Learning to drive the Kubuta X900
Today was the day Anna
learned how to shift and drive the Kubota X900.
Sometimes it helps to apply a
little on the gas pedal if the gears feel a little stuck.
Always give the engine at
least 5 minutes to warm up in the morning.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Since the Kubota has hydrostatic transmission, it doesn't really have a gearbox as far as I can tell. The "shifter" operates on the hydraulics (I suspect it changes the motion range of the swash plate in the pump). And that can be hard if there still is too much hydraulic pressure in the system.
Depending on the model, there should be a little lever below and to the right of the "shifter", next to the 12v outlet. Pulling that leaver once should release hydraulic pressure from the drive train, making it easier to shift.
Some newer models release the pressure from the drive train when you press on the brake pedal.
I checked to see if there was a lever by the 12 volt outlet but did not see one.
It does seem to be important to hold the brake while shifting, but sometimes it seems to be between teeth in a gear and it needs to either coast a small nudge or accelerate for the shifter to fall into gear.
I appreciate the comment....this is our first experience with a hydraulic system.
On the newer models, fully depressing the brake should release the pressure from the hydraulics system. According to the manual, that is only necessary when you can't get the lever to disengage. Using the throttle seems to be the proper procedure to engage the gear range shift.
It would be interesting to see the schematics of this drive system, since I'm always curious as to how such things work.
Especially since you don't see such a hydraulic drive all too often. I suspect that for high-speed applications the transmission losses would be too high.