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Kubota's RTV
Muletrain.... which tires did you get? Sounds like the worksite model with the heavy duty 6 ply's ????.
I have been doing tire experiments......
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Kubota's RTV
I have 35 hours on mine now. I didn't test drive anything else so I can't compare. I wish it had a little more power, but I also believe the above post that it will out run the competition.
Maybe I should also say that it isn't broken in yet(far from it) and I run it between 5000 and 7500 feet of elevation in HOT weather. That will take the soup out of anything.
It rides nearly as well as my wifes Camry and burns 1/2 gallon of fuel an hour.
Getting the GP and retrofitting it later with the dump is a hard call. It will certainly be a lot more expensive. I think the Workplace model is only about $600 more than the GP. The dump system is $1500 alone plus install.
In case you haven't seen one, it comes with its own separate hydraulic fluid tank and is completely separate from the engine hydro system.
Is the dump a good feature? Yup. See if your wife can lift the bed on a GP to check the oil. It is a chore.
I have added the metal top, the windshield, a TinyTach and I fabricated a rear window. When I get to the 50 hour maintenance I am going to add a speedometer. On the wish list is a winch and a glove box.
I am playing with different tires. Right now the buggy has a set of radial snow tires on it. The performance on dirt roads has increased remarkably.
If you have questions, fire away.
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Kubota's RTV
The only thing I use the brake pedal for is to hold the thing still while I change gears.
The HST will bring it to a stop on slopes too steep to stand on.
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Kubota's RTV
I wish mine had more power too. I am hoping after it breaks in it will run a little stronger.
The problem in sand is mostly the tires. All of the tire options, except the turf tire, are designed to operate in mud. As with tractors, what is ideal for mud is terrible on soft sand.
After several comparative tests on the same stretch of ground, I replaced the HDWP tires on my RTV with some small car radial tires.
It doesn't make a tracked vehicle out of it, but it will go twice as far up my sand dune test slope before digging in and stopping.
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Kubota's RTV
Something I posted on an ATV web site:
The good news: My RTV now powers itself up steep roads like I always hoped it would and thought it should.
The caveat: I don't know (can't tell) which of the four things I changed helped the most.
The changes:
1) The premium Case/IH hydraulic fluid installed by the selling dealer has been replaced with Super UDT. Observation: standing starts are quicker and the transmission seems less sluggish. I found the same to be true when I had my BX, but in that case I replaced the Super UDT with Chevron All Weather Synthetic and that noticeably slowed things down.
2) I took the break-in dino-juice out of the engine and put in a quality 10w-30 diesel rated synthetic. Observation: With no other changes, the engine idle RPM (as measured by my digital TinyTach) jumped about 7 percent, from 1400 to 1500. You gotta know that the engine is making more power when that happens.
3) I changed the tires to a 24 inch diameter. My tests have indicated that 21.5 inch tires (factory turfs) are too small and 25.5 inches (borrowed from my wifes Camry) were a bit too big. 24 inches is also the actual size of the nearly useless factory HDWP tires and that diameter seems to provide a good balance between decent top end speed and good low end grunt. Plus, the speedometer is apparently calibrated to that tire size.
4) The tires are mud and snow steel belted radials. I mostly operate on rough roads and established trails. Deep mud is rare around here, so slogging through the bogs is not a worry. I keep just enough air in the tires to get a good bulge on the sidewall so they are laying down the maximum amount of tread "flat on the ground" and providing the least amount of rolling resistance possible.
All-in-all, on the hill behind the house that I could only climb in second gear before, I can now negotiate in high gear at greater speed and higher RPM. Coming up my steep driveway before the changes would result in the RPM's dropping to 2300 in high gear. I noticed yesterday that the tach stayed at 3000 RPM's on the same road.
I think I found the balance
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Kubota's RTV
Yes, she looked so sad sitting in car going "vrroom... vrroom".
OK. I'll be cereal now. They were a set of orphaned Nokian snow tires. The bolt pattern is the same but I put the tires on white spoke wheels.
Actually I suspect the bolt pattern is slightly different. The guys at the tire store tell me there is a 5 hole on 4.5 inch pattern and another pattern that is 5 holes and metric. The difference amounts to about 1/32 of an inch.
I am pretty sure the 'Bota is the metric version, but at a max speed of 25 mph, if there is a slight misalignment, I can't feel it.
Art: I would be willing to bet the babies milk money that a BX or an RTV on a dyno would show a measurable drop in HP at the wheels with HyTran instead of Super UDT in the sump.
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Kubota's RTV
Dean, Cruise over to ridesidebyside dot com. There is some good feedback there.
Link:
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Kubota's RTV
Art: sorry if I confused you. Sometimes I read too fast and miss something too.
I have come to the conclusion that Kubota designs their HST's to work best with Super UDT. I have read the spec sheets and it is quite different from other hydraulic fluids on the market.
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Kubota's RTV
How about a windsheild. You might want one.
I got one for two reasons: It gets downright chilly at 25 mph in the winter and, one of these days some idiot in plastic pajamas on a dirt bike is going to meet me on the top of a rise at about 60 mph.
I figure it would be nice to have a little something between us....
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Kubota's RTV
In Eagle River I'd have the full cab, the heater, Carhartts, someone warm to huddle against and a campfire going in the dump bed.
Glad I am here.
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Kubota's RTV
I might look at another one someday, but it would have to have 30 HP and different reverse gearing. The RTV is really not designed as an off-road unit.
The Kawasaki Mule may be the better buy in a diesel side-by-side.
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How do you determine Shotgun S
08-22-2017, 15:49 
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