New XJ2025H

[Plas62]

I've been like a kid waiting for Christmas the last two weeks, waiting for my tractor to get delivered :hyper:. My new XJ2025H TBL with 3rd function remote, finally got here yesterday evening :cool2:.





I also bought a Brush Hog and Box Blade from the dealer, which he delivered with the tractor. To make things even better, yesterday afternoon while waiting for the tractor to get delivered, I got a call from the freight company and my new Compact Wicked Root Grapple, 42" pallet forks and Land Shark Compact PHD will be delivered this Wednesday.



Here are couple pic's of my first task leveling out material from a burn pile.





I want to give a big thumbs up to my dealer, Bearden Tractor in Carrollton, Ga. They have been great to deal with. When Corey Bearden found out this week that the factory would not be able to deliver my tractor to his dealership this week as originally anticipated. Corey drove up to the LS factory in NC on Wednesday picked up my tractor, drove back to GA on Thursday. On Friday they installed my 3rd function remote, filled the rear tires, completed the pre-delivery checks and delivered my tractor Friday afternoon before 6 p.m..

It is really nice in this day and age, dealing with people who are honest and go out of their way to keep their commitments to their customers. I highly recommend that anyone shopping for a new LS to contact Corey at Bearden Tractor.

 

[JayTexas]

Very Cool! Major projects planned?

 

[DaveNJ]

Nice! I've got the same setup and most of same implements. You'll like it.

 

[Plas62]

Yesterday I spent most of the day moving dirt from the front of the property that the county had left when they deepened the drainage ditch. I used the dirt to fill in some holes and build up the area in front of our goat pen. I got a lot of practice using the FEL. I'm loving my new tractor.

As to the major projects we have planned. We have 4.5 acres that was overgrown when we bought the property 6 years ago and we had a lot of trees taken down, so I've got at least 50 stumps that I plan on digging out along with several large piles of brush that will need to be moved and burned. We are also going to fence 1.5 acres of our 4.5 acre property and build a small pole barn. Right now those are the immediate projects I have planned. Below are a few pic's from yesterday's fun.

 

[bfisherman11]

They really do have red dirt in GA. Ha

Congrats on the new LS. I have had mine a year and you will be surprised all these tractors can do. I bought blue over orange or green because of all the extras and value. I hoped it would be reliable and it has met every expectation I ever had. love my LS.

Enjoy!
Bill

 

[Plas62]

I received my delivery from Everything Attachments of my Grapple, PHD and Pallet Forks last Friday. The Trucking Company sent a tractor trailer to make the delivery. There was no way the driver was going to be able to back up my 400' gravel driveway, so I met him at the road with my tractor and I was able to hookup my SSQA to the pallet fork and pick the pallet off the back of the trailer. Only got a couple pictures of the pallet of attachments after I got them up to my shed. Will post more pic's of the new attachments later.

 

[Plas62]

I got my first stump dug out over the weekend. The first thing I learned was that the rubber feet on the stabilizer legs of the BH are useless in the dirt, so I made a set of claws from "U" channel for the stabilizer feet. The new feet made a big difference. I also added a pic of the Piranha Tooth Bar I installed while I had my tools out installing the new feet.







Here are a couple pic's of the stump coming out of the hole. Also a pic of one of my helpers inspecting the pile of dirt.







I've got a thumb and ripper tooth ordered from Bro-Tek for my BH. These should help a lot with all of the other stumps we have to remove.

Jim

 

[Plas62]

Thought I'd post an update since it has been couple of weeks. So far we have gotten 10 stumps dug out and I removed an old rail road tie wall at the front of the house. The pallets forks came in real handy for that job.

I got my Brotek Thumb and Ripper Tooth installed over the weekend. Also I posted a pic of my grapple.

 

[antlers125]

Some good looking projects. 1 thing you might want to keep an eye on, is the hydraulic hoses coming off the FEL & running under the right side of the tractor floor board. A few guys have noticed the hoses rubbing on the edge of the floor board & cutting through the hoses.

 

[Plas62]

Antlers, thanks for the heads up. I'll have to check those hoses tomorrow. I did find some rubbing on 3 of the hoses on my backhoe. The dealer is replacing those under warranty. I'll be doing doing my 50 service in the next couple of weeks and will replace the hoses then. I am going to check with a hydraulic shop that we use at work and see if I can get some small diameter hose covering to put over all the hoses on the backhoe and help protect them from wearing.

 

[Plas62]

I just completed my 50 hour service Friday night. I checked the hoses under the floor board and did not find any rubbing. I did not change the hoses on the BH as I am still waiting on 2 of the 3 hoses from the dealer. The dealer told me the hoses are back ordered at LS and he would ship them to me as soon as they come in.

When I bought the tractor I had negotiate a copy of the service manual into the deal. Oddly the recommended service interval charts in the two manuals do not match. I went with the more stringent recommendations in the service manual. I had copied and pasted the two charts into a word doc. and was going to add it to this post, but the site would not allow me to upload a word doc. If anyone is interested in seeing the charts side by side, send me your email address and I will send it to you.

On the 50 hour service, I did the following after giving the tractor a good cleaning. Total time spent on the cleaning and service work was about 16 -18 hours over the course of about four days. I'm sure it could have been done quicker, but I work cheap and was trying to be as thorough as possible.

Engine Air Filter: Factory Air Filter. I bought two new filters, so I could rotate the two filters when cleaning with low psi compressed air. I figured this would allow the filter a chance to dry completely from any moisture in my compressed air system.

Engine Oil and Oil Filter: Factory filter and Shell Rotella T5 for the engine oil. I meant to get the T6 full synthetic and grabbed the T5 by mistake. Next change I will probably go with the T6 or Amsoil equivalent.

Hydraulic Unit / Transmission: Factory HST and Suction filter, Amsoil Synthetic Tractor Hydraulic/Transmission Oil SAE 5W-30 for the fluid.

I have seen several threads where they debated the merits of using a synthetic fluid like Amsoil vs a Non Synthetic oil such as TSC Traveller Premium Universal Tractor Trans/Hydraulic Fluid. After completing the service and using the tractor Saturday I noted a definite decrease in the noise of the hydraulic whine with the Amsoil vs the hydraulic fluid that came in it from the factory. I plan to continue to use the Amsoil products.

Front Axle: Amsoil Synthetic 80W90 Gear Lube.

Checking Bolt and Nut Tightness / Torque: I strongly recommend to everyone to follow this step. I had to go buy some larger metric wrenches and sockets from Harbor Freight to complete this step as the largest I had on hand was 24mm and the largest fasteners on the BH are 32mm. When going over the bolts/ nuts I found one lug on the right front wheel that I got half a turn out of. Fours bolts on the FEL mounting that were loose. On the BH this was the worst, mounting bolts on the operator station were loose. Loose bolts on the brackets for the BH sub-frame mount. Loose bolts where the BH mounts to the sub-frame. I noticed there were more loose bolts on the left hand side of the tractor vs the right hand side, so some of this may be due to two different people on the assembly line at LS doing the work. I plan to make this a regular check. It will be interesting to see if this was all related to poor assembly at the factory or due to forces put on the FEL and BH fasteners during use.

Blow Out Radiator and Re-grease all Fittings FEL & BH: I do this every 10 hours anyway.

Well the sun is coming up, I'm off to feed the goats and digout some more stumps.

 

[Plas62]

# 11

 

[Plas62]

Took a long Holiday weekend, six days. My Son came down from TN to visit and we got to spend a lot of good Father & Son time together. Showed him how to use the tractor and do the daily pm's.

We got a lot of work done digging stumps while he was here. So far we have a total of 23 stumps removed. Below is a pic of #15. It was a big one. Had to cut a lot of long roots off to get it to lay down in the hole. I told him if it was a deer it would be his first 10 pointer. After this one we hooked up the Ripper Tooth & Thumb and got out eight smaller ones during the rest of his visit.

 

[Plas62]

Link to to thread for the light bar and toolbox upgrade, I recently completed.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/customization/371414-xj2025h-light-bar-toolbox.html

 

[MaximizerMatt]

I am really impressed with the backhoe ability on your LS! I have a J2023H (very similar to yours) and am amazed by the capability of this size of tractor. About how long does it take to dig out a stump like the ones shown? Is the manual thumb an aftermarket accessory? I've got a little clearing to do on my new property. Thanks.

 

[Plas62]

I too have been impressed with what I've been able to accomplish with this tractor.

The manual thumb is after market. I bought it from Brotek.

As to how long it takes to dig out a stump it really depends on how large the stump is and the root system. On the largest stumps I've taken out it has taken me anywhere from 8-10 hours per stump. Some of the smaller stumps as little as 30 minutes.

Right now I'm at 117 hours on my tractor and have removed a total of 30 stumps. Of the 117 hours on my tractor I would say that 90 to 95 of those hours were spent digging out stumps. This puts me at an average of a little over 3 hours per stump.

 

[Plas62]

Stump #35

 

[PJSprog]

Wow. You've already gotten your money's worth out of that thing, Plas62. Nice work.

 

[Plas62]

It's been getting a work out. I still have a lot of stumps left to remove, but the property is starting to show improvement.

I'll probably put my ripper tooth back on this weekend and pre-rip another 10-15 stumps to digout over the holiday weekend. Using the ripper tooth on the stumps before digging them out really seems to help.

I'll try to post some before and after pic's of my property in the next couple weeks.

 

[Plas62]

Stump #44