Moving a little Kubota 130 miles…

eastvt

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My dad died 6 years ago and left a perfectly good Kubota G1800 4 wheel steer mower behind, pretty low hours as I remember. Mom is distrustful of strangers from Craigslist, so it sits in the garage. Meanwhile my daughter just bought a house with a pretty big lawn, and I’d hate to see her have to buy some crummy gas tractor. I’m thinking of draining the fuel, putting in clean diesel. New tires, new battery. Grease the fittings. Nice machine. But how to move it? None of us own trucks. It seems unclear if U haul is a solution? It’s not a huge machine — I think it would fit right in a U haul box truck, but it’s unclear if that’s allowed.
 

NCL4701

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I think it would fit right in a U haul box truck, but it’s unclear if that’s allowed.
I’ve rented a box truck from U-Haul a few times. I don’t recall them ever asking specifically what I was planning to do with it. Pretty sure it’s allowed if you don’t ask.
 
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Nicfin36

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I don't see why it would be a problem. I would just rent the appropriate size and load it up. If you know someone with a trailer, you could rent a U-Haul pickup and haul it that way. It may be cheaper, to rent a pickup truck and trailer, but not sure about that.
 
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Fordtech86

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U haul doesn’t care what you haul with it, just as long as you clean it out before you return it.
 
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eastvt

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Got a shipping quote from Freightcenter for $335, which looks like the way to go.
 
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GreensvilleJay

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Less than $3 a mile is a great deal, Kinda odd no one has a pickup to haul the riding lawn mower.
 
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hodge

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A nice G1800 for an investment of $335 is a good deal, in my book. A good self propelled walk behind costs more than that.
 
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PaulL

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Now Paul..... He ought to hire a news crew and make the evening news about Friday. "Moving a little Kubota 130 miles… ;)
Ah. In the thread title. Missed that. Yeah, that'd be a long drive at 10 mph.
 
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jimh406

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You don't need a truck to rent a 6x12 trailer with ramp gate or similar. They are about $25 a day in my area. You will need a vehicle with a hitch and ball mount. You will also need some straps to keep it from moving. I guess it depends on how much money you want to spend and if you plan to visit any time soon, and what kind of vehicle you own.

I recently rented a trailer to go visit my brother. While there, I picked up some firewood rounds from him to offset the diesel costs. They had just paid a company to cut a couple of trees down. The wood wasn't free, but driving a car over wouldn't have been either. My net cost for the trip assuming going rate for firewood, the cost to visit my brother was free. NOTE: I had wood in my pickup and the trailer.
 

eastvt

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The tractor is coming along. Had a hell of a time pulling the front wheels (tires shot) using a gear puller. New battery, drained the old fuel and put some new fuel in. Fired right up. Greased the mower zerks. We’ll see how it goes getting new tires/wheels tomorrow.
 
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eastvt

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NICE to hear the lil beastie is 'up and running'
Except maybe the transmission, once I got the tires on and tried to drive it.
See
 

eastvt

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The update:
Oh man.
So I knew it would need a new battery, new front tires, new fuel, new fuel filters.

The front tires were an all day job, longer counting finding some tires and putting them on the rim. The wheels were so fused on the axel that it took me and my sister both a long day with a gear puller, hammers, lots of work, sweat and inginuity. I couldn’t find my gear puller before I left for the trip, so I bought a new one down there. There was also a hydraulic version for $80, and I passed on that. Big mistake. It took a lot of strength and persistence and WD 40, for whatever good that did.

Tires and battery and new fuel and it started right up. But the transmission was wonky, uncontrollable forward motion. Then it couldn’t start it again.

Lubed the linkage for the HST (good tip from here), but I spent another day trying to get it running after changing the fuel filters. Finally after a long day of messing with it and troubleshooting I figured it was the lift pump — there was no fuel in the line going to the fuel pump. It would run, badly, if I squired fuel into that line and put it together, but only for a little bit. But I didn’t have a lift pump and the trucker showed up.

Sent it down to my daughter, ordered the lift pump from amazon, and found a guy near her willing to do a house call. His call was going to be just diagnosing for his first visit, but he also concluded it was the lift pump, and the amazon one had arrived, right there, so he put it in. Ran.

So my daughter can mow her lawn.

She’s going to get him back out there at some point to do more maintenance on it. For one thing, I greased the two outer zerks on the mower deck, but I didn’t manage to get in to do the middle one.

Hopefully will last her a good while.
 
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