor. They're not big enough! The nuts/bolts tend to _start_ at 1" width on all the big stuff you need to periodically check. My old sockets look like toy sockets by comparison. Even my 10" adjustable wrenches, which which I always thought of as big, are just useless on the new equipment. More $$ to amazon and home depot.
4. Neved had the need for a torque wrench. They're not cheap, and I'm not even looking at wrenches necessary for maintaining rotary cutter blades.
5. My garage lighting is so DIM. I need a flashlight to see anything on the tractor. So ... time for some new lighting.
6. The ladder I inherited with the house to reach the 11' ceilings and basically never use, er, there's a reason I got it for free. It's a death trap. Queue new ladder so I can reach those ceilings to fix the lighting situation.
7. Dang, gonna need to spend a lot of time making wheeled pallets if I want to store my attachments in the garage. Every attachment is just a wee bit different in its pallet needs. Hope you've been collecting casters.
8. Don't forget that new diesel gas can. American Eagle, 5 gallon, $39. And a funnel!
9. That's a lot of zerks at very low height, often I have to look up at them from under the tractor. Queue the harbor freight very short wheeled stool, definitely worth it (if it lasts).
10. That 14' 3/8" HF chain for towing stuff out of the woods is way too short. How long will I last without a proper winch?
11. Where am I supposed to carry stuff when the bucket isn't on the tractor (since the grapple is my favorite thing). Problem waiting to be solved, no doubt with much money.
12. I cannot imaging storing my implements on uneven ground, level cement floor is your friend. Affects new building decisions, potentially.
13. I knew I'd need the ROPS for my hilly land, and I knew my garage wouldn't fit it. And I haven't forgotten, yet, to let the ROPs down when putting in the garage. Doing that every day though is gonna get old. Hey, look, I probably don't need that transom over the garage door, right? Of course that means a new door, and some work reinstalling the garage door opener.

Anyway, hoping this might be useful for some of you considering your purchase. I'm sure others have many stories here.

One thing I didn't have to buy, the mosquito netting for my hat, which I use all the time out here in bug country. Since I don't have a cab, well, the may flies were very thick on my face netting today while I was tractoring around. Thank heavens for the net.

 

[RSR]

[*]Dang, gonna need to spend a lot of time making wheeled pallets if I want to store my attachments in the garage. Every attachment is just a wee bit different in its pallet needs. Hope you've been collecting casters.

I found the Harbor freight wheeled pallets work great, and are cheap. I just put two under each implement, and wheel them where I want to. They are easy to stack and store when not in use. The only implement I had to build something for was my Sundown GR 20 grapple. I just built it right on the pallets.

 

[Diggin It]

I really don't get the whole cement floor and wheeled dolly bit, or even parking a tractor in a garage. The 'new' shed I put up has a dirt floor. It's big enough now to get the machines in, but the implements stay outside .. in the rain. I'm hoping to build another shelter for the BH so the hoses aren't in the Sun all the time, but it too will be on dirt .. or grass.

Lights? Why put a couple of hundred watts of light up on the ceiling? Use task and flashlights focused on the job area.

 

[jeff9366]

13. I knew I'd need the ROPS for my hilly land, and I knew my garage would not admit MX with ROPS up. Lowering the ROPs when entering MX in the garage is gonna get old.

Replace Kubota's 5/8" X 16-thread ROPS bolt with an unthreaded clevis pin, either 5/8 X 4" length or 9/16" X 4". I use 9/16" X 4".

Kubota is in a minority of tractor brands that use a threaded bolt as pivot for ROPS fold.

Clevis Pin Universal 9/16 x 4 LCS ZC (9 Pieces) | eBay

 

[3Ts]

As for the torque wrench, sockets and other tools, check out Harbor Freight. Their hand tools seem to have pretty good reviews on this forum and they're not to expensive. There is a thread as to what items from Harbor Freight are actually good. It's a long thread, but worth while to read.

 

[Wagtail]

Number 2: You did know that the original grease gun end/tip was adjustable, right?

Yes, it was originally assembled by a factory-trained 800 pound gorilla. Using a couple of vise-grips (in opposite directions), and a lot of force, will loosen it.

Important note: do NOT then fully unscrew the tip assembly to 'see how it works'... the tiny internal spring will shoot out across the workshop! (It will be found three years later in the most unimaginable place. Plus, you'll then wonder what it's for.)

 

[ericm979]

The $20 Harbor Freight torque wrench is actually not all that bad. Good enough for most tractor work. I'd use my good torque wrench for critical fasteners in the engine but for everything else, +- 3% is fine. HF has decent large sockets and wrenches too.

HF has 20' "trucker's chains" on sale periodically. For logs where that's not long enough, I got one of their 65' 3/8" winch cables and some cable ferrules and cable clamps to make a loop.

Save your oldest saw chains for shortening the stumps.

 

[fried1765]

I found the Harbor freight wheeled pallets work great, and are cheap. I just put two under each implement, and wheel them where I want to. They are easy to stack and store when not in use. The only implement I had to build something for was my Sundown GR 20 grapple. I just built it right on the pallets.

If anything that I need to store is very heavy, I either store it on a couple of the Harbor Freight dollies, or on a standard pallet for my forks.

 

[metalbender]

Implements store well outside on a level area with slag from a steel mill. Limits contact with dirt, no rust.

 

[Jstpssng]

11. Where am I supposed to carry stuff when the bucket isn't on the tractor (since the grapple is my favorite thing). Problem waiting to be solved, no doubt with much money.

There are a lot of good solutions to this one, if you peruse the site. I haven't done it yet, but plan to build a box to slide into the tube on the bottom of the loader frame. I already carry a chain there.

I strongly advise not carrying things in the bucket, as it's too easy to forget it's there. It's a sickening feeling when you see your "newly modified" chainsaw appear between the front tires... and don't ask me how I know that.