Kubota L3301HST/LA525 modifications

[newbury]

Glad to see you back.
Boy the price on those magnets sure jumped!
Last year I ordered 10 of the 112 LB Holding Power Neodymium Cup Magnet w/ Thread Stud for $3.57@, now they are $4.97@. Should have bought 50.

 

[Stomper]

Great thread. I am a new owner of a L2501 and am a huge MOD guy.so I really like what you're doing here. Great job.

 

[lennyzx11]

Next thing. This was a quick one. For a ballast weight, I purchased a drawbar and a couple of grade 8 3/4" allthreads.
These scrap disks weigh 62 lbs a piece. So total is around 640 lbs so far. I have a line on getting a few more so not cutting the allthreads just yet.

 

[Fallon]

Next thing. This was a quick one. For a ballast weight, I purchased a drawbar and a couple of grade 8 3/4" allthreads.
These scrap disks weigh 62 lbs a piece. So total is around 640 lbs so far. I have a line on getting a few more so not cutting the allthreads just yet.
View attachment 520409

Looks like there isn't a lot of ground clearance there unless you are flipping that after cutting the allthread. As soon as that ballast touches the ground the weight will transfer to the ground rather than unloading the front axle & giving you traction.

 

[lennyzx11]

Looks like there isn't a lot of ground clearance there unless you are flipping that after cutting the allthread. As soon as that ballast touches the ground the weight will transfer to the ground rather than unloading the front axle & giving you traction.

Fallon, it's just sitting there on the ground when I took the picture. It is approx 12" tall. The three point will pick it up past the PTO output shaft.

I used it all day today behind the front bucket and grapple and worked really well!

 

[lennyzx11]

PARKING BRAKE WARNING MOD
After catching myself trying to drive off with the parking brake engaged a few times, I decided to add a better warning light. There is an idiot light in the dash but I've failed to notice it more than once. Here's what I did.

I picked up this 1"x4" strobe LED light from Amazon.

GPPOWER Universal super thin 6-LED Amber/White 19-Flashing Mode Car Truck Warning Caution Emergency Construction Strobe Light Bar (1pc) Amazon.com: GPPOWER Universal super thin 6-LED Amber/White 19-Flashing Mode Car Truck Warning Caution Emergency Construction Strobe Light Bar (1pc): Automotive

Though I did order a couple of magnetic reed switches, I found it was simpler to just splice into the existing parking brake switch. Easiest place for me was at the switch it self.


Red wire to the OUT side of the switch. Black wire to a ground.(I used the switch mounting itself) Two wires going to switch. One is Hot to the switch when key is On, other gets energized when brake lever is engaged. I used a pin to probe for which one was which. 50/50 chance of being right the first guess so do you feel lucky?

This light has a couple of neat features. It's waterproof supposedly.
It appears to actually be made of a heavier "glass" than cheap thin plastics.
The yellow wire gets touched to ground when the light is powered and it changes the flashing strobing pattern. It is Bright!

For you snow moving types, a couple of these on the ROPS would make good warning lights while plowing I believe.

I mounted where I did because of the convenience of that location.
Though below line of sight, the flashing draws attention readily even in direct sunlight. There is places for a couple of mounting screws but I used double stick tape for now. If that doesn't work out long term, I'll drill the holes in the metal bracket easily.

Soldered the wires, taped up the connection, and called her good.
Start to finish, maybe 1/2 hour.

 

[lennyzx11]

Let's see. I guess I forgot to post here that I got the Titan 3point to SSQA adaptor in order to use my bucket on the rear for a carry all. Yeah yeah I know the carryall woulda probably been cheaper when all said and done! Oh well.
Fit and finish was nice. Heavy and quality throughout. One thing burnt my *** was that would NOT work with my HF quick hitch.

So off came the QH. Mounted it straight to the arms and loaded up the bucket. Due to the built in rake/angle, the top link was extended all the way out to level the bucket bottom.
I have to say it worked exactly as I wanted as a carryall while I cut up a few of the trees I had dropped last spring and didn't have time to finish.
Kinda iffy if I'd do it again all said and done but now I'm perusing back through Fallon's linear actuated power SSQA MOD thinking hmmm....

 

[lennyzx11]

After installing the Titan adaptor for three point to SSQA, I lost my QH.
At first, I was thinking of cutting the adaptor and widening it the 5/8" to make it work.(Still pisses me off,Titan)
I had read about Pats quick change system and though a little more expensive it comes with rave reviews. And American made.
The kicker that made me decide to try it was the fact of one reviewer saying it was a lot easier than a QH to get into for hooking up a PTO shaft. So I ordered one. It came quality double boxed with brown paper packing instead of the dreaded styrofoam. +1.
Got it unpacked and read through the instructions and it was pretty straight forward. 2 beer job.

One thing about it. Once you install it, you're kinda married to it as there are 2 ubolts double nutted and 8 bolts used as adjustment set screws. More of a PITA to remove and install than a HF QH by quite a bit. I'm hoping I don't have to ever take it off. We will see.
Only other thing is the "stabilizer bar" that locks the width of the arms in place. Don't get me wrong. It works perfect as intended and is high quality as is the whole kit. No cheap **** included. My thought is that bar has to be removed in order to connect up a PTO shaft and sure as ****, I'll lay the **** thing down never to be found again!
I'll post back on using this after playing with some of the implements that I have to hook up including the beat up bent pin back blade from **** I own.

 

[BCrouse]

If you use any ground engaging pto powered implements (for me it was a tiller) it caused the Pat’s quick change’s to become loose. The bolts vibrated loose. Sure I could have prob locktited them or tack welded it...the Quick Hitch is just a more sturdy way to attach. Mine are sitting in a box in the garage some where.

Also for the stabilizer bar, i found it easier and more effective to just use a bungee cord.

 

[Stomper]

I have been wanting a set of pats quick hitch for some time now but can't find them anywhere in canada. I agree that a bungee works great. That's what I use right now on the arms of the 3ph

 

[ProjectKing]

Let's see. I guess I forgot to post here that I got the Titan 3point to SSQA adaptor in order to use my bucket on the rear for a carry all. Yeah yeah I know the carryall woulda probably been cheaper when all said and done! Oh well.
Fit and finish was nice. Heavy and quality throughout. One thing burnt my *** was that would NOT work with my HF quick hitch. View attachment 536945View attachment 536946

So off came the QH. Mounted it straight to the arms and loaded up the bucket. Due to the built in rake/angle, the top link was extended all the way out to level the bucket bottom.View attachment 536947View attachment 536948
I have to say it worked exactly as I wanted as a carryall while I cut up a few of the trees I had dropped last spring and didn't have time to finish.View attachment 536949
Kinda iffy if I'd do it again all said and done but now I'm perusing back through Fallon's linear actuated power SSQA MOD thinking hmmm....

That thing is slow slick! I would buy one if it would fit my quick hitch! Can’t believe they didn’t make it fit!

 

[lennyzx11]

So. After ordering a set of Pat's quick connectors, I found that the adaptor wouldn't work with it either.
The Pat's piece hits the top of the mounting bracket not allowing the adaptor to be installed near vertical.

And the HF QH was too wide to fit.

So back to the drawing board. After thinking about it a bit. I decided to take my new porta bandsaw saw to it.
This would have worked perfect IF the bandsaw would have had the necessary clearance to cut flush down to welds. It didn't. I thought well if only part was cut, then the strength would not be compromised as much.
But no. The top had to be relieved for both the pat's and the HF QH locking mechanism to work properly.

So out came the sawzall with some diablo metal cutting blades. For those of you that have those fancy plasma sabers and/or flame wrenches, I hate you. This was the longest part.
And no. After buying the new Hobart, I need to calm the **** down a bit. (Or so she says). So no new plasma
cutter this month.



It wasn't (really) that bad. Got both sides cut and tomorrow I'll run into town for some Class 1 pins what are Nutted on each side. Yeah, I "could" weld the original pins in, but let's face it. We've all seen my welding! So bolt ins it is.

It "should" work with both the QH and the Pats after this along with no adaptor as originally intended for use.
Here's where I stopped for the night.

 

[Stomper]

Great "thinking out of the box" to get things to work, but it's to bad that you had to modify a brand new peice of equipment to get things to fit. One would think that almost every attachment built now would be QH compatible. Guess not

 

[lennyzx11]

Great "thinking out of the box" to get things to work, but it's to bad that you had to modify a brand new peice of equipment to get things to fit. One would think that almost every attachment built now would be QH compatible. Guess not

Little bit more done tonight. Welding is finished. I'm pretty sure Shield Arc won't have to worry about me taking his job. Gotta let the paint dry and give her a test run tomorrow.

I cut the old angle flat off and used the piece to augment the single piece that wasn't removed. The porta band cut this easily. I then welded the new piece to the old with the new lift pins installed in order to line up the original holes. Laziness at its best!

That top weld was the root pass horizontal. That vertical weld shows that I need to work on that skill set a bit more <laughing>.

But it all stuck. It did penetrate.
And paint softens the look of a multitude of sins!

So let her dry overnight. Reinstall the lift pins, and give it a try out.

 

[lennyzx11]

Put it together and tryed it with the Pats system first since that was installed on the tractor.

Then I removed the Pats and put my HF QH back on. I did have to remove the class 3 bushings I had put on the lift pins since there wasn't enough room without grinding on the QH hooks and I was trying to keep it (and the PATs system stock.
I was able to install the class 2 bushings though. With the Pats, it will only accept class 1 size.


Reinstalling the QH allowed the top link to be shortened back to its normal running length.

Picking up the bucket was a now normal affair. To install the bucket on the SSQA, the top link did have to be extended in order to grab the top of the bucket. Alternative would be dropping bucket tilted back slightly. But then it would hold water.

Then by attaching the clamp in forks, I raised my test pallet full of weights. About 640 lbs roughly. It was all the 3 point wanted but it didnt go into relief mode.

All in all, a good project. Dropping the bucket with the SSQA still attached from QH is fast and easy. Also reattaching.

As mentioned earlier, it won't dump (I think) with the range of motion allowed in the top link area even if I did have a hyd top link. I am contemplating an "over center linkage" or two cylinders attached together to get a compounded length but that is quite a few beers away and "think about its". Anybody has ideas like that, please let me know.

 

[teg]

You so need to get a Hydraulic Top link with that setup!!!

 

[lennyzx11]

So. With the new welder up and running, I have all kinds of stuff to do.
Like putting fake dual exhaust on my Harbor Freight Quick hitch!
Tractor should be sooo much faster now.

Jokes aside. One of the things I've wanted to do was have a receiver mount on the QH itself.
At first I was going to put it in the middle because "that's where it's supposed to be", but I was worried that the PTO shaft might hit it sometimes though the measurements tell me it wouldn't.
I also had the passing idea of insetting the receiver into the hitch but had the problem of then no way to install the pin to hold it in.

So I measured over from center, divided the space into quarters and placed one but my God! That wasn't balanced! So on went a second.

I also set the working ends out a bit rather than flush so I could get a good tjoint weld and not distort the front openings.

It's working. There is some more I want to do regarding welding a second stub on a cargo carrier to slid into to keep it from twisting when loaded on one side. And I have some more ideas to expand on this. Like my winch mount and receiver mounted cherry picker.

Though I had my (new to me) Lincoln tombstone nearby, I found the Hobart Handler did fine and showed evidence of good penetration in the tubes insides. It is rated to 1/4" with 220v flux core .030.

Here's some pix. Weld criticism is welcomed. They can only get better!


Took about 3 hours and 4 beers.

 

[Jstpssng]

So. With the new welder up and running, I have all kinds of stuff to do.
Like putting fake dual exhaust on my Harbor Freight Quick hitch!View attachment 540998
Tractor should be sooo much faster now.

Jokes aside. One of the things I've wanted to do was have a receiver mount on the QH itself.
At first I was going to put it in the middle because "that's where it's supposed to be", but I was worried that the PTO shaft might hit it sometimes though the measurements tell me it wouldn't.
I also had the passing idea of insetting the receiver into the hitch but had the problem of then no way to install the pin to hold it in.

So I measured over from center, divided the space into quarters and placed one but my God! That wasn't balanced! So on went a second.

I also set the working ends out a bit rather than flush so I could get a good tjoint weld and not distort the front openings.

It's working. There is some more I want to do regarding welding a second stub on a cargo carrier to slid into to keep it from twisting when loaded on one side. And I have some more ideas to expand on this. Like my winch mount and receiver mounted cherry picker.

Though I had my (new to me) Lincoln tombstone nearby, I found the Hobart Handler did fine and showed evidence of good penetration in the tubes insides. It is rated to 1/4" with 220v flux core .030.

Here's some pix. Weld criticism is welcomed. They can only get better!
View attachment 541001View attachment 541002View attachment 541003View attachment 541004View attachment 541005

Took about 3 hours and 4 beers.

Those welds look like they will hold, and at the end of the day that's what we are looking for. OK, except for Shield Arc, who's reputation depends on his joints. The good thing about your welds though is that they don't look like I did them! :laughing:

 

[lennyzx11]

When we last tuned in, I had put dual exhaust on the HF Quick hitch.
I cut the Mickey Mouse winch mount off my tilt trailer and added a receiver mount for my winch.

The original plate was sturdy enough to save some of so I welded to it with the Hobart 210MVP.
I had to cut about 2 1/2" off the receiver tube (from HF) to make it all as compact as possible.

Seeing the cut off piece of tubing, (I've been accused of not throwing anything away) I came up with another idea.

By taking it, (and another from another piece of receiver laying around) I welded them vertically to the two I had welded to the QH.


This helps me when I'm actually using the QH for an implement with what to do with the ball mount that I always seem to walking back to the shop to get. So short version this is storage for receiver mounted stuff.


An added bonus is the storage of my 4" Craftsman vise that I use a LOT more than I ever thought I would with it mounted on a receiver mount.



I also had added hooks for chains to use with my receiver mounted cherry picker as steady it when moving. You can barely see them just above the lower 3 point hooks.

This mod is not done. After I tacked them in place with the Hobart, ran one bead I suddenly stopped feeding wire.
Course all you experts never run the spool out of wire like I did! So I'll have to go to town or wait on the big brown truck to get more flux core. I may spring for the 10lb.
BTW the Hobart Handler 210 MVP has been flawless on 220 and 110 through the first two small spools of wire ran through it. Really happy.

I'm thinking this may be an idea toward mounting a cargo carrier either from the vertical or the horizontal tubes eventually as a smaller carryall.

 

[lennyzx11]

Tonight I had a little time so I worked on a kickstand for the Rhino Back Blade. It's a heavy b**ch so I wanted something sturdy. Also, with it being able to offset, I had to plan for that.

Here's the original.


I used a piece of receiver tube from Harbor freight and 24" piece of inner tube that I'd picked up at a tractor supply. The foot is a piece of channel that was "laying around".

Here's the down version.


And the travel position.


Good project for the evening. Wife is out of town so shop time for me.

Cut the pieces up with the Milwaukee 18v portaband and welded up with the Hobart Handler 210MVP on 110 and flux core. Love both of them.
Cleaned up welding areas with a flap disk on a dewalt 4" angle grinder before welding.