Kubota BX4070 Cab For the BX80-Series Tractors

We've got out today a cab one of Kubota BX-series tractor. This is Kubota 's new factory cab offering for this machine. One of the things we always find frustrating about a lot of our tractor manufacturers is that they never do a very good job of giving us a lot of information about the accessories for these machines. While we're out here today we've got one of these in a lot, we're going to take an opportunity to walk around here show you the way that this thing fits onto the machine and show you some of its features and benefits.

There is some pluses and minuses to this cab design, you talk to any of our sales guys typically we historically aren't real big fans of aftermarket cabs or add-on Bowlin cabs on to tractors. A large reason for that is that the fit and finish of the machine, the way that the cab sits on the tractor, the noise levels inside and those kinds of things aren't nearly as good as what a factory cab can be. Add on cabs are not inexpensive particularly when it comes into the labor to put them on most of these are a good day and a half to two days to install one to a tractor.

What ends up happening is that adding an aftermarket cab on to the machine can quickly become nearly as expensive as buying a good factory cab. We're always going to put that caveat in there, when a B X Series tractor done in a small machine like this there is no factory cab available from any manufacturer. If you want a small cab on a small tractor this is the only way to get it done. The reason why this one did actually catch our eye is it is better than most, without question the fit of this cab onto the tractor is a lot better than what we've typically seen by a lot of cabs in the past, there's not as much rattling and stuff going on here.

Part of the reason why it's that way is because if you look back here you'll notice that the ropes on the back of the tractor is used to support the cab but is not actually inside the cab itself. There's a lot more welded pieces and stuff in these panels here making this a much more called a unibody cab versus a lot of aftermarkets that will go on and a lot of different pieces and a lot of different panels bolted together. There's just a lot less here to rattle around and make noise than what a lot of other aftermarket cabs have been in the past.

That's not to say that this thing is anywhere near quiet when you sit inside of a bolt-on cab like this you do need to wear some kind of ear protection while you're inside because it does add significantly into the amount of noise inside the cab. In the past we had a backhoe equipped tractor, we typically weren't able to put cabs onto those machines. The backhoe Eclipse subcompacts use a really high and wide roll bar so that you can sit underneath the roll bar comfortably because most aftermarket cabs in the past would use that roll bar as their structure. Having that large roll bar meant that the cab was going to be incompatible.

Being the way that this one is constructed here you can see the top panels and the side panels aren't actually using the roll bar for structure, they only attach right back down here at the side. You can now put this cab kit onto the backhoe equipped tractors that wouldn't have been an option in the past so that's cool. Another thing I noticed here standing around the back when we're talking about fit and finish, a lot of times when you see tractors like this a lot of canvas panels will be used to fill the gap between the metal part of the cab and the metal tractor.

In this case, there's actually molded plastic, feels a lot like an automotive dash that's going to fill these gaps. Again the fit and finish of this cab is a lot better than what we've typically seen from after markets in the past. You'll see those plastic panels around the side back here around the fuel, wrapping around the fuel cap here so that you can get into the fuel and around the front dash here as well where we typically would have a lot of canvas. Again filling in these gaps we've got metal and plastic, a big step forward as far as quality goes.

From inside the cab here I have excess of options for ventilation we've got a cool sliding window right here. I can slide from either the front of the back to have a conversation with somebody who walks up to me. I have an easy way to kick open my windshield, I just lift these two latches and push the windshield out to get ventilation up underneath the windshield and really what blows my mind is that somebody flock through these little windows down here at the bottom. From my seat up here I've got two little windows that I can see down to the wheels but these really serve a second function to most of these tractors are going to have loaders attached and if you haven't seen the quick park function on the loader yet you'll notice that you can actually reach down flip to releases and roll the loader off from the seat.

In this case, now you compress these two little yellow knobs down here, they're going to swing open these bottom windows so that you can reach down and release the quick park lever in order to take that off. Now you still do have a quick release for the hoses that’s going to have to get taken care of so you're still are going to have to exit the tractor but this allows you to reach back to the quick park levers and release them so that the cab isn't interfering with accessing them. When I look around the inside of the cab here too I was talking to earlier about how there's not as many like fabric filler panels in here, this cab is sealed against the frame much more tightly than what most other cabs have been.

There is also an additional sealer kit available that's not installed on this machine that's going to fill in some of the gaps underneath the floor pedals as well. When you sit in here I can see a little bit of space around the brake pedal down here at the bottom. If you really want to get this thing completely sealed off there's yet another kit that can go a step further in sealing those things off but typically most guys running this kind of stuff are just looking for an occlusion to get out of the weather. We don't even install a heater in this one that's an option as well.

There is a heater that you can use in order to heat the cab so if you're in a really extreme cold environment by adding that heater in that seal kit you're going to get a nice warm environment inside the cab. Off on top of the cab I’ve got two nice bright LED headlights to give you illumination great if you're doing snow removal work at night and there's a switch right here to operate the windshield wiper if you're outrunning a snow blower or something and you have the snow blowing back into the cab, nice warm cab, it's going to melt here on the glass. Having a wiper is going to help keep the windshield clear for you.

The more I pop around this thing here the more I continue to be impressed by the little details. Often times when you see cabs set on top of tractors like this it's not uncommon for the cab to extend out over top of the hood in a way that prevents you from opening it and in the case of this one that's not the case. I can reach inside the cab here grab the hood release and still be able to get the hood open to get to all of my maintenance points. Again just a nice thing that's new on this one that just makes this cab a little bit better than what we've been used to in the past.

While this clearly isn't as the lux of a product as a cab one say a Kubota B 2650 that’s going to give you heat and air conditioning and those kinds of things, my opinion this is really a new standard for quality and adding a cab to a small tractor like this certainly a big step beyond a lot of the cabs that we've seen in the past. If you have any snow removal chores and a need for a cab like this we can help you give us a call at Messick's we're available at 800-222373 or online at Messick's.com