Hello everyone. Just bought myself a 1990 New Holland L555 Deluxe and wondering how long I'll be able to justify hanging on to it. Never owned a skid steer before, always thought they were pretty useful though. I work on cars mostly, have a couple John Deere 214 lawn tractors I mess with and if there's any spare time left I like to visit the gun range. I have about a 100 tons of gravel work planned, some landscaping, snow removal(stacking sled hills for my nephews), and whatever else makes life easier. Seems like one of those things when word gets out you own one the odd jobs find you haha. Figure its an investment and a learning experience all wrapped up in one. It's not without issues by far, but I have my fingers crossed it cleans up nice. I don't believe the 1096 hrs on the meter because I've never taken one at face value in my life. The original seat condition and lack of tool marks on the little Kubota diesel do make me curious. It appears to have the original glow plugs yet, does that mean anything to anyone? They seem to work fine, it purrs like a kitten and only puffs a tiny cloud when it fires up, which I've heard is normal on cold start up? This is my first diesel engine in anything. I've got my super dark picture jensales reprint manuals, not happy but I can deal. Why in the manuals do they use a log cabin block arrangement of what look like 2x4's when supporting the machine with wheels removed? Is there a benefit/science to this set up safety or access wise? What do you set your machine up on to take the wheels off? Can I get a free rail road tie from my father and cut it to fit the same places front and rear? I see I need to do this for making steering adjustments too. I know these are far from heavy on the skid steer scale, just don't have a lot of faith in wood when talking jack stands. Has anyone had any luck with a machine shop being able to repair axles/spindles/hubs? Guy before the previous owner for an unknown reason flipped one of the wheels (for access to the nuts?) and appears to have drilled the 6 threads from the axle to install bigger thru bolts with nuts on the backside of the wheel to sandwich the wheel to the axle. He ran it long enough to oblong the wheel bolt holes so bad its junk for sure, the wheel bolt threads have been drilled oversized and also pounded oblong on at least one so I won't be able to just heli-coil it myself. Haven't had any luck tracking a used one down yet, Messicks wants almost $600 for it and I don't think shipping was on there either. Is there an easy obvious reason it seems like so many skid steers end up having major fires? Too much time looking at cheap ones? Our local implement yard has an L500 something, when I asked about the axle(NH page calls it an axle...part#9840509) he claimed it had a fire and was not useable. Does he just not want the hydraulic reservoir opened up to the enviroment(he can have my shit one...no problem) or do these things literally melt down? I plan to look at it tomorrow regardless, would like to see what's there. PS. I'm glad I spent so much time writing this to have it turned into a gigantic blob of text. Paragraphs don't work here? Oh well, too tired now to fix if I could even figure it out so thanks for reading my chapter and answering a question or two even if they don't really belong here. Look forward to being a member and helping if I can.
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A little puff os smoke at startup is normal, even having the original glow plugs could be true too. There is no reason for them to burn out from normal use. They burn out when the machine gets lazy and you need to use them longer and longer, that's when they burn up.
There is no reason why that machine won't last another good 5,000 hours.
I can't remember where the figure came from, but on most diesels you get about 6,000 hours out of them before they need attention. With that said, Bobcatdan works on a machine that works every day and it has a lot more than 6,000 hours on the clock. Pretty sure he said it's the same engine.
There is no reason why that machine won't last another good 5,000 hours.
I can't remember where the figure came from, but on most diesels you get about 6,000 hours out of them before they need attention. With that said, Bobcatdan works on a machine that works every day and it has a lot more than 6,000 hours on the clock. Pretty sure he said it's the same engine.
Good to know, thank you for helping me feel better about this thing. I pulled the instrument panel to ditch the stupid dangly accordian wire which was hacked terribly into the main hot lead to the ignition switch, left hot and hanging. Source of why the battery went dead on me maybe, I bet its just toast by the looks of it but a guy can hope. Have to put a new chunk of wire in there to clean it all up more than likely. PO was not big on keeping up with service its becoming apparent, I'm pretty picky on the other hand. I managed to get it set up level on some 6x6 blocks and started digging sand/misc crud out of the engine area(plugged up my shop vac pretty good). Gave up on waiting for our temps to get warm enough to pressure wash, got the heavy loose gunk off the outside in prep for the rear axle replacement job. That's snowballed into what's shaping up to be probably all the axle bearings too, already have all the seals so I will probably end up just replacing all the dang bearings too. With races it was only about $250 for all of them, have to admit I was prepared for more expensive parts(the $600 axle still stinks!). 17 gallons of hyd oil just kinda sucks period so I don't plan on doing it often. I bought a cheapo blue round kiddie pool at Fleet the other day, not sure how it will work as a drain tub but...why not? Any ideas for less than $10 would be considered, won't be go time for another week probably. Oh, and of course I think I will rebuild the starter while it's down. She sounded a little crunchy, seems to be a common issue with these glow plug happy Kubota's? Is the gas tank supported by the belly pan or can I take that off without anything falling out like the rear pan appears to work? SOOO much oil dry stuff and random bits under the seat & hydraulic pump area, getting concerned the kitty litter is there for a reason...and not a good one! No photo gallery on this forum I could find so I'm not sure how to post pics yet. Confused old man moment, sad when your only 32. This forum seems harder to use than most in general, is that due to the construction I read about somewhere? Will try to do some research on forum use when I get time, paragraphs first I think.A little puff os smoke at startup is normal, even having the original glow plugs could be true too. There is no reason for them to burn out from normal use. They burn out when the machine gets lazy and you need to use them longer and longer, that's when they burn up.
There is no reason why that machine won't last another good 5,000 hours.
I can't remember where the figure came from, but on most diesels you get about 6,000 hours out of them before they need attention. With that said, Bobcatdan works on a machine that works every day and it has a lot more than 6,000 hours on the clock. Pretty sure he said it's the same engine.
It will be a nice machine when you have it all fixed up just right, many years of service left.Good to know, thank you for helping me feel better about this thing. I pulled the instrument panel to ditch the stupid dangly accordian wire which was hacked terribly into the main hot lead to the ignition switch, left hot and hanging. Source of why the battery went dead on me maybe, I bet its just toast by the looks of it but a guy can hope. Have to put a new chunk of wire in there to clean it all up more than likely. PO was not big on keeping up with service its becoming apparent, I'm pretty picky on the other hand. I managed to get it set up level on some 6x6 blocks and started digging sand/misc crud out of the engine area(plugged up my shop vac pretty good). Gave up on waiting for our temps to get warm enough to pressure wash, got the heavy loose gunk off the outside in prep for the rear axle replacement job. That's snowballed into what's shaping up to be probably all the axle bearings too, already have all the seals so I will probably end up just replacing all the dang bearings too. With races it was only about $250 for all of them, have to admit I was prepared for more expensive parts(the $600 axle still stinks!). 17 gallons of hyd oil just kinda sucks period so I don't plan on doing it often. I bought a cheapo blue round kiddie pool at Fleet the other day, not sure how it will work as a drain tub but...why not? Any ideas for less than $10 would be considered, won't be go time for another week probably. Oh, and of course I think I will rebuild the starter while it's down. She sounded a little crunchy, seems to be a common issue with these glow plug happy Kubota's? Is the gas tank supported by the belly pan or can I take that off without anything falling out like the rear pan appears to work? SOOO much oil dry stuff and random bits under the seat & hydraulic pump area, getting concerned the kitty litter is there for a reason...and not a good one! No photo gallery on this forum I could find so I'm not sure how to post pics yet. Confused old man moment, sad when your only 32. This forum seems harder to use than most in general, is that due to the construction I read about somewhere? Will try to do some research on forum use when I get time, paragraphs first I think.
Good idea about getting into the starter, you don't want it chewing up the ring gear ir sticking on.
