Caution. Owning a tractor will make u soft. All that heavy stuff I used to muscle around kept me in shape and once I had a tractor I got soft.

Japan with the Shibaura 3-cyl diesel. Ford just slappity-slapped their name on it. Shibaura built a bunch of tractors for Ford-NewHolland.


In other news, I took the RZR out for some wheelin' this weekend around my yard and rural neighborhood with -0- issues. Except I realized I forgot to install one spacer bushing in my steering wheel. Already corrected. No issues with the XP1000 front diff hooking up. I did learn that when driving through a recently harvested wheat field at 40-50mph...without the underbelly skid plate on...the chaff and debris from the field will get sucked up into the cab between seat-back and clutch cover and try to suffocate you, lol. Not cool. Thought my sister and I were going to die coughing.

Also learned one of my old/stock front diff's hubs were cracked. I was going to sell the hubs to someone but found a massive crack when i cleaned them up. That front diff was 100% bombed! Glad I completely replaced it.

Heard that! Amazing how many times I've already used the loader for something. Takes 3x longer, but I just get to sit there on my azz! And I've converted all kinds of heavy stuff from sitting on the ground to sitting on a pallet. Need to make a concrete counterweight though. Things got a little too tippy a couple times (whle I was sitting on my azz though!).

WATCH IT !!
If you need a counter weight your stressing that machine.
The factory would have installed a counter weight if it was engineered for one.
It also has no roll hoop. Your asking for trouble.

Not always... many machines are engineered for a counter weight or backhoe setup...
I've used machines with filled tires and a hoe and still felt light in the arse on uneven terrain

No worries. It has ROPS, and the 3pt lift is rated for 881 lbs. Rear tires are tubed ag tires and fronts are foam filled ag tires. The factory spec'd it out for holding a backhoe, too. I'm gonna' make a 500# concrete weight I can pick-up with my carry-all (18" cube of concrete). Most of the 4' pto tillers for it also weigh 500-700#, but I'm not ready to fork out $1500 for a tiller just yet.

Built like a tank. 1980's they built a lot of nice stuff. Stuff made by brands like Briggs and Craftsman were awesome then. New stuff is all garbage unless you want to pay 2x.

For what it's worth roll bar up seat belt on. Roll bar down seat belt off. Roll bar down and seat belt on will crush u in a roll over. My rear tires are filled with water and I made a counter weight that I fill with water as needed. My want to incorporate a bracket for ur 3pt to move a trailer around and makes a great place to mount what ever counter weight u come up with. An auger is a great attachment I use mine all the time.
You will find urself coming up with uses just to drive it around.
As a added note counter weights are not added at the factory because not all tractors have loaders attached and different loaders handle different weights so the amount of counter weight needed would vary with the loader you select. Counter weights and water filled tires are widely used.

Amen to that, for sure!

This weekend I'm gonna make a set of (4) 18x18x6" concrete slabs with steel mesh...1 slab with twin 18" steel pipes sticking up and set on a pair of 24" 4x6 wood rails, and 3 with matching holes. Then I can vary between 150-300-450-600#. Simple wood forms. Will cost all of about $45, lol.

Need to get this together so I can go pluck my Rotax470 swap FL350 chassis out of my dad's barn and get it back in the shop.

Added some PRP doors to the RZR. These suckers retail for $580 + $60 shipping, but I picked 'em up new-in-box from a guy 20-min down I75 for $300. Was missing the right door latch (he robbed it for another door), but I managed to track down a matching latch on my own (with no help from PRP whatsoever, morons).







And did some woods / trail riding at my dad's farm Labor Day weekend. Took the kids and family on some 3mile hot laps through some woods, farm dirt roads and even some sand (very sandy soil they bulldozed up). Skid plates and doors are important for woods riding, let me tell you. Good times! Only thing that sucked was how much the front and rear windshields cause a suction effect for dust and debris.