How big a bucket can I put on a Kubota M5040 with LA1153 loader?

[jkahan]

Hi folks -
I have a 2007 Kubota M5040HDC (cabbed -yes I am spoiled). The bucket that came with the LA1153 loader is 72" wide and roughly 26" deep and high. A bunch of welds are coming apart so I am toying with the idea of just fixing it or getting a new bucket. If new, I am wondering how big a bucket I can put on and not sacrifice safety.

I have the LA1153 specs but I don't have a good sense of how this translates into operational reality with bucket selection. Width-wise, I wouldn't mind a 78" bucket. Deeper would be awesome. HLA has a heavy duty model that is 41" deep and 34" high. Love some opinions / advice. thanks. -- Josh

 

[JWR]

Hi folks -
I have a 2007 Kubota M5040HDC (cabbed -yes I am spoiled). The bucket that came with the LA1153 loader is 72" wide and roughly 26" deep and high. A bunch of welds are coming apart so I am toying with the idea of just fixing it or getting a new bucket. If new, I am wondering how big a bucket I can put on and not sacrifice safety.

I have the LA1153 specs but I don't have a good sense of how this translates into operational reality with bucket selection. Width-wise, I wouldn't mind a 78" bucket. Deeper would be awesome. HLA has a heavy duty model that is 41" deep and 34" high. Love some opinions / advice. thanks. -- Josh

Depends a lot on your workload, what you do mostly, what you use the bucket for. I use a CAL brand 4-in-1 bucket 76" that I call a 'pinch bucket.' Allows me to pick up logs, brush, rocks, etc cleaning up an old farm. It is a skid-steer quick attach compatible type. You need the 3rd function up front for that. One of the most useful things I have seen -- and the bucket will not rust out of that thing in this lifetime. Very thick and heavy duty. But it also weighs around 1000 lbs (which does not bother my MF 2660 which is an 81 horse weighing a good bit more than your 5040.)

One of my friends uses a 3rd party loader and bucket on their 5040 -- Bush Hog brand I think. It too is very solid but is a one piece bucket , not 4-in-1. Really you have a LOT of choices. Is your's equipped with the skid-steer compatible loader? If so there are a huge number to pick from. One caution: Some buckets designed for skidsteer have the mount at a different vertical level than your standard tractor buckets. (higher 3" or so, well the bucket sits higher so I guess the mount points on the bucket are lower) which means some oddball leveling/digging and back dragging circumstances.

p.s. of course it makes a big difference whether you are moving gravel, horse manure, soil, marsh muck, snow , etc. The lighter the material the bigger a bucket you can handle obviously. I adapted a much bigger bucket (than std) to a small Kubota just for snow removal as snow is very light compared to soil or gravel.

 

[oosik]

I have a 72" bucket. It was OEM with my 2009 M6040. I haven't used it in seven years. Seven years ago I purchased a Land Pride grapple - WR Long valve and it's been on the FEL ever since.

Bucket width means nothing to me. I use the grapple to move large rocks, chunks of pine trunk and the occasional brush pile.

I would imagine your tractor/FEL would handle most any size bucket - within reason.

 

[Notforhire]

I would suggest sticking pretty close to what you've got. Deep buckets, like the ones made for skid steers, don't work well on ag. loaders because of limited lift capacity and break out force. The load is moved out away from the pins and really limits any digging power. JWR is correct. Much has to do with what your use is. Additional width can be a problem if the bucket isn't evenly loaded. Think twisted loader arms.

 

[big bubba]

my M8540 came stock w/84" bucket, but i chose to go 72". i don't like to have a bucket width extend much beyond my fr wheels that can snag fence posts, trees, etc. if you're not careful. also feel it may have slightly more excavating ability being slightly narrower than stock. with a heavy duty tooth bar, i have been well pleased with utility use.
odd that your welds are failing on your bucket?

 

[Industrial Toys]

All depends what you are intending to do with it. Boulders, vs, sand, vs, snow, vs corn, vs gravel, well you get the point. Digging (which an ag tractor isn't meant for) or removing from a pile?

 

[Bullwinkle123]

I have an MX5400, which per the spec is just shy of 6 feet in overall width and equipped with an LA1065 loader, (so ~2300 lbs lift capacity at the pin, model number is lift capacity in kilograms).

The bucket I bought with the tractor is an L2296 heavy duty bucket, 6 feet wide. For reasons I don't understand I cannot find an online specification for that bucket at the moment. The bucket weighs approximately 400 lbs. The bucket is sized about right so that I can fill it with heavy gravel loads and the tractor will deal with it. It holds approximately 9 cubic feet.

That's great for gravel, not so much for bulkier/lighter materials. In fact my two cats can easily generate enough kitty litter to fill that bucket more quickly than you'd imagine.

I'm now shopping for the largest light materials bucket I can get away with for bulky but light items. I'm shopping for an 84 inch bucket, so it'll definitely be wider than the tractor by a foot. I could probably get away with an 96 inch bucket, even my dealer didn't say "don't do that" when I asked.

Most of the 84 inch super large capacity buckets I'm considering are 35 cubic feet or greater (struck capacity), and most of of them at that capacity weigh around 750 lbs.

Should work but I won't be putting gravel in it, I I'm sure even bark mulch would weigh too much (or challenge my tractor dynamics in some way) if I filled it with mulch.

I can't tell you how that's working yet, but I run these things by my dealer and he's certainly willing to sell me buckets wider than the tractor, and normally he's happy to tell me "don't do that" if my ideas are insane. Still, you really need to match the bucket to the use. I wouldn't attempt to do any digging or heavy materials in the big bucket, for me it's leaves and branches and light crap. Thing big 750 lb metal replacement for a tarp. Otherwise I'll be using my heavy duty bucket that is the width of the tractor.

I'll relay my experiences on this somewhere if/when I get the huge bucket. I think I'm going to pull the trigger on this:

84-in High Capacity Skid Steer Bucket

Titan Attachments 84-inch High Capacity Skid Steer Bucket is designed to easily scoop and transport lighter material such as snow and other light loads.

www.palletforks.com

Because (a) it's available (though was on backorder until recently), and (b), it's cheap for the size and (c) I really want that 49 inch depth, though that will further challenge the lift capacity, that's way out there for a bucket. I haven't even seen any other buckets deeper than 39 inches. I know the bucket is going to look ridiculous on the tractor, but if it does what I want, great.

I'm definitely cautious, I have hilly terrain, and don't want to do anything that aggravates a tractor-tipping environment.

 

[Bullwinkle123]

If you're worried about width, consider the size of your barn/garage door opening. 8' could be tricky. Otherwise, if you can carry 8' logs in a grapple, why not an 8' bucket?

Another consideration, if you're using the bucket to clear snow (though buckets for clearing snow are of limited utility in some environments), 8' might be a nice width for clearing the necessary width of a driveway in one pass.

 

[Bullwinkle123]

I have the LA1153 specs but I don't have a good sense of how this translates into operational reality with bucket selection. Width-wise, I wouldn't mind a 78" bucket. Deeper would be awesome. HLA has a heavy duty model that is 41" deep and 34" high. Love some opinions / advice. thanks. -- Josh

You talking about this bucket?

Inventory Showroom | S&H Farm Supply | Lockwood Missouri

Visit Missouri's home for farm and agriculture equipment sales, service, and more, S&H Farm Supply!

www.shfarmsupply.com

I'm definitely interested in that MBHVX84 model, which has a struck capacity of 39+ cu ft.
Definitely different from the similar model without the 'X' in it which is smaller.

And therein is a huge dilemma in numbers. The Titan link I posted is lacking in details. By the numbers I'd expect its 40" H, 49"D, 84"W bucket to have much more capacity than the HLA model, but ... that isn't what they publish. I'll have to take their word for it. If I do the math I would have guessed the Titan model might bear near 49 cu ft. of material, but they only adversize ~35 cu ft.

Good luck, curious what you get.

I spoke to the dealer earlier this week about the HLA MBHVX84, he said it'd be $2213, plus ~250 freight to the dealer, plus additional to deliver to me, and that the availability was unclear and I might have to wait until fall (he didn't know, was just prepping me for worst case scenario).

The titan is $1699 delivered, but of course Titan Attachments has a reputation much discussed here. In fact I spent the morning going through ebay feedback on them for their buckets. It sounds like most issues that I was worried about (correctness of SSQA fit) have improved since people complained about it 7-8 years ago. Still a risk though.

​

 

[Farmer495]

I have a 78" HLA bucket with bolt on cutting edge on an LA1153E

Works perfect, 72" is too narrow for me.

 

[5030]

Keep in mind that OEM Kubota buckets come in 2 flavors (and always have), the standard duty 'material bucket' and the heavy duty 'excavation bucket' and I bet you have the standard duty bucket and are using it for heavy duty use which is why you are breaking welds as the standard duty bucket is just that.

Easy to tell the difference between the 2. The standard duty bucket will have an angled top of the bucket edge, whereas the the HD bucket has a welded in round pipe all the way across the top of the bucket and a double layered bottom.

Dealers tend to order units with the light duty bucket unless you specify the HD bucket and most tractor ordered for stock (on the dealer lot will be light duty buckets. Just how they order them.

The HD buckets are really bullet proof and far as width goes, as wide as you can deal with works so long as it fits on your SSQA or aligns with the fulcrum pins if yours isn't SSQA. Both my tractors are SSQA. One is an ATI, the other is a Kubota and I actually own 3 buckets and they all interchange on both units. I have 2 heavy duty round top buckets and one light duty angled top bucket, all 84" wide.

 

[Bullwinkle123]

Followup: I bought the 750 lb Titan Attachments bucket, 84". At 750 lbs and a lot of weight far away from the pin, it definitely drives like my 400 lb heavy duty bucket with a full gravel load. The width is nice at 84", I wouldn't worry about that. After all, I put logs in my 72" grapple that are far wider and manage just fine. But the weight requires some care, and ballast, and fairly level ground.

I'm guessing an M5040 is about equivalent to an MX5400, but I don't really know. Anyway, I'd be careful with any buckets weighing more than 750 lb, the deeper they are, the more I'd be careful. That HLA bucket abpve (the 2021 X model) at 40" is 9" shallower than the bucket I bought, at the same weight, so might be more manageable because the weight is closer to the pin. (It's also a lot more expensive, and I wanted the ridiculous depth of the Titan bucket. We'll see if I live to regret the decision).

Good luck. I'll be posting my reactions to the titan bucket here: Titan Attachments 84" High Capacity Skid Steer Bucket

 

[Hay Dude]

Be careful of snagging an over-width bucket on roots, stumps or any immovable objects. I had an M-7040 with a 84” bucket and managed to bend the QA mount while clearing some land about 10 years ago. The extra width acts as a “lever” against your loader frame.
Also watch trying to lift too much and pulling back wheels off the ground. Puts tremendous strain on front axle bearings.

 

[jkahan]

I ended up fixing my Kubota bucket and also getting a Titan 72" skeleton bucket -- it's 51" deep and 20" high - and somehow 700lb awesome for picking up and moving firewood. Interestingly, the skeleton feature (i.e. ribbed bottom with space between the ribs ) is not that efficient at separating out materials; seems well built but time will tell; thanks tp all for all the replies -- really appreciated... Josh