Kubota HP needed?

[JWR]

Well I bought a MX5200HST. After driving the hst and gear. It was easy to decide on the hst. It has 4x4, FEL with heavy duty bucket and additional cutting edge plus loaded ag tires. I bought it on size and price. It was the most stable tractor and only $1000 more than the L4701 which was my next choice. 27 hours on it so far in a month of ownership

Looks like an excellent choice. Certainly plenty of tractor for the 6ft hog. After all our yakking in the last 49 posts I can't recall what you said about mowing steep ground (or not.) How wide are your rear tires set and does that aspect seem to be comfortable ?

 

[pburchett]

Looks like an excellent choice. Certainly plenty of tractor for the 6ft hog. After all our yakking in the last 49 posts I can't recall what you said about mowing steep ground (or not.) How wide are your rear tires set and does that aspect seem to be comfortable ?

Well .... I can tell everyone that the HP rating will be the maximum one could ever expect to get from the tractor with it going downhill. Not very stable on hills but currently I have the FEL attached. I think it will lower the center of gravity once it is removed for bush hogging. I have the wheels set almost at max width. They can be set another 4 inches wider and I plan on doing that once I get closer to mowing the hills.

 

[JWR]

Well .... I can tell everyone that the HP rating will be the maximum one could ever expect to get from the tractor with it going downhill. Not very stable on hills but currently I have the FEL attached. I think it will lower the center of gravity once it is removed for bush hogging. I have the wheels set almost at max width. They can be set another 4 inches wider and I plan on doing that once I get closer to mowing the hills.

Hmmm! I'm surprised about the power. I'd have guessed that was a pretty robust machine, esp.in power to weight ratio. I'd widen the rear all I could for sure. My MF 2660 dynamometer tested at 90 hp at the pto even though it was rated 81hp. Yours is 4cyl and turbocharged. Surprises me. I'm one who prefers the loader to be on the tractor bush hogging steep ground. If you keep it low, the cg is lower than without it plus you get more weight on the drive wheels, esp. the front ones. A good heavy bucket below the normal c.g. of the tractor is a stabilizer.

 

[pburchett]

Well I am hoping that the power is there as I am still babying it a little till it gets broken in. This thing has to last another 70 years. We live in a geographical oddity as we are nowhere near anything so a dyno is out of the question. All I have to compare it to is the old Ford 640 and the seat of the pants dyno, not very scientific or accurate.

I have the heavy duty bucket and cutting edge, but the tractor seems tipsy compared to the old Ford. I will know more about the stability when I start to mow. Definitely I plan on widening the rear tires the last 4 inches (2inches each), then mowing the hills with the FEL on and off to see what is my best option. As long as I do not wind up like a turtle on its back all is good.

 

[JWR]

Yup. Don't turtle ! I never thought of using a dyno but the dealer when I bought it new was all excited with a new machine and did the test before I knew it. Your old Ford 640 like many of it's Ford or Ferguson cousins was built with an inherently low cg design. On top of that, the rear wheels were pretty far apart in standard configuration. So I think it is likely the MX5200 will feel less stable on steep ground. The spacers (I inserted a photo about in post # 41) are about all you can do beyond running the rears out as far as the standard MX5200 allows. I assume those spacers probably would fit your 5200. My limit has usually been "What fits my trailer width." But in later years I got a deck-over style trailer to get around that issue. It takes time to build confidence and feel for any new machine.

 

[TripleR]

We still have some old Ford tractors NAA, 600 and 601, my brother still uses them regularly. I only drive an L5740 and M8540. On the Ford and our MF375, you straddle the transmission and sit much lower than the Kubotas and others with flat floor boards. I've found the high seating position "causes more of a tippy feeling" than they actually are. I remember my initial feelings when I went with the tractors with higher seating positions, kinda of uneasy. I find in reality both are very stable with wheels extended and we don't even have our M8540 as wide as they will go. Much of our land has slopes.