Kubota gurus

Kubota Experts:

I have an L275 2WD, 1984 vintage I’ve owned since 1985. I use it to maintain my 15 acres. It also was my main mower until I retired it from that work in the late 90s when I acquired a Z-turn mower.

In 2003, I installed a Bush Hog loader, and the wonderful world of having a tool of that nature at your beck and call was now a reality. As most of you know, it’s tough living without a loader.

Well, also as you know, installing a loader totally changes the equation on how the tractor behaves with respect to rear wheel traction. I’m especially hamstrung since I only have 2 WD and no power steering. I’ve loaded the tires and have hung weights on a rear blade that is almost always on the tractor for counter weight. While effective in most cases rear wheel traction is still marginal. And lugging around all that extra weight to counter the loader just puts a strain on everything.

So…I’ve been toying with the idea of converting my 2WD to 4WD. I runs in my mind if I could find an L275DT relic somewhere, I could make the conversion by swapping parts.

Am I limited to looking for an L275DT? I have some thorough factory manuals on hand, and it appears the L235 is simply a lower-powered version of the L275. Is this true? Do they share basically the same components? And within the myriad of tractor models Kubota has in this HP range, what other models would be common? 175, 185, 245? How about some newer four-digit models?

I’ve been searching for 235/275 DTs on the internet and they seem to be somewhat rare. That’s why I need to explore other commonality.

Any thought and ideas out there would be appreciated. Maybe I’m all wet thinking along these lines. Facilities, skills and tools are no issue to pulling this off if possible.

Thanks

Joe:

Converting your tractor to FWA will almost certainly cost more than selling it and buying a different FWA tractor even if you ignore the cost of your time.

Dean

Probably true.

I was hoping to come across a burned out hulk somewhere at scrap price.

Oh well. Just a thought. I'm continually conjuring up things to take up time that I don't have.

While there are salvage yards with Kubota's, you would be lucky to find one close at hand. Sell it and buy a 4wd! Keep the loader if you want, there are a lot out there without loaders.

A set of good tire chains will help quite a bit but, of course, good chains are expensive.

Dean

Been a KUBOTA dealer for 28 years.. Yes it can be done but not going to be easy to find that donor tractor and you basicly would need about all of it in that your trans does not have everything you need. Some dealer did you wrong.
If you had come in to my dealership I would ha ve told you right up front a loader on a small 2 wheel drive tracotr is a waste of good money.
Sell and find you a later 4 wheel drive..units can be found from 7 to 8 grand on up/ E-mail me
and I will try and help.. Jerry

Hang a backhoe on the back. That will give you alot of weight back there and now your frt. will be light.

If you were lucky enough to find an intact L275DT with a bad engine then it would be an easy upgrade. Short of this I would forget it.

FWIW I have an L285F 2wd with factory kubota loader. My tractor is very similar in size and weight to yours. It had the diamond tread turf tires on it when I bought the tractor and they were useless even with counterweight on the back. I switched to loaded R1's and it helped traction tremendolusly. I would put loaded R1's on the rear if you have not already done so.

My tractor does not have P/S either. I have considered adding it, but do not want to part with the $500 to do it. There is some intersesting info at TBN about a few who have added it and love it. My tractor does not really steer that bad though as long as moving when turning.

Only other thing that I can add is that my bucket is small (only 48" wide). If you have a large capacity bucket, you might consider narrowing your bucket.