[Utah Smitty]

I bought this 1992 Kubota B7100HST-D a couple weeks ago after looking for several months for the "perfect" compact tractor (Hint: It doesn't exist).

However, the Kubota seemed to be a good buy...front end loader and backhoe, 4wd, HST, fairly low hours (850).

I got it home and took it over to a friends to help him level up his backyard--He had brought in a bunch of fill dirt so level out a badly sloping yard, but it ended up looking like the hills and vales of Disney's Matterhorn ride.

Add to that he has more stuff crammed in his backyard than I have in mine... believe it or not...

Anyway, we got down to work by me working to level a large mound of dirt that had been in place for 5 or 6 years... plenty of stuff in the way, including a Toro 223D mower, several David Bradley tractors and implements, and various and sundry items from IHC Cubs, Gravelys and you name it.

I started out by scooping dirt out of the pile and dumping it into low places in the yard so I could move around with out having my teeth jolted out of my jaws.

--BTW Does anyone know what the two upright pins on the top of the loader are used for? The have a hole in them for a hairpin. There's also a hole on each side face at the top, and a nut welded to the top of the loader that is in line with the hole. A 1/2" x 13 tpi bolt will screw in about 3 turns, but it's actually a 12mm metric thread--not sure of the pitch. Anyway, if anyone can enlighten me on what this is used for, I'd appreciate it.

It took a little while for me to get the hang of things, but pretty soon I was whittlling down the pile until a mountain had been made into a molehill.... well maybe two or three molehills....

Here are some pics of some of the "treasures" in his yard--

I've forgotten the name of this little dozer, but it has a Wisconsin engine with vertical twin cylinders, a T92 transmission a'la Power King, and real wet steering clutches. It puts the Struck dozers all to shame... it's for sale, but I'm not sure it can be easily moved right now as the T90 tranny's were bad about collecting water if the shift lever didn't have a seal over the top of it where it goes into the top housing.

A Gravely 5200 with numerous attachments, including a regular tiller, a Rota-Hoe?, a tool plate, cultivator, and snow blade (partly seen), etc.

A home made towable backhoe with a 5 hp gas engine.

Numerous David Bradley tractors and implements and other miscellaneous "stuff"...

Anyway, it was a good day's work and I really appreciated my little machine.

One sour note on the whole deal....

I took the machine to the car wash after working it (the engine was cool because I had just driven 40 miles with it), then offloaded it into my yard. A couple days later I was checking things out to familiarize myself with it when I pulled on the black, stepped grass screen in front of the radiator. It was loose and I was way upset when I saw dried grass packed in between the radiator and oil cooler so thick I had to dig it out with a stick... PLUS, just about every opening in the radiator was clogged.... Grrrrrr!!!!!!! The dealer I bought it from said he would service it before he delivered it to me... I assumed (silly me) that that would include checking out the grass screen and radiator, but maybe not.

I carefully cleaned all the grass out, then gently brushed the radiator fins with the edge of a metal brush to break up the caked-on dirt and grass--pretty much the same stuff as the adobe that people used to make into bricks for home out here... mud and grass dried and packed into wooden forms. I then blew compressed air through the radiator from the fan side--- a LOT of dust and dirt came out... this really makes me upset since the dealer, or at least the dealer's mechanics, and the PO, didn't do rudimentary PM as least as far as the grass screens go. These little machines don't have a water pump--the cooling is through the thermo-siphon principle--hot water rising in the radiator is cooled and flows into the engine and the process repeats itself.

Anyway, I hope nothing serious has happened as a result of this.

FWIW,

Smitty

 

[JD DANNELS]

Neat Smitty. On the radiator I have started blowing mine out every 4 hrs. Dandelion fuzz will totally block the screen in that length of time. that dozer sounds interesting the Seabees had a little guy like that that could be air dropped into the south pacific islands to build air strips during WWII.

 

[Utah Smitty]

Neat Smitty. On the radiator I have started blowing mine out every 4 hrs. Dandelion fuzz will totally block the screen in that length of time. that dozer sounds interesting the Seabees had a little guy like that that could be air dropped into the south pacific islands to build air strips during WWII.

If I thought I could get it running (and didn't have a long list of projects already waiting), I'd be tempted to buy it from him--the city is really on his case to clean up his yard. After June 22nd he starts getting a $50 a day fine... Anyway, the dozer would be real handy for clearing mom's driveway, etc. but parts would be all but nonexistent.

Smitty

 

[boyscout862]

The new tractor looks good and I hope that you enjoyed playing with it. The small dozer is very cool. I would bet that most of the parts for it are standard off the shelf parts. I have a large AC HD6G and the parts I need most for it are 50 pound cans of welding rod. Probably the same with that one. Good Luck, Rick

 

[KennyP]

Glad you got to put the tractor to work. Takes a bit to get used to FEL's. Thanks for the pics, wish I were closer!

 

[JDBrian]

It's nice to see you putting that new tractor to work. Maybe you can give us an update when you get a chance to give the BH a workout.

 

[MH81]

If I thought I could get it running (and didn't have a long list of projects already waiting), I'd be tempted to buy it from him--the city is really on his case to clean up his yard. After June 22nd he starts getting a $50 a day fine... Anyway, the dozer would be real handy for clearing mom's driveway, etc. but parts would be all but nonexistent.

Smitty

Tell him I agree that the city should mind it's own damn business.
Good luck to all involved

Now, for the positive... nice days work on a nice machine. Hope the grass didnt put any strain on things, but that's a phone call I would make to the dealership, just to remind them not to be cocky.

 

[Cvans]

You look good on that tractor Smitty. If the radiator was full of coolant and it didn't boil over you should be OK.

On the Kubota G4200 there is a little whistle installed on the overflow tube. If the radiator boils over the steam blows the whistle kind of like the old tea pots. My grandson was operating the Bolens loader last week and he came and got me because he was hearing a whistle on the tractor. Saved my tractor and I made up my mind to install them on the other tractors as I'm not always checking the temp. gauge. You might want to look into something like that.

 

[Utah Smitty]

The new tractor looks good and I hope that you enjoyed playing with it. The small dozer is very cool. I would bet that most of the parts for it are standard off the shelf parts. I have a large AC HD6G and the parts I need most for it are 50 pound cans of welding rod. Probably the same with that one. Good Luck, Rick

We had a couple HD5s and HD6s when I worked at a salvage and rebuild yard. Tough little machines, but engine, transmission and clutch parts were hard to find... ours were parts machines and there were still people running them that would buy parts from us from time to time.

Smitty

 

[Utah Smitty]

You look good on that tractor Smitty. If the radiator was full of coolant and it didn't boil over you should be OK.

On the Kubota G4200 there is a little whistle installed on the overflow tube. If the radiator boils over the steam blows the whistle kind of like the old tea pots. My grandson was operating the Bolens loader last week and he came and got me because he was hearing a whistle on the tractor. Saved my tractor and I made up my mind to install them on the other tractors as I'm not always checking the temp. gauge. You might want to look into something like that.

Thanks, Chris... never saw it boil over, so I'm hoping it's okay. I don't know if mine has a whistle or not. Where do you find the whistles to install in the overflow tube?

Smitty

Smitty

 

[Utah Smitty]

It's nice to see you putting that new tractor to work. Maybe you can give us an update when you get a chance to give the BH a workout.

I should be using the backhoe in the next couple weeks to dig a trench for my mother to put in an irrigation system... She collects water from the irrigation ditch, and pumps it to the rainbird sprinklers on her lawn.

Smitty

 

[Utah Smitty]

Glad you got to put the tractor to work. Takes a bit to get used to FEL's. Thanks for the pics, wish I were closer!

Yeah, me too!!! You could come over and play on it a bit and we could talk about my Ford LGTs that are languishing in disrepair. I walked by them the other day and I could hear them whispering among themselves about how neglected they feel.

A guy I know keeps wanting me to sell him my Ford FEL, but I think I'll hang on to it... if nothing else, Mom could use a small loader up at her place.

Smitty

 

[JDBrian]

I tried a JD2305 BH at the JD dealer one day. It was humbling to say the least. It would take me a while to gain the skill to be productive with it.

 

[boyscout862]

Yeah, me too!!! You could come over and play on it a bit and we could talk about my Ford LGTs that are languishing in disrepair. I walked by them the other day and I could hear them whispering among themselves about how neglected they feel.

A guy I know keeps wanting me to sell him my Ford FEL, but I think I'll hang on to it... if nothing else, Mom could use a small loader up at her place.

Smitty

Get one of the LGTs with a FEL going soon. I find that there are plenty of times that two machines make work alot faster and safer. Its also nice to have the extra loader when working on the first one. Good Luck, Rick

 

[Utah Smitty]

I tried a JD2305 BH at the JD dealer one day. It was humbling to say the least. It would take me a while to gain the skill to be productive with it.

Yeah, same here. PLUS, there are two different control layouts--John Deere and Case. When I did the maintenance on that little Kubota excavator, I unwittingly moved the lever and changed the controls... When the owner went to take it away, he got a real confused look on his face, then told me the best way to mess up a 'hoe operator was to change the operating layout.

I hope to sharpen my skills with the backhoe-- I've already been offered some work if I can get proficient on it.

Smitty

 

[JDBrian]

It shouldn't take you long to get used to it. Doing a few jobs for yourself or family would give you some practice and give you a feel for how long it takes to do a given job. A friend has a 30hp Kubota L series tractor with a BH on it. He helps us at the church by spreading gravel, digging out septic tanks for pumping etc. He's pretty good with the BH even though he doesn't use it much. It just takes a bit of time at the controls to get used to it. I've thought of adding one to my 2320 but it would be somewhere over 8K$ for the JD hoe.

 

[JD DANNELS]

The hoes can be tricky for sure. When i was a kid, my dad had a Parsons hoe mounted on a Massey 55.
He was good enough he could scratch my back while I was in a ditch.
He had not ran a hoe in over 30 yrs, when he helped me replace a waterline for my son.
We rented a Bobcat excavator and ran 70 ft of line. He had ran a unit with 6 (I think levers) and the bobcat was joystick.
He dug that trench and the depth did not vary 1 inch in depth over the whole run.
I was pretty impressed that a 75 yr old could do that with a machine he had never run and had not ran a hoe in over 30 yrs.

 

[Utah Smitty]

The hoes can be tricky for sure. When i was a kid, my dad had a Parsons hoe mounted on a Massey 55.
He was good enough he could scratch my back while I was in a ditch.
He had not ran a hoe in over 30 yrs, when he helped me replace a waterline for my son.
We rented a Bobcat excavator and ran 70 ft of line. He had ran a unit with 6 (I think levers) and the bobcat was joystick.
He dug that trench and the depth did not vary 1 inch in depth over the whole run.
I was pretty impressed that a 75 yr old could do that with a machine he had never run and had not ran a hoe in over 30 yrs.

Yeah, that is impressive!!! About like some of the old time patrol (motor grader) operators--when I sold heavy equipment parts my boss would tell me that those guys were so good at grading by eye sight it's like they had a bubble in their butt.

Smitty

 

[JD DANNELS]

Yeah, that is impressive!!! About like some of the old time patrol (motor grader) operators--when I sold heavy equipment parts my boss would tell me that those guys were so good at grading by eye sight it's like they had a bubble in their butt.

Smitty

Yes I have seen some pretty incredible things done. I knew a guy who pushed an egg across a field with a Cat with a cable controlled blade. His son was the motor grader operator. Another son ran crane for high voltage power line installations.

 

[Cvans]

About like some of the old time patrol (motor grader) operators

Cat 11 patrol. Spent a few hours hanging onto the knuckle busters in that thing. Good memories.

No hydraulics in those,