Want quick hitch but am confused by choices. Which one?

[Sheldon Hamblin]

I've been looking at quick hitches. I have a Land pride rear grader blade and a Land Pride rake with castors I use on a JD 850 CUT. is the Land Pride quick hitch worth the difference in price?

 

[WM75Guy]

I have a Land Pride Cat 1 on both of mine. I do have to adjust the top hook for some attachments. I did not have to modify any attachment. Just lucky I guess. As far as quality I do believe you get what you pay for.

 

[k0ua]

Bruce, that Carter hitch would be very important if lifting near the capacity of the 3pt or tractor chassis. Don't see many people that use it but is a very good idea if that's important to the user.

I used them for about 2 years when I had the Kubota L3400 that did not have telescoping lower links and sway bars. they work pretty well and do not require you to lengthen PTO shafts. they are really pretty simple, and you could make a set yourself if you can work thick metal. When I got the Kioti with the telescoping lower links and sway bars, I decided I didn't need them.

 

[k0ua]

I've got the JD iMatch quick hitch...got it in 2005. It's great...period. Now they make one that has an adjustable top hook for those non-standard implements (although I've not had any trouble with anything I own and have never needed it). The simplicity is great and my knuckles never get bunged up. I've seen other manufacturers' models, and have heard reports that they aren't all "square with the world". I've heard it said you never get more than what you pay for. If you're doing a quick hitch, you need to plan for a hydraulic top link, which I use every time I use the tractor and consider to be as indispensable as the quick hitch. There are many threads here on that topic with excellent guidance.

Best of luck to you...git-er-done!

I think you have hit on the key here with adding the hydraulic top link with a good quality Quick Hitch as getting off and adjusting the top link to hit the top connection point of the implement negates the advantages of the 1 piece quick hitch over the Carters or the Pat's. But the the hydraulic top link you can make that adjustment in a couple of seconds from the seat, hook up and go.

 

[oldballs]

If I live much longer, my place is going to be full of stuff that doesn't fit or I don't use anymore.:confused2:

 

[Threepoint]

[snip]
In reading the posts here over the years I know about Harbor Freight and that some say it doesn't always fit right. [snip]

How close are you to a Harbor Freight? Or maybe another TBN member with one of their cat 1 QHs is not too far from you. On sale with a coupon they are $89 plus tax, as someone said. If you can kick the tires of one, I think you'd be pleasantly surprised at the quality. I have two of them. One on a Kubota B2150 for around 10 years, with heavy use on a 5' Howse box blade and a 6' County Line scraper blade. I added one to my Kioti NX4510HST a month ago, and it has seen heavy use with a 750 lb 84" Woods box in the last three weeks, and it works great with a 550 lb 84" Woods scraper blade. Just my personal experience, of course. I'll add top 'n tilt soon.

For the second QH, I made a modification to the two bolts that fasten the top hook in its bracket so that the hook can better engage the pin on the implements without the hex bolt heads and nuts interfering. Took at most 30 minutes for both bolts. I cut the bolt heads off with a sawzall, and trimmed the bolts to length so that neither end protruded from the sides of the bracket that holds the hook. Then drilled one hole through each bolt to receive a small spring pin between the hook and one side of the bracket. Works very well.

 

[ovrszd]

Well, now you gone and done it, you slandered us with the "bargain brands" with your slur about quality issues causing people to ditch a QH, (one which, BTW, which would be much better described as "affordable" than a bargain, given the negative connotations that term has developed and the comparative costs of the ones you and the JD peeps espouse).

Your vague imprecations about quality issues do not ring true when no one on TBN has yet been able to cite one real life example where a HF or other so-called bargain brand has failed in use.

The issues of fitting "all" implements is common to all of the QH's, even Pat's and the ones on the link you posted, but for me, all of my fit issues (so far) were easily fixed without requiring any resizing of the QH! or welding.

It is really hard to beat the $89 +tax I paid for the HF QH, when it does pretty much what everyone else's more expensive QH's do just as well as they do.

I bent a Northern Tool QH. Bent the lower hooks laterally. I posted pics on several threads about this issue. I agree with Blackdog, you get what you pay for and rarely any more.

 

[ovrszd]

Are you implying that if your close friend had an I match or Land pride that those QH's would have stood up to his tractor and attachment abuse by pushing beyond it past what it is supposed to do. To crack the top plate or the lower hook weld on those would take severe misuse like backing into a tree or getting hung up on something. Apparently you are knocking affordable attachments. I used a HF QH for ten years with no signs of stress or damage to it.

Neither Blackdog or myself are knocking affordable attachments. Whether the damage he described was abuse or not I don't know. I do know however that my uses which bent my Northern Tool QH were not abusive. Bent it using a boxblade. These examples in no way indicate that everyone with an affordable QH are going to see failure. Everyone's uses are different. But, more importantly, quality control in the construction of the affordable models seems to be lacking. In Blackdog's example it sounds to me that it wasn't welded properly. There's also been reports on TBN of affordable models that were not made to specification and would not hook to attachments. I think the chance of these irregularities are greater in the affordable models.

 

[Threepoint]

I should add that the HF cat 1 QH is rated up to 45 hp. Just noticed that some of the OP's tractors well exceed that.

 

[FredH]

I made my own similar to the Carter Hooks . Used 1/2" steel for the box part to go around the lift arms and doubled up 1/2" steel for 1" thick Hooks . It for sure is not nearly as nice as Theirs , But used 1/2" plate steel piece cost me $50 and I still have a rather large chunk of it left and about 4 or 5 hours of cutting and welding . Made my own spreader bar out of scrap I had laying around .

I never minded hooking up the top link or adjusting it for various store bought and home-made implements , But hooking up the lift arms was always a pain since the property is sloped every were . With that , every implement would be sloped this way or that way and lining up the holes on the arms was a BI*** !! . Now , I just back up with lift arms down and lift up . I Modified a couple of implements so they worked easier / hooked up easier , they were just really tight in measurements originally , now everything is Sweet . :cool2:

It is also easy to remove , light weight , since any type of QH would of required removal for installing 757 Back Hoe .

I am real Happy with how it turned out , Crude But effective and saved Me some $$ to Boot . :thumbsup:


Fred H.