NoJacketRequired's B7510 / Jodel-Perry Cab Project

NoJacketRequired's B7510 / Jodale-Perry Cab Project

Well folks I guess the time has come to write up a little story here and share my experiences in modifying and installing a cab on one of my B7510's.

First the back story. In the fall of 2017 I purchased a bare B7510 on R1 ag tires. This was to replace the B7200 I had just sold to a neighbor who needed a good tractor around his new-to-him country home. Selling the B7200 left me without a tractor to use for snow removal at the airport. The B7510 came along at the right time and the right price so I figured, since I already had a B7510 at home, why not get a matching tractor for the airport?

Here you can see the B7510 and B7200 side by side. at the airport. Both good basic tractors, but the B7200 has a mowing deck while the B7510 truly is a bare open-station tractor.

Fast forward a year to the summer of 2018. It was becoming clear that my father, at 84, was no longer able to use the MF-135 that I had loaned him. He wasn't able to use the clutch and he was really having troubles turning around in the seat to see behind him while steering. With several artificial joints in his body it's not hard to understand why he no longer was able to run the 135 with its heavy control forces.

I got the brilliant idea to buy a B2410 for him - it came with a B2550 front mount blower, a canopy and a 54" MMM. Great! Once it was delivered I started to ponder how robust that B2550 blower was and realized I had made a tactical error. With a half mile of gravel driveway, Grandpa needed the best snow blower I could get him, and it needed to be on the best tractor. The decision was made to undertake a project to convert my bare, open-station B7510 into Grandpa's snow moving machine.

Below is a photo of the B2410 - it's a good unit, but also the oldest in my fleet.

Re: NoJacketRequired's B7510 / Jodale-Perry Cab Project

Now that I had decided the newest B7510 would become the Grandpa tractor I went on the search for a snowblower for it. Nothing but a front-mounted unit would do, for obvious reasons. I found a B2771 complete with the Quick Hitch. It had seen some hard use but appeared to be in very serviceable condition so I purchased it and had it shipped in from the other side of the province. Shipping cost about half as much as the blower but there's no way I would have driven that far to go get it.

As time passed I abandoned my plan of swapping the canopy from the B2410 to the B7510 - no matter what I did, that canopy would never provide sufficient protection for Grandpa. I needed a cab, plain and simple. Anybody who has ever looked for a used cab knows they are scares as hen's teeth, and when you do find one they normally are either over-priced junk, totally rotted out from road salt, or they were made to fit a 1950's big iron tractor.

Imagine my surprise when I saw an ad posted on Kijiji for what looked like a decent cab! After an email exchange to determine the size of the cab it became clear this was something I had to jump on, and quickly. I sent the man some money via e-transfer as he told me his phone was ringing off the hook with people who wanted to out-bid me for the cab. He had advertised it at a price that made me think he might have dropped a digit but no, that was the right price. On the weekend my wife and I went to pick it up. If fit into our trailer like a custom-made Italian shoe fits - perfectly. Home we came with it, and the big part of the project began.

Here you'll see pics from the original Kijiji ad. Yup, it looked rough. Of the 12 windows, only 2 survived, the rest were replaced. The cab had been left outside for a number of years - the squirrels had filled the overhead portions of the cab with acorns and other things and the mice had worked their usual destructive magic.

Re: NoJacketRequired's B7510 / Jodale-Perry Cab Project

Fortunately I have a neighbor who is pretty handy with a welder and the torch. I dropped off the cab at his place, drove the tractor over, and we went to work.

When the B2771 front mount blower had been shipped to me it had come with a brand new pair of mid-mount mower brackets wired to the pallet. These brackets were bolted to the frame of the B7510 and became the primary mounting point for the weldments that would become the forward cab supports. They are VERY beefy. We welded horizontal steel bars to them in such a manner as to ensure they would still be useful as mower mounts if/when needed.

The cab proved to be a Jodale-Perry ROPS cab rated for a 4200lb tractor. Hmmm, I don't think the little 1400lb B7510 was going to over-stress it! With this in mind the tractor's ROPS bar was removed and we used its existing bolt locations just above the top of the tractor fenders as our starting point for the weldments that would act as rear cab supports.

The cab came with attached fenders - it was meant for a larger tractor, (maybe an older L series?) that had removable fenders. We cut the fenders from the cab to make it fit the tractor, lowered it into place with my neighbor's B7800 and its FEL-mounted forks, and started welding up the brackets necessary to make everything work.

The end result is pretty impressive. It's very solid, and the 3" square tubing used to support the front corners of the cab have been left long intentionally so we could mount steps to make it easier for Grandpa to get in and out. After a couple of test runs we decided to install a step on the left side of the cab as this would be the door used most frequently.

Re: NoJacketRequired's B7510 / Jodale-Perry Cab Project

Thanks for the kind comments, Flip. I agree completely, this turned out to be a bigger project than I had thought it would be. Took me 8 weeks. But then again my work space isn't heated and I was shut down several days by temperatures in the -20C range.

Onward and upward! Previously I mentioned the cab has a dozen windows, of which only the hinged upper rear window and the right rear upper window survived. They had all been installed with butyl tape - wow does that stuff ever make a gooey mess! Thankfully the colder temperatures that prevailed made it a bit easier to scrape off the old tape, but it still took a long day of work to get it off. Then a call to a local automotive custom shop was made. Sure, they could custom-cut safety glass!

The owner of Auto-Wa Upholstery and Glass came out with one of his techs to measure up the cab. They poked fun at me and generally made it into a fun rather than a serious experience. On the spot he provided me a quote - we shook hands on the deal and they drove off. Imagine my surprise when, 36 hours later, they called to ask when they could come to install the glass! Within 48 hours of their original visit the glass was installed using urethane adhesive, just as it would be in a modern car. They did excellent work. I'm picky and I could not find a single nit to pick. I can't recommend Auto-Wa highly enough. If you're in the Ottawa area and need glass work, they are the guys to call.

(Interestingly, Speedy finally provided me a quote, a week after Auto-Wa completed the work, for 80% more money, with a two-week delivery time. No thanks.)

Here you'll see a pic of the tractor with its new glass.

Note the "horse collar" around the engine cowl is not done in the first photo. That's because the main windshield had to be in place before we knew exactly where the horse collar would fit. I cut a sub-section template from old, stiff vinyl flooring, then transferred its curves to a cardboard template. Here you'll see a photo with the cardboard template installed. Again, Auto-Wa was tasked with cutting the 1/4" Lexan polycarbonate sheet and supplying the urethane adhesive to bond it in place. The end result is as close to perfection as one could ask for, with a consistent gap of about 3/16" around the entire engine cowl, just enough to get light compression on some dense foam self-adhesive weatherstrip material.

The small horizontal window at the rear of the cab, below the main hinged window, was also cut from Lexan and installed with adhesive. I didn't make a big deal about trying to fit it closely around the ROPS and cab mounting brackets - there are some gaps around there but they are small and of no real consequence.

Re: NoJacketRequired's B7510 / Jodale-Perry Cab Project

Next came the hydraulics. This turned out to be a FAR bigger job than anticipated, mostly as a result of me not thinking for myself but rather relying on bad advice from a vendor.

The bare B7510 had no aux hydraulics at all. I purchased the necessary hydraulic block parts from a local Kubota dealer, and, on a whim, I also purchased the hoses that would normally form part of a loader installation kit - these would connect the hydraulic block to the loader valve, supply power beyond back to the hydraulic block and a tank return to the transmission case. At the end of the day only two of these three hoses could be used.

While Kubota normally mounts the loader valve on a separate frame that sees the rear part of the valve body and joystick poking rearward into the cab, I just couldn't swallow either the $850 price tag for their valve nor the 12 week (minimum) lead time for it. Nope, that wasn't going to work if this tractor was going to move snow this winter!

Off to Princess Auto I went and purchased a BLB BL-40 series two-spool valve with float function. It's a bigger valve than I needed but the only one in a reasonable size with the much-desired float function on the primary spool and the ability to provide power beyond. While I didn't need the second spool for this project I couldn't get a similar valve with float function in a single spool format, so the second spool sits idle right now.

The valve was installed on the right side of the cab on a custom-fabricated bracket that bolts to what was left of the cab fender. It's positioned perfectly for one's hand to come to rest on the actuator lever. I spent a lot of time getting the hose runs to tuck in neatly so as to not completely disable access to the cab via the right hand door. The hoses all run out the bottom of the cab between the existing tractor floor and the outside edge of the cab frame. All, that is, except for the two lines for the second hydraulic valve spool. They curve upward and through 90 degree fittings which feed through the front face of the lower right hand corner of the cab where they terminate in in 3/8" quick couplers. Who knows when this second function will be needed, but when it is needed, it will be easily accessible.

The quick hitch for the front-mounted snow blower requires hydraulic pressure to operate, and it needs to be easily removable for summer operations. These requirements drove me to fabricate a bracket that bolts to the cab mount just below the brake pedals under the floor of the tractor. The bracket acts as a fixing point for the two hydraulic hoses and their 3/8" quick disconnects. This is a handy yet out-of-the-way place for these quick disconnects and makes for a nice clean run for the hydraulic lines running forward along the right tractor frame rail to the quick hitch cylinder.

One lesson learned the hard way was that one always needs to double-check the information provided by a vendor. In this case the vendor threaded the power beyond adapter into the wrong side of the hydraulic valve. This made for a beautiful installation as it allowed the valve to snug right up against the right hand cab door frame. Unfortunately this little goof cost me a bunch of time to correct as I had everthing installed before discovering the only way the 3pt hitch would move was if I had also moved one of the spools of the newly-installed hydraulic control valve! Recovering from this required welding additional material to the valve mounting bracket so it could shift inboard about two inches, remounting the valve, re-routing all the lines and changing some of their lengths. Fortunately only one hose had to be completely refabricated.

Another little "gotcha" that hadn't occurred to me until it was far too late is that the standing level of hydraulic oil in the transmission is actually above the tank return port on the transmission. As soon as I pulled the plug that blocked the tank return port I had a gusher of oil. Thankfully I managed to get my thumb jammed in the port before too much of a mess was made. I threaded the necessary right angle adapter into the tank return port but made sure not to disturb the plastic cap on this adapter, thus limiting further spillage of oil.

In the attached photo you'll see the finished product - the two-spool valve and all related hoses involved. You'll also be able to see the rubber matting that I used to bridge the gap between the cut off cab fenders and the existing tractor fenders. Home Depot sells rubber matting in various lengths, widths and thicknesses. This material so far looks to be perfect for the task, held in place with stainless 8-32 screws and nyloc nuts. A sheet of this rubber material also fits between the tractor fenders behind/below the operator's seat - a simple, quick and easy way to keep out drafts in an area that is otherwise tough to seal.

Oh, you'll also see in this photo that I swapped out the original factory seat for a new Kubota seat. The original seat is an instrument of torture - you always feel like you're going to slide off it - and it binds your thighs up against the steering wheel when you're trying to get off the tractor. The new seat isn't cheap but is a significant upgrade to operator comfort.

Re: NoJacketRequired's B7510 / Jodale-Perry Cab Project

Since the raison d'etre for this tractor was to provide a comfortable, reliable platform to my father for winter snow removal, making sure the cab heater worked was of prime importance. The heater is contained in an overhead console in the cab. Its supply/return hoses run up the right front vertical tube of the cab frame.

After asking several questions here on the forum and getting some excellent feedback from those who have traveled this path before me, I opted to stick with the 3/8" hoses the cab OEM used, replacing the old hoses with an exact match from a current supplier. Oddly enough, this hose just happens to be in stock at Home Depot!

The connections to the engine cooling system were of great concern to me. My other B7510 has a Curtis cab - its heater connection is via 5/8" hose which attached to a hose barb threaded into the base of the thermostat housing. Unfortunately the thermostat housing on the project tractor does not have a threaded port to accommodate a hose barb adapter fitting. After consulting several threads here I opted to connect to the thermostat bypass fittings on the thermostat housing and water pump housing. (See photos below for the hose connection locations.)

I am fearful of not having a thermostat bypass loop in place. Since the cab heater has its own shutoff valve, closing this valve would effectively cut off the thermostat bypass loop. To avoid this condition I soldered up a copper "H" with a quarter turn valve in the horizontal portion of the "H" - this is mounted under the cab floor in the area of the brake pedals. As a nice coincidence this also makes for a nice place to transition from the thread-reinforced PVC hose going up the corner of the cab to 3/8" transmission cooler hose that runs forward along the right frame rail, up behind the injection pump, along the length of the engine under the air filter to its terminus at the thermostat housing / water pump housing. The shutoff valve on the cab heater will essentially be used as a "summer/winter" selector. Once it is closed for summer operations the quarter-turn ball valve under the floor will be opened, thus preserving a flow path for coolant to bypass the thermostat.

I'm pleased to report this configuration works well. Heat in the cab is plentiful and it warms up quite quickly since it's getting the first warmth produced by the engine. On my first test run with this machine, with outside temperatures very close to the freezing point, I ended up having to turn off the heater circulation fan as the cab was getting too warm. Yeah, too warm. When was the last time you heard of a tractor cab that was too warm?!?!

Re: NoJacketRequired's B7510 / Jodale-Perry Cab Project

With the cab pretty much looked after it was time to turn my attention to the B2771 front-mounted snowblower. It came to me with manual (crank) chute rotation and manually controlled discharge chute deflection. Clearly this situation would not be compatible with the use of a cab.

While I would like to have purchased the Kubota factory hydraulic chute rotator (especially since I have that second spool available in the hydraulic valve), its price and lead time were simply not within the scope of this project.

On a previous project I had installed a 12V winch to rotate a snowblower chute. The same principle was applied to the B2771 with a closed loop of cable around the base of the chute and 7 windings of each end of the cable around the winch drum. The winch has power in & out so is ideal for this application. Its control is a rocker switch which is mounted to the hydraulic valve mount in the cab.

The photo attached gives an idea of how the winch is mounted - just a couple of 1/4" bolts through the top of the blower.

Once again I would like to have used the Kubota factory solution to employ a linear actuator to control chute deflection angle. Once again, price and lead time were ridiculous, so off to Princess Auto I went. I sourced a 4", 250lb linear actuator and DPDT (momentary) switch. At the local hardware store I found some galvanized brackets intended for use in building a wooden deck - a few minutes with the drill press and bending break and I had functional mounting locations for the linear actuator.

Note from the attached photo that I mounted the linear actuator with its rod pointing downward. Snooping around on several web discussion boards confirmed my suspicion - the primary failure mode for weather-exposed linear actuators was via water entering through the seal around the actuator rod. By mounting the actuator with the rod pointing downward I could hopefully stave off this common failure mechanism. In keeping with this "keep the weather out" mentality I fabricated a rubber boot to cover the actuator. It's not fancy but it does keep the water out. Control of the linear actuator is via a momentary DPDT (centre off) switch in the cab, located on a bracket just inside the right door post. This is very close to the winch switch and hydraulic valve, so everything to control the snow blower is close to the operator's right hand.

In wiring the winch and linear actuator I was concerned about two things - providing adequate power for the winch and a durable means to quickly connect the blower to the tractor.

In the end I wired the winch in traditional fashion, directly to the positive battery post via the thermal circuit breaker supplied with the winch. In this manner the winch is the only component on the tractor that's energized without the key being switched on.

My first attempt at a quick disconnect point for the winch/linear actuator wiring was a dismal failure. The 7-pin trailer connector sourced through Princess Auto broke the first time I tested it. Cheap plastic. Plus it really was too large for the purpose. In checking their stock I discovered a 4-pin round metal trailer connector. The female (tractor side) has a spring-loaded weather cover, making it a good candidate for the job. The connector pins are large enough to accommodate 12GA winch wire and beefy enough to conduct a decent amount of current. Two wires for the winch and two wires for the linear actuator made the 4-pin connector a perfect match. The wire bundle from the cab follows the hydraulic cooler hard line up the right frame rail, with the connector mounted on a bracket at the lower front right corner of the tractor, beneath the battery location.

I wrapped the entire wire bundle in spiral wrap in order to provide it good protection while also allowing moisture to drain off the wires. On the snow blower itself the wire bundle is again wrapped in spiral wrapped and secured using MS21919 Adel clamps with adequate lengths of wire to provide strain relief without having wires that will snag on components around them.

This entire solution works well. The chute rotation is quite a bit slower than if it were hydraulically-powered. I find on the B7510 at home that the hydraulic chute rotation is much too fast to accomplish fine control - one moves it in big chunks. By contrast, the winch-powered rotation is perhaps a little slower than I'd like, but still more than adequate and faster than I could turn it with the hand crank. Rate of change of chute deflection via the linear actuator is just about perfect.

Re: NoJacketRequired's B7510 / Jodale-Perry Cab Project

I delivered the tractor to my father on December 1st. The temperature was above freezing so the snow in his driveway was quite wet and sloppy. His first test drive put a big grin on his face.

I've attached here a photo of my Dad running the tractor. No doubt you'll notice the two big Kawell LED flood lights mounted to the cab - they provide terrific lighting for those flat, grey winter days when everything seems to blend together. Yes, they produce enough light to be helpful on a grey day, not just at night. There's a linear array work light mounted to the rear of the cab as well, providing great illumination right from the tail end of the tractor to about 30 feet behind it.

Mounted on the 3-pt hitch is a 48" Agri-Ease box scraper. This is a VERY heavy-duty box scraper. Besides being handy to pull snow away from garage doors and such and its ability to rip ice if necessary, the mass of this scraper provides excellent ballast to counter the effects of the front-mounted snowblower. To make it easier for Dad to see the box scraper I fabricated mirror mounts which are clamped to the upper ends of the cab handles forward of the doors. They're adjusted so the outside edges of the box scraper are easily visible from the operator's position. No more having to turn around in the seat for Grandpa!

Re: NoJacketRequired's B7510 / Jodale-Perry Cab Project

One last comment... Part of the package delivered to Dad was an Operator's Manual and an operator's checklist. I also took a white paint pen and labelled each control in plain English. Dad doesn't do so well with those pictographs that make one guess what the control really does.

If I can ever get it to upload I'll provide a link here to a brief youtube video showing the machine in action. Overall I'm hugely pleased with the outcome of this project. If and when Dad no longer needs this machine I know I'll be more than happy to bring it back home and use it myself. It's a pretty sweet rig!

SidecarFlip said:

Looks 'Factory built' excellent job. My only concern is your choice of hoses. I always refit with Gates domestic made hoses instead of a box store brand. of questionable quality. been running Gates for a long time on all my motorized and water cooled equipment. Very reliable and long lasting.

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Flip - I would echo your comment about "domestic brand" hoses. That's why I went with the exact same part number as had been used by the cab OEM when they made the cab (I don't know how many years ago). Yup, surprised the daylights out of me when I discovered this hose, stocked by Home Depot, is made about 300 miles from here!

I spoke to the manufacturer's applications engineer, told him what I was using it for and had him check the data sheet. He concluded the selected hose was indeed well suited to the task (I think that conclusion surprised, him, too!).

hope to float said:

Great work. Well done Sir

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Thanks for the kind words. Now we're waiting for another good dump of snow so Dad can give it a good workout!

Lil Foot said:

I wish my dad was still around to share things like this with him. Cherish these times.

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And THAT, Sir, is the reason behind all of this. Executing a project of this nature brings its own pleasures, but nothing that comes close to being able to help an elderly parent continue to live an independent life. I just wish I'd had the cash to do this a decade or more ago. That would have saved a ton of wear and tear on his body.

Thanks for all the kind comments, folks. Just remember, if an idiot like me can make a project like this a success, so can you (with a heaping helping of generous sharing of knowledge by the terrific folks on this forum)!

On another note, I just brought home a nice Frontier 48" rotary cutter for Dad to use on the B7510. Yes, I know, it's the wrong colour, but I do happen to have some orange paint kicking around here...