First real day on new BX25D... need encouragement!

[dragoneggs]

Or a newer BX1850, BX1860 or BX1870. Pretty sure those fronts and rears are exactly what the 18hp BX's came/come with. Had both a BX1850 and 1860 before I traded up to a BX25. So, there should be some interest in them, though shipping would be difficult. By the way, love the views of that lake, or is it a salt water sound?

Thanks Chris... yes you are looking at saltwater in the Hood Canal and the Olympic Mountain range in the background. Here are a couple of pics, morning and evening. We crab, shrimp, fish, and gather oysters and clams off our beach here!

 

[dragoneggs]

You do have a beautiful view and I noticed you have some garden boxes going? We started our first "square foot gardening" boxes this year.

When I first got my BX2230D, I felt like an idiot using the front loader. :laughing: Not having a lot of experience running anything with hydraulic controls, I found it very frustrating for a while. You can read all kinds of advice here, most of it sound, but I found the best way to learn how to use the FEL, is to practice on something non critical, like moving a pile of dirt or gravel. Watching videos on U-Tube is also a good way to see the best way to take a bite out of a pile with the small FEL bucket. I kept thinking my FEL was under powered and was about to get a pressure tester and a shim kit to bump the pressure up. However I was reading a thread here and it described how to do it correctly. I then found some video showing how big loaders do it and went home and practiced until I had the technique down pat. Now I can scoop up a full bucket of material easily. When I get a BH I will have to go through a similar learning experience.

When you get your Piranha tooth bar post up your observations of how it works. I want a tooth bar but can't make up my mind on which to get, the Piranha or one like the WR Long.

Hi Coolerman, Yeah idiot is the word for how I still feel about the FEL. I have 14 hrs on the machine but most all is BH. I have 10 yards of 3/4 - 1 1/2 gravel coming tomorrow and am thinking I should wait until I install the Piranha before I really scrape/bang up my lip which means I will have to be patient until its arrival Tuesday. Will report back though.

In a pretty short time, I found the BH not too difficult to get it to do what I wanted it to do. My only big issue is not focusing sometimes and lowering the boom accidentally and that can be scary working on a slope. BH is powerful and it can lift you, lose traction, and/or send you sideways. Flat out amazing and joyful what the BH can do though :cool2:

On the gardening boxes, yes... built 4 each is 4ft by 8ft using 2x6 cedar stacked double height, rimmed with 5/4 eased edge decking material and reinforced with 2x2 pressure treated fir verticals for warping. Boxes look great, you can sit on the edge fairly comfortably and oh yeah lined them with landscape fabric to keep the moles out. Looking for a decent pic of the boxes but not finding just yet. Wife is eyeing a bigger garden so I now have a leveled off area down below. Is there a tiller in my future?

 

[dragoneggs]

Dragoneggs, great place you have there. Congrats on the BX and a good call on the Piranha tooth bar. This bar works well with the BX and I am sure you will love it. I remember you mentioning the pile of trees you need to get rid of. The thumb on your hoe will come in handy plucking trees out of the pile and holing them while you saw them if you choose to go about it that way.

Great little tractor for all your projects and it looks like you will be busy for quite a while. Enjoy! Keep us posted with progress pictures.

Hi Ryan, raining today so I am sadly idle, but I did finish roughing in my tractor path down the hill last night. I haven't measured yet, but guessing about 200ft long. Gotta love daylight at 10pm here in the Northwest! Here are a couple of my latest progress pics.



Yes a monster pile of trees I have but that is low priority now. It is drying up, settling, and maybe falsely allowing me to believe is acting as a berm to prevent erosion. Eventually I would like to burn it and/or chip up for mulch. So far I haven't really figured out how to use the thumb. It seems like a hydraulic thumb would be much more useful but maybe its just technique.

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

When I had the BX25 I would spend a lot of time and effort getting the seat turned and my fat butt into position to use the BH. One day someone wrote on here that they just turned around in the seat or got on their knees and operated the BH. Well, from that day on I don't think I turned the seat more than a couple of times because most of my projects were/are just short time digging a hole. I have done a few longer/deeper projects since I got the B2620 BH and turned the seat a couple of times but mostly don't turn it and it's maybe a bit easier than on the BX. There is one problem I've encountered with the B2620 or actually 2. If the seat is slid all the way forward and then turned it won't lock back down when it is turned back forward. Finally figured out that I have to slide the seat back some to get it to catch/lock down and then slide it back forward. The second problem is I have the ROPS sort of tilted back in order to get it in my garage and haven't ever put it back straight up. Well, one day I was getting ready to dig a bigger project so I turned the seat and was pulling myself up to get in the seat and a jet plane or something dropped a engine on my head. or I rammed the top of my head into the sloping ROPS!!!!:confused2: :confused2:
Any way just a heads up that you don't have to always turn the seat to use BH.
I've been watching your gravel spreading thread and had thought that a 6' road was to narrow and probably to unstable for a dump truck and believed I'd go for the half at the top and half at the bottom drop. I've had driver of gravel loads lay it so even and smooth that I didn't have to do anything and I've had some of the others that dumped half of the load and then spread some of the remaining load. Good luck on you road project and be careful.:thumbsup:

 

[MacTractor]

Hey congratulations n the BX. I had a BX25 for a couple of years and loved it. Sold our property and moved across country, built another house and bought a JD 2320. I went back and forth on the backhoe part and in the end if I could do it again, I would have looked for a machine with a backhoe.

I too like you have a very sloped property and have learned many lessons like the ones posted earlier. Just some to add if they were not mentioned already:

1.. Always run in 4WD. In 2WD you have no front braking. Ends up being more of a problem with anything in the bucket.
2.. When moving with a load, always keep your hand on the loader control. Also, practice dropping the bucket so that in an *** pucker event, this becomes the first response.
3.. Lift bucket loads only as far off the ground as you need to move. As others have mentioned, the higher the load the faster she will go over.
4.. Be cautious when in full steering lock situations with anything in the bucket as the want to roll here is fast and unpredictable.

Again, I have a pretty sloped property now and have luckily have had some close calls that allowed me to learn without consequence.

On the BX25, the only issue I had with it was that when you try to back up a downslope, do to the angle the seat switch would kill the engine.

Stay safe!

 

[ultrarunner]

I have the same situation... most of my property was not accessible because of the drop from the house.

My BX23 made wonderful trails and I enjoyed the time using it.

I did have my rear tires foamed filled which means no more flats and I noticed an immediate improvement of both stability and backhoe capability.

The improvement is my toothbar... made a world of difference.

Your pictures have me longing for my place near Olympia!

 

[CHDinCT]

If I'm not mistaken, the 8" front wheel won't fit any 50, 60, or 70 series. The bevel gear/ axle housing is different than the 00 , 30 series.

Not sure what you're getting at. The 18hp BX's use 8" front rims. Spec's show 24x12x12 rears and 16x7.5x8 fronts. The larger hp versions use the 10" front rims. Here's the spec sheet. http://www.kubota.com/product/BX1860/pdf/bx60_series_spec.pdf

 

[dragoneggs]

When I had the BX25 I would spend a lot of time and effort getting the seat turned and my fat butt into position to use the BH. One day someone wrote on here that they just turned around in the seat or got on their knees and operated the BH. Well, from that day on I don't think I turned the seat more than a couple of times because most of my projects were/are just short time digging a hole. I have done a few longer/deeper projects since I got the B2620 BH and turned the seat a couple of times but mostly don't turn it and it's maybe a bit easier than on the BX. There is one problem I've encountered with the B2620 or actually 2. If the seat is slid all the way forward and then turned it won't lock back down when it is turned back forward. Finally figured out that I have to slide the seat back some to get it to catch/lock down and then slide it back forward. The second problem is I have the ROPS sort of tilted back in order to get it in my garage and haven't ever put it back straight up. Well, one day I was getting ready to dig a bigger project so I turned the seat and was pulling myself up to get in the seat and a jet plane or something dropped a engine on my head. or I rammed the top of my head into the sloping ROPS!!!!:confused2: :confused2:
Any way just a heads up that you don't have to always turn the seat to use BH.
I've been watching your gravel spreading thread and had thought that a 6' road was to narrow and probably to unstable for a dump truck and believed I'd go for the half at the top and half at the bottom drop. I've had driver of gravel loads lay it so even and smooth that I didn't have to do anything and I've had some of the others that dumped half of the load and then spread some of the remaining load. Good luck on you road project and be careful.:thumbsup:

Hi JT, yes probably the swiveling of the seat is my only real gripe. I spend a lot of time going back and forth as I was using mostly the BH to cut in the path on the slope. I am trying to do it 'by the book' and always wear my seat belt and develop good habits but I have already found myself using the BH a little without turning around like you said and also standing on the ground next to the machine.

Got the gravel delivered today... half on top and half on bottom. Think that is going to be perfect. Since the path is kind of winding through the property I didn't want to make it unnecessarily wide. Just enough for comfort on the tractor. No way would a truck ever be able to access the path.

 

[BXpanded]

Not sure what you're getting at. The 18hp BX's use 8" front rims. Spec's show 24x12x12 rears and 16x7.5x8 fronts. The larger hp versions use the 10" front rims. Here's the spec sheet. http://www.kubota.com/product/BX1860/pdf/bx60_series_spec.pdf

Chris, you are obviously correct. I guess that's what I get for depending on my memory... Thanks for the correction.
Harry

 

[CHDinCT]

Chris, you are obviously correct. I guess that's what I get for depending on my memory... Thanks for the correction.
Harry

No problem. I only know because I'm a few years removed from owning a BX1860 and getting the larger tires that come with the BX25 was part of the trade-up appeal.