I live in central Tx where “hill country” is the usual description. The ranch has some pretty steep grades on loose gravel as well as some “boggy” river and pond bottoms. I have a small home-made trailer with little 5.70-8 wheels and I typically over-load it… It was likely intended for 500-800 lbs of cargo by its’ original builder… but I’ve re-built it using steel bed made of C-purlins and expanded metal and angle-iron side-rails…which added quite a bit of dead weight. Regardless, I’ve used it on the backroads for short distances carrying a ton (2K lbs for certain) and it has done the job.
But the real proof of what a Kubota RTV can do was proven over the last. couple days when I filled that little trailer with at LEAST a full-TON of heavy, green Live Oak logs…and towed it a mile back to the house thru woods, bottom-land and two STEEP hills (30-degree grades, no kidding). The RTV-X900 (2014 model) is completely “stock” without modifications..except I did add the genuine Kubota manual throttle system.
That system is probably intended to run the hydraulics in conjunction with implements and a hyd dump-bed …but I have no such things… it’s still a manual bed (in fact I have mounted a school-bus seat on it for addt’l pax.). But I did imagine the throttle kit might allow me to increase engine output BEFORE applying moderate “go pedal”….thereby providing increased hill-climbing ability. I’d not had the opportunity to test the arrangement until yesterday.
I should have video’d the hills and the hill-climbs…but failed to do so. I did, however, grab a pic or two of the loaded-down trailer …so you can imagine what it was like dragging that thing up a 1/4-mile long 30-degree grade of gravel-road…. Twice!
The first hill I used H-gear and 1/2 go-pedal and it almost bogged-down. The second hill I used the hand-throttle to set about half-engine speed and 4WD LOW gear…and I will confirm….it was THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD!
These little work-horses are such a Pleasure!
(The little generator powered my electric chain saw.)
But the real proof of what a Kubota RTV can do was proven over the last. couple days when I filled that little trailer with at LEAST a full-TON of heavy, green Live Oak logs…and towed it a mile back to the house thru woods, bottom-land and two STEEP hills (30-degree grades, no kidding). The RTV-X900 (2014 model) is completely “stock” without modifications..except I did add the genuine Kubota manual throttle system.
That system is probably intended to run the hydraulics in conjunction with implements and a hyd dump-bed …but I have no such things… it’s still a manual bed (in fact I have mounted a school-bus seat on it for addt’l pax.). But I did imagine the throttle kit might allow me to increase engine output BEFORE applying moderate “go pedal”….thereby providing increased hill-climbing ability. I’d not had the opportunity to test the arrangement until yesterday.
I should have video’d the hills and the hill-climbs…but failed to do so. I did, however, grab a pic or two of the loaded-down trailer …so you can imagine what it was like dragging that thing up a 1/4-mile long 30-degree grade of gravel-road…. Twice!
The first hill I used H-gear and 1/2 go-pedal and it almost bogged-down. The second hill I used the hand-throttle to set about half-engine speed and 4WD LOW gear…and I will confirm….it was THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD!
These little work-horses are such a Pleasure!
(The little generator powered my electric chain saw.)
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