Tractor Repair

One of the advantages of owning your equipment rather than renting it is that you don't have to pay for it on a daily basis.  This is especially economical if you plan to keep the equipment forever.  One of the disadvantages is that you are financially responsible for all the maintenance of the machines both routine and breakdowns.  We bought our excavation equipment used and we knew the units were not in perfect shape.  But we got a really good price on them and we knew we would still be money ahead even after some of the existing problems were fixed.  For example, our Kubota B21 tractor with the front end loader had a leaky hydraulic cylinder when we bought it.  This is the kind of problem that will only get worse and sooner or later we knew we would have to replace the cylinder.  A couple of weeks ago that day came.  I was moving some dirt when I noticed that the slight leak in the bucket cylinder had become a steady stream.  I was out of commission until I could fix it.  I pulled the cylinder off the machine and took it to Winchester Equipment Co to see if they could repair it.  Usually, this kind of problem is straightforward, they just dismantle the cylinder and replace the hydraulic seals at a cost of about $100.  Unfortunately, two days later when they took apart the cylinder they could not get the correct seals to make the repair. (There was some confusion as to what the correct seal diameter was for this old machine.)  They could send the cylinder to a company which specialized in repairing hydraulic cylinders but it would take two weeks. I had them do this but meanwhile I didn't have a tractor and that was going to slow me down considerably.  Now I did have another tractor.  It's an older Honda mini-tractor I bought about 16 years ago.  It's smaller and lighter than the B21 but I could use it in a pinch if I had to.  Unfortunately, it had broken down the previous week.  I didn't really care at the time since I had the B21 to work with and I figured I would fix the Honda when I had a bit of spare time and desire.  So now I had two dead tractors.  Sometimes you have to throw money at something to fix it.  I could buy a new cylinder for the B21 from Kubota.  I could get it in two or three days but it would cost me $665.  I decided to go for it.  Meanwhile, since I reluctantly had some time on my hands I looked into fixing the Honda.  Fortuitously, after a couple of hours with wrench and pliers in hand I ascertained the cause of the problem.  There is a coupler connecting the splined shaft of the Power Take-Off unit on the Honda to the 5/8 inch keyed shaft on the hydraulic pump which ran the loader.  The coupler had worked loose and the 3/16 inch shaft key had been lost.  Basically, no power was being transmitted to the hydraulics so nothing was happening.  A trip to Strohmeyer's Hardware in Winchester and the massive expenditure of 60 cents was all it took to get the Honda back in action.  Two days later the new cylinder came in from Georgia for the B21 and at that point I had two working tractors.

My old Honda mini-tractor after I repaired it.
Honda hasn't been in the tractor market in North America since 1995 so parts are generally hard to come by.  This tractor is getting more and more jerry-rigged as time goes on but I still get a lot of good use out of it.

The Kubota B21 sporting its nice new bucket cylinder.  It's the one on the left with none of its  paint scraped off yet.

A close-up of the new cylinder showing nice fresh moly grease.