How to Remove a Kubota BX Series Loader

One of the best features that we have on these loaders when you lift them up and down is the ability to go and keep the bucket level as the loader goes up and down. You'll notice that a lot of lesser tractors and lesser loaders, it's very difficult to do this function smoothly and you'll see something like this when the loader goes up and then the bucket moves, and then the loader goes up and then the bucket moves. Kubota does a really good job in the way they plumb these valves and making stroking multiple functions really easy in simple operation and that's just not the case even in a lot of other leading tractors out there.

Generally, we encourage people to take the loader off whenever the application that you're in doesn't need it to be there. For instance, if you're mowing grass around your house, not having the extra loader length out in front of the tractor makes the machine more maneuverable. It also helps save your tires as well. In a four-wheel-drive tractor, the front tires are actually set up to spin a little bit faster than what the rear tires are.

That's an intentional lead given to the tire so that it makes it easier to steer and more maneuverable, but that does cause some premature wear to those front tires as well. By removing the loader, if you're working in four-wheel drive, it allows the tires to slip a little bit more easily and won't wear them as quickly. If you want to take the loader off, the first thing you need to do is simply start the tractor up, raise the loader up in the air and lower a simple parking stand.

Right down here, on the underside of the loader, there's a little hairpin, you pull the hairpin out and then this stand lowers down and swings into place. Then you can put the hairpin back in again in order to lock that stand. Once that's down, you use the loader to pick the front tires of the tractor up in the air. When you do that, the pins that secure the loader of the tractor will become loose and not under tension anymore and slide right out, there it is. I didn't prep this tractor at all and it has 50 hours on it so this isn't a factory-fresh demo here or anything. Once you have the pins out, you could curl the bucket shut and the loader boom will lift right away from the tractor.

You'll see here this gray mounting socket stays on the tractor, the orange part is the loader that will come away. Once we back that off, I can back the tractor up here a little bit and get ample access to my hydraulic hose. One of the most challenging things for people for new operators on tractors like this, is getting used to the intricacies of working with hydraulic hoses. One thing that's challenging that you need to remember with hoses is that fluid is under pressure and unlike air, it can't be compressed further in order to connect or disconnect the coupler.

Anytime that you're going to disconnect one of these couplers, it's always good to shut the machine off and then work the loader valve in every direction. You can see right there the loader shimmied a little bit so you're going to work the loader valve around in order to neutralize the pressure in the hydraulic lines. Once you've done that ,you can pop right down the line here and release these lines and that's as easy as if you've ever done an airline before it's the same thing. There's a collar right here that you pull and the couplers pop right off. Each of these would have a color-coded cap to go over top of here in order to keep the connections clean.

Now I'm going to go and put this loader right back on again so I'm not going to have a lick of trouble reconnecting these again. If you had set loader outside for a couple of days and the sun was on these lines and they got nice and hot, you would fight like a bear in order to push these things back onto the tractor again. The easy way in order to relieve that pressure if you look down in the middle of the coupler, there's a little pin on the inside. Some guys have had some success punching that with a small puncher or screwdriver in order to push the pin and release some of the hydraulic pressure. When you push, make sure it's not pointed at your face when you do that.

Another thing that sometimes you have to do if there's so much pressure in the line that you can't even pop the pin is to simply take a wrench and break the fitting right here so that some of the hydraulic fluid can leak out. Once you've done that and release the pressure in the lines, you'll simply be able to go down and reconnect them easily again. You can see right here, all I do is pull that collar back and give it a little push, and it pops right into place.

Now at this point, I could simply back away from the loader, let it sit and off I go, but I'm going to put it back on here and we will go back to work again. I reconnect my hydraulic lines, hop right back up here in the seat and when I put it back on again, I'm first going to lower the loader down into this little U-shaped bracket down here at the bottom and then curl it back into the tractor back into this pin. When I curl back into here, I'm going to use the loader to pick the tractor back up in the air so I could put my pins back in again.

Just like that, we've removed and reinstalled the loader. Any other common pitfalls with this, generally, come from a time where the tractor and the loader aren't wanting to sit level with each other. You can see I'm doing this out here in the dirt today which is actually the most challenging way to do it. If you're able to do it on a hard level surface, things typically go together about as easily as what you can ask for, but if you're sitting the thing out in the yard and the tractor and the loader want to twist with one another, they don't typically want to go on quite as easy.

As long as you're trying to work in a level area, typically, it's a piece of cake. I took my time here doing this today, you can see, it's really no big deal. We've gone through and race to see how quickly we can get this thing done and literally, I can take a loader off in under a minute. It's a really simple operation if you ever need to do it. That's a Kubota BX Series loader.

If you have any questions parts, needs or help that we could give you, give us a call at 800-222-3373 or check our website out at messicks.com. We've done a whole series of videos on these tractors, you can check out our features of the tractor up here, operation and removal of the backhoe over here and what's the other one that we did, I have no idea, but you'll find it somewhere.