M9960 broke threaded rod in leveling assbly

[josephny]

There is the possibility of a local machine shop could make you one for less than Kubota's. Bust a light on my L last week, right at $140 for it. I could have bought four of standard lights for that price. Them being LED's at that, Kubota's are not.

We have a scarcity of shops around here, which is so sad because I would come up with work for them just to be able to watch how it's done!

 

[kthompson]

They are there, just hidden very well. I know of a few here but it is mostly by bumping into them. Ask mechanics where they take a part they need made in hurry or repaired. If you find one often they can tell you about another. Ask heavy equipment person who does their repair work their shop can not make. Stop by shop that sells steel and welding supplies and ask them or call them. You may find there are some shops you can easy find you think would never do a single job that does them right often. Find industrial area around you and just drive through them. Have known two machine shops here that made parts for large companies who still did one piece work depending on the part. Some of the guys that work in large shop have a small shop at home (no sign or phone number) for such work. Really a word of mouth built business.

 

[Smokeydog]

My old Kubota M5030 had nice heavy cat1&2 3pt hitch arms and hand crank leveling box. Use to 3pt hitches from Ford, MF, Case built heavy a made to last a lifetime of hard use. Newer Kubota and particularly the TLBs I currently run are light weight in comparison. See the same failures in my friends kubotas 60-80hp range.

Hope your weld holds. Your welder is a marginal structural welder. If it breaks again might trying heavy wall tubing. Easily sourced from online suppliers or places like metal supermarket. Be stronger than OEM, more surfaces to weld and friendly for your welder. OEM would probably fold up again.

MIG welding requires more attention to clean and joint prep. Stick with the right rods is more forgiving in the right hands.

 

[sandyc]

On a positive note, it’s a good thing that the rod broke otherwise you might to buying a new pto case or worse

 

[josephny]

My old Kubota M5030 had nice heavy cat1&2 3pt hitch arms and hand crank leveling box. Use to 3pt hitches from Ford, MF, Case built heavy a made to last a lifetime of hard use. Newer Kubota and particularly the TLBs I currently run are light weight in comparison. See the same failures in my friends kubotas 60-80hp range.

Hope your weld holds. Your welder is a marginal structural welder. If it breaks again might trying heavy wall tubing. Easily sourced from online suppliers or places like metal supermarket. Be stronger than OEM, more surfaces to weld and friendly for your welder. OEM would probably fold up again.

MIG welding requires more attention to clean and joint prep. Stick with the right rods is more forgiving in the right hands.

I've been watching it and so far so good.

But if it does break, I'll use stick (which I'm even less good at).

Thanks!

 

[josephny]

On a positive note, it’s a good thing that the rod broke otherwise you might to buying a new pto case or worse

LOL! It's the shear-pin strategy -- and it worked!

 

[Smokeydog]

As an engineer and designer I can appreciate shear pin strategy. Not sure this is the case. The threads reduce the diameter and their sharp corners invite stress points. These rods are failing under compression. Both my friends were grading when their lifting links folded. One was pushing backward. The other grading forward at angle. Not sure why that side even has a threaded adjustment. Some of my other Kubota don’t.
Even the best engineering misses from real-time applications sometimes.

 

[ovrszd]

Left side threaded link gives the 3pt much greater range of motion.

 

[RoyKing]

I looks simple to fix if that is a standard American thread, but I don't see why it would be. If it is two bolt heads welded together.

 

[Smokeydog]

I’m curious if anybody has ever needed to adjust the left side?

If it broke with normal use it would not be replaced or repaired back to OEM spec. That lifting rod threaded feature is a couple of sizes too small for my taste. Fortunately the local scrapyard has large nuts, bolts and threaded rod even in stainless by the pound. Drops of all kinds of structural steel.