Mount Everest and Skydiving are for Losers

Today I converted my Kubota to SSQA, which means Skid Steer Quick Attach. This is a style of front end loader that allows you to drop attachments and pick up new ones in a couple of minutes. Before SSQA, which, I am guessing, was developed originally for skid steers, changing attachments was a colossal nightmare. You had to remove four stubborn pins from your bucket, pull up to another attachment, spend half the day trying to line it up with the pins in the attachment, and put the pins in. It was really bad. I know that because my new SSQA adaptor is an attachment itself, and I just installed it on my old pin front end loader.

Removing the old bucket was not bad. I intended to drop it face down in the workshop so I could cut it up and modify it later, but the Kubota would not rotate it enough to do this, so I set it down with the top on cinder blocks and the bottom on the floor. I had to remove four bolts in order to take the pins out. A lot of people get new pins when they do this job, and that tells me they don’t take care of their tractors. My pins are in good condition, not much worse than new. The guy who sold me this tractor obviously greased the fittings sufficiently often to prevent damage.

If you don’t grease that type of part, you ruin your pins and risk wallowing out the holes they go in. Then you need to have the ears on your bucket replaced. Amazingly, people let this job go on big machines like excavators. Then they have to find fabricators who can both weld heavy equipment and do line-boring, which is a difficult way of making holes line up in large parts.

Putting the adaptor on was pretty awful. There were no clouds in the sky, and I started just when the sun started hitting the outside of the workshop. I was broiling.

I decided it was smarter to move the part to the tractor than to try to line the tractor up with the part, so I put the adaptor on my amazing Harbor Freight lift table. It will raise 500 pounds to waist height. The adaptor supposedly weighs 76 pounds, but it felt like a lot more to me.

This lift table is an astounding tool. Once you have one, you understand how badly you needed it.

I got the adaptor on there and wiggled the table around to line up the adaptor with the hydraulic rods on the tractor. Big mistake. Once I had done that, I had to find a way to line the adaptor up with the holes in the rigid FEL arms. I didn’t know the pistons would move independently when not attached to anything, so one extended farther out than the other, making it impossible to line the adaptor up with the FEL. I ended up removing the pins on the ends of the hydraulic rods and installing the ones in the FEL arms. After that, I was able to move the hydraulics around enough to make the remaining pins go in. It was a very unpleasant job, but at least it was possible.

I bought a huge 3/8″-thick mount plate to attach to the bucket. This was not necessary. It turns out you just need two rectangles; one for each end of the adaptor. You weld one rectangle to each end of your bucket. The plate I bought must weigh over a hundred pounds, and most of it will be cut out and set aside. Live and learn. I thought it was better to take a chance on buying too much steel than too little, since I had no idea what I was doing.

I think I can use the scrap to make mounts for the brush fork attachment I’m going to make. My old chain-on brush forks are obsolete now, but they are made from good steel, so I think I can put them on an attachment that will be useful for moving brush and logs and also pallets.

I would go ahead and buy a brush attachment, but they don’t exist. You can get pallet forks or a grapple. I don’t want either.

Pallet fork attachments cost a lot, and they come with two forks, and two forks will do a sad job of moving logs and brush. Things will fall out between them. I can get four forks, but that seems like a stupid idea when I have four chain-on brush forks on hand, which I will never be able to sell to the cheap people around here. You couldn’t sell these people quarters for nickels. They are incredibly tight. Selling things on the web is such a waste of time, I give things to charity.

I think grapples are stupid. They are no good at all for moving brush, and I can move big logs just fine with brush forks, which will carry a tremendous amount of brush. I could carry a grand total of one big log with a grapple, but I can get about five on the forks. I suspect men buy grapples just because they’re cool. I think men like pretending their tractors are Truckasaurus.

Tomorrow I hope to cut the unnecessary, in-the-way stuff off my precious Kubota bucket and install the mounts. Then I have to apply some paint. The paint is more intimidating than the fabrication. I hate painting.

Once the bucket is restored, I will look at the scrap I have on hand and come up with a plan for the forks.

The forks were made by the Charles Mitchem company, which I had never heard of before I got the tractor. In the past, some mechanical wizard put a Vise Grip on one of the turnbuckles that tighten the chains, and he ruined it. He compressed it permanently so it was just about impossible to turn one of the screws inside it. Vise Grips are great, but they are also some of the tools ham-fisted “bubbas” use to destroy things.

I contacted the company and got an email that was terse and useless. I thought it was rude. They told me to call a retailer. I would have said, “Sorry you’re having trouble with our product, but unfortunately, we are not able to sell directly to the public. We suggest you contact your local dealer and see what they can do for you. Here is the part you need, so you can tell them the number.”

I ended up buying a huge tap and cleaning out the turnbuckle. Lost sale there, Chuck. It’s a bad idea to ignore customers who can do their own metalworking.

Since they were so useless, I don’t feel too bad about criticizing their product. The forks are strong and very useful, but putting them on a tractor bucket is at least an hour’s work. After that, they move around when you lift things, and they damage your bucket. They have to be tightened over and over, so you have to get off the tractor repeatedly while you work. I would never buy anything like them again.

Another useless company: Florida Coast Equipment. This is the local Kubota place. I called them in an effort to get an SSQA adaptor. They said they would call back in 15-20 minutes. Then they didn’t call. Two days later, I called, and they claimed it would take at least two days to do “research” to find out if such a part existed. And they didn’t call.

What equipment or vehicle dealer has to do research to find out if a part exists? John Deere is one of the most thoughtless, greedy arrogant companies on Earth, but I can go to their website and learn the status of every [overpriced] part on my ancient garden tractor in seconds. You would think a Kubota dealer could do better.

I know Kubota makes an adaptor which can be made to work with my FEL, but I can’t get it because the dealer is unprofessional, so here I am with an ATI Tach-All which costs more. At least it’s already Kubota orange.

Some people say the Kubota adaptor is better. I don’t care. I can weld. Now that I have something to work with, it doesn’t matter whether it has problems. I can fix anything. I don’t think the Tach-All is inferior, though. It appears to be very well made. Very nice welds. Not many products have those these days.

I am looking forward to having the ability to use my bucket without forks. I am looking forward to switching attachments in a few minutes. I am looking forward to new attachments. A tractor is no good unless you have multiple attachments you can swap quickly. I now have quick attach capability at both ends of the machine, so I should be in good shape.

I need to find a way to extend the bucket’s lower lip so I can load it with leaves. That way, I can rake leaves into it and dump them quickly. I don’t need an attachment worthy of the space program. Maybe a plywood box. I’ll come up with something. These leaves have to go.

Maybe I’ll get a citrus crate. They’re made of plastic, and they hold about a cubic meter. I used to fill three wooden ones per day with grapefruit back when I was a kibbutz volunteer. It should be easy to find a cheap crate now that plagues have hit the world and the citrus industry is vanishing.

Another tractor victory: I fixed my reverse problem.

When I got this tractor, I noticed it was incredibly slow in reverse. I mean slower than crawling on all fours. I thought it was a nanny/lawyer thing. I knew my grandfather’s old Massey Fergusons moved much faster, but they banned diving boards, they banned lawn darts, they put ridiculous backup beepers on consumer vehicles…forcing farmers to creep in reverse seemed like part of the plan.

Today I asked around, and I decided to look at the pedal linkage. This tractor has a pedal that behaves like an accelerator, and it also determines your direction. It’s not a throttle. It doesn’t affect the RPM’s. It’s somehow connected to the transmission.

I found out the nut that went on the bolt that attached the pedal to the link was gone. I had been creeping in reverse for almost 5 years for nothing.

The pedal still worked okay for forward, because it bottomed out on the link and pushed it. In reverse, it barely did anything.

I checked as well as I could, and it looked like the bolt took an M8-1.25 nut. The threads were messed up, though, because the previous owner kept using the pedal without a nut, and the pedal rested on the threads.

I thought I would take the link out and run a tap over it, but there was no way. Of course, Kubota had made it hard to work on. Removing the fasteners that held the link on was not possible because Kubota installed them so tightly the nuts would have rounded before turning.

I tried removing the pin that held the pedal on, but it was held on with a snap ring that had holes too small for my snap ring pliers. Metric snap rings? I have no idea.

I found a flange nut lying around, and I decided to force it on. If the threads got more mangled, it wouldn’t matter, because I would be where I ws to start with. Fortunately, the nut overcame the bad threads, and now my tractor zips around like it should. For the first time since 2017.

I bought a new Harbor Freight rolling tool chest yesterday, just like my old green one, only red, to match my Lincoln. I turned the green one into a fantastic welding cart complete with bottles, and I plan to do the same thing with the new one. This will enable me to get rid of my old Eastwood cart, which was great for $50 but has no storage and takes up a ton of room. Once I have the new cart up and running, I can empty my portable toolboxes that contain welding-related stuff and use them for other things.

I didn’t want to get another chest while I was working on the tractor, but Harbor Freight came out with an unusual 25%-off coupon which applied to good products, not just the usual junk, so I jumped at the chance. Tomorrow I should go buy the metal I’ll need.

I may get a Milwaukee chest and mount my belt grinders on it. My shop is a catastrophe, and Milwaukee makes a chest that would end my belt grinder mess. It’s a very unusual chest which happens to be perfect for belt grinders.

On top of all this, I’m contemplating building another outbuilding. I filled my shop with tools, and I’m tired of leaving my cart and tractors outside. I was reluctant to commit to this property because I was thinking of moving to Tennessee, but I am starting to think this is where God wants me and Rhodah. I called 811 and had them locate all the underground wiring, so now I have a better understanding of where I can build and plant.

I also ordered a hitch and harness for the Explorer, and I want to build or buy a utility trailer. My truck is fine, but now that Mike is staying here with his trailer, I see that a truck is no substitute. I got a hitch I can install myself. It bolts up.

That’s about all for today. I guess it’s enough.