RK55 TOO BIG?

[Snowman754]

Never having had a tractor we are building a house on some land and realized I would need one. I spent a year researching what tractor to get. One recurring piece of advice in videos, in forums and from friends was get the biggest tractor you can afford. So I did. I gonna an RK55H open station and it's great 99% of the time. I use it for road and driveway maintenance and digging out a gun range in a hill. I watch videos of smaller tractors working hard to accomplish tasks that would be a breeze for mine. BUT these smaller tractors get the job done and there are things mine cant do. I cant get my tractor sideways on my driveway due to hills beside it. I cant drive across my septic tank due to it weighing 6000+ lbs. I avoid crossing my septic field. I am nervous driving it on the edges of the paved portion of my driveway. And I'm sure I'll find more. I dont regret my purchase at all but there are downsides to its size. A 37 would likely have done all I needed it to with a few thousand $$ more for attachments. If I had to do it over I would likely get the same tractor because I like to be able to do the job easy. I say I like to have ability in reserve.
With mine I can dig easily in solid clay with no toothbar, pull a six foot boxblade full of gravel uphill. Drag a 7 ft rear blade deep in the ground no problem. And so on, so overall I am happy.

Overall the point of this post is to give new buyers some things to consider when considering how big.

 

[BoylermanCT]

At 6000 lbs, your tractor is heavy, but not that heavy. Would you drive a F250 on the edge of your driveway? I am guessing yes, and you wouldn't give it a second thought. The F250 weighs in at 7000 lbs.

Yes size can limit what you can do. If you want to use a tractor in close quarters, inside a barn etc, your RK55 is the wrong tractor for that. You may find that once all the big jobs are done, it might make sense to sell the RK55 and get something smaller. Or as most on TBN would agree, you may need a second smaller tractor!

 

[jeff9366]

Your thread title is: RK55 TOO BIG?

Perhaps a better title would be RK55 TOO BIG? NO!!

 

[oosik]

My original tractor - 1982 Ford 1700 weighed around 3500 pounds. My current tractor - 2009 Kubota M6040 weighs 10,000+ pounds - fully decked out. Yes, it does take a little more care when navigating tight spots. The advantages of a bigger, heavier tractor FAR outweigh any navigational difficulties.

 

[Diggin It]

With mine I can dig easily in solid clay with no toothbar,

It's a tractor, not a bulldozer. People break stuff doing that, even big stuff. The bigger the stuff, the bigger the repair bill. And the pet food store you bought it from won't have the parts on hand.

 

[oosik]

As Diggin It indicates, it's NOT a bulldozer. You are or want to dig into a hill for the backstop for a gun range. Better to use a rear blade. Raise the rear blade to full height - back into the hill - drop the blade - drive forward. OR - get a multi tooth scarifier - raise the scarifier - back into the hill - drop the scarifier - loosen the clay - spin around and load up the bucket with the now loosened clay.

About every ten years I will dig a new landfill trench on my property. I use my roll over box blade and its scarifiers to do this job. Yes, the ROBB in its box blade configuration, only, will do the job. But with the scarifiers ahead of the box blade it SO much easier, quicker and a WHOLE LOT less work for the tractor.

 

[Jchonline]

How many acres?

 

[Smokeydog]

Sounds like you need two tractors!

 

[radios1]

for crossing septic tanks, get 1" plywood, make it double, and lay that over the tanks, that's what cesspool guys do if they have to drive over a cesspool/septic tank with a big tractor!..

 

[Sawyer Rob]

How much dirt is over the septic tank? It doesn't take much to be safe to hold up a 50hp tractor. so you can drive over it...

SR

 

[radios1]

How much dirt is over the septic tank? It doesn't take much to be safe to hold up a 50hp tractor. so you can drive over it...

SR

I'm not sure about septic tanks, but my cesspools only have 2 feet of dirt over them, remember, the dirt has to be removed by a shovel to lift the covers, a machine could damage them easily..

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I wouldn't worry about 2 feet of packed dirt, especially if it has sod on it...

I drove over one of mine that's similar to that with a 60hp farm tractor all the time...

SR

 

[tman1020]

Very interesting topic. I have also heard people say many times get the biggest tractor you can afford. I never really felt that applied to me. It seems most of my uses have always been space limited. I suppose if you have acres and acres of land without obstacles this would be Great advice. But I have saved a lot of back work by being able to get my small tractor into places no large machine would ever fit. Or be efficient even if I did get it to fit.
For me the heaviest smaller to medium size tractor with the most capacity has been what I have found to be best.

 

[rew1953]

I had the opposite problem. I bought a NAA in 1974 as my first tractor. At 33 HP and an 800 lb 3pt, it does a lot of jobs very well. However, as some of the newer implements came out, it did not handle them very well. For example.it is a real challenge to run an auger. The 3 pt is marginal at best. Over half the time, I had to jack the auger out of the hole as the lift would not pick it up. I wound up digging over 300 post holes by hand rather than fooling with a stuck auger. It is also marginal with a rotary tiller. To till full depth I had to make 4-5 passes and with the high ground speed of the older tractors the governor cycling produced varying wheel speeds and wash boarding in the garden. I still had to run a disc and drag to get a somewhat even surface. The potato plow would swing side to side with the solid sway bars requiring 3 passes or more while harvesting the potatoes. The remaining attachments it does very well after adding a slip clutch to the PTO shaft. I acquired a 1970 Ford 4000 last summer at a very reasonable price, 2117 actual hours, 55 HP, 3200 lb 3 pt. It handles the auger great. Jerks it right out of the ground with a speed adjuster built into the lift. The tiller is 1 pass for full depth with the H/L tranny and the rpm of the diesel never varies. The ground is well tilled and flat, no rework required. Each tractor has its own nitch where it performs very well. having 2 tractors seems like the ideal solution, especially when changing rears. The only problem is I am still catching it from the other half about having 2 tractors, even though both are used every week. It doesn't compute that she has to have 4 sewing machines and a surger at over $1200 each to repair clothes once every 2 years. Total investment in both tractors was less than $4000, $3300 for the 4000 in2019 and $600 for the NAA in 1974.

 

[skipperbrown]

The case for 2 tractors.