Tiller?

House · Mar 25, 2002

Hi all,

I'm a long time lurker first time poster. I decided to finally join after reading (for the past 1.5 years) the wealth of knowledge on this board. I bought my Kubota B1700 in the summer of 2000 and only have 75 hours of seat time. I'm a first time tractor owner and I've gotten some very useful information from this board. Hopefuly I can pass on some of my experiences too now that I'm approaching the 'century' mark in seat time.
So here's my question. The only tiller I can find for rent locally is a JD550. The manual for the 1700 recommends a 42" tiller and I believe the 550 is 50". JD recommends the JD550 for the 4100 tractor which has a little less 3 pt lift capacity but a bit more PTO HP. My soil is 'West Coast RainForest' - soft dirt with very few rocks.
Any thoughts about if the B1700 could handle the JD550? Any thoughts/help will be much appreciated!

Bird · Mar 25, 2002

<font color=blue>soft dirt with very few rocks</font color=blue>

In that case, yes, you can probably handle the JD550, and if it's really easy dirt to till and the right moisture, probably no problem at all, but I'm guessing you'll be getting pretty close to the upper limit. My Bush Hog RTS40 (I call it a 40", but the manual says actual tilling width of 38") was perfect for the B7100, but could drop a few RPMs in heavy wet clay.

RET · Mar 25, 2002

I just recently purchased a 52" tiller for my BX2200 (16.7 PTO hp if I remember correctly). Sounds like your soil conditions are similar to mine in S. Louisiana - soft, rock free soil. The 52" works well in my soil conditions while taking a full depth cut - but feedback from the little BX girl says "please - no more than this!". If I had the rocky, clay soil prevelant in many parts of the country, the 52" would probably require serious babying and slow going. In my soft soil, I can make pretty darn good time - HST pedal all the way down in turtle gear at ~2/3 throttle.
RET

theboman · Mar 25, 2002

Nice dirt guys. Sounds like you till mulch beds. I have good ole dirt, occasional sandstone, some clay, some sand and some things still unknown to mankind and it all equals out to what we call around here...dirt.
My B7500 handled my new 48" great at the shallowest setting and just creeping along. The ground had been mowed the past two years so I took my time. A few places my 'Bota worked a bit harder but the tilled garden looks just like a tilled garden!
Hopefully I'll get the chance latter in the week (rain is on the way) to till the garden with the tiller at the lowest level.

ddl · Mar 26, 2002

The question you need to ask your self is, the recommendation about tiller size stated by your tractor manual can be of two things. The first being the safe size as not to damage some part of your tractor. The second being that the designers of the tractor have no idea what they are doing and made errors in the calculations required for safe operation of the three point system. Now you decide. When People who say go ahead and use a tiller way over sized according to the tractor company, ask them which engineering equation the company made an error in their calculations. Remember the tractor company provides warrenty and the other people just give advise with out any cost to them.

Dan L

House · Mar 26, 2002

Ret,

It's interesting that you can put a 52" tiller on the BX. From my understanding, the BX2200 has the same engine as my B1700.
Does anyone out there know if Kubota modified the B1700 engine to bump up the HP specs or is it just a numbers game, playing with the HP and torque curves to come up with a higher HP rating at a different rpm?
The spec for the B1700 is 13 pto HP, does the BX have a newer more efficient HST?

RET · Mar 26, 2002

Dan L,
I think everyone here knows that the "advice" given is, in the majority of cases, nothing more than personal experience with little if any statistical evidence. And most folks go out of thier way to make this clear in their responses. The value of a multitude of diverse opinions is the opportunity to digest all the comments and triangulate an answer for YOUR unique situation that has a higher probablility of being closer to the optimal solution than blindly buying based on only one or two comments from the neighbors down the street - or entirely on an overly conservative owners manual.
Heck - I'm an engineer - I have a feel for the thought process used when developing the owner's manual. There's no possible way to cover all the situations, ground conditions, etc all across North America, so they come up with some very conservative HP requirements, weights, etc. they use in their calculations ( and I use the word CALCULATION loosely)that almost guarantee success anywhere. If I had to write the manual, I would do the same thing.
I tried to make it clear in my response earlier that I have more PTO HP than the 1700 AND that my soil is very soft and rock free. It was meant as a data point only. There's no way I could use a 52" tiller on my BX most anywhere else in the country.
My engineering recommendation? Do what the manual says.
My experience (and experience of many others)? A 48" tiller will work well ON A BX IF you have relatively soft, rock free soil. In my special case, I can even get by with a 52".

Take a look at all the recent discussions about tree pulling. That's some serious strain on a tractor - whether you're using the FEL or 3PH or other for pulling, you're putting some serious strain and sideways torque on the unit and the HST/hydaulic system is working it's rear off. This kind of "freehand" probably work causes more wear and tear than most any implement ever will. I've been working the crap outta my BX pulling trees down lately. I think I'll contact the Kubota engineering group and recommend they add a spec for max tree diameter suitable for pulling. I just calculated a conservative diameter for the BX - it's a 1/2" sapling (although my personal experience is that I can get 4" trees up and out with a little work and patience)!
-R

ddl · Mar 27, 2002

The problem is of the new users that have no experience asks a question about size. The advise the new user gets seems to be like the size of fish people catch. Every one tries to out do the other. What happens then is the new user thinks the proper size of a tiller can be any size they can afford. What they forget is when you or even me says something like the ground is this or that, that again is relative to what you are use to.

What I find interesting is the difference between engineering stats and sales stats. People read about a tiller made by company x and it sizes made for hp tractors 12 to 40 hp. Then someone reads about the size of tillers people talk about in the site and go out and buy a tiller that weights more then their tractor. It is nice to read about some users trying to tell others what happened when they used a tiller too big for their tractor. But of course that is not what the new person wants to hear, so they disregard that information.

Dan l

MikePA · Mar 27, 2002

I made this comment regarding rotary cutters as well...Ostensibly, people buy larger/wider implements with the objective of completing a given task faster. However, if they buy too big an implement for their tractor to handle, they have to slow down thus defeating their initial objective. I guess this is all part of the learning process we go through.

ddl · Mar 28, 2002

you are right and it is also proper for us with experience to tell them the common sense thing to do. If you what a larger implement then your tractor can handle, buy a larger tractor. Some people on this broad are so safety first except they will hook on an implement that puts them at odds with safe actions.