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Alberta | Had a 276 Bi-Di for 16 years, traded it in with 10000 plus hours. used it for mostly loader work, pulling a haybine, swathing, baling, running a swing away auger and pulling a 60 foot set of harrows. Probably half the hours were loader.. had a artsway style feed wagon, we would unhook, fill with hay and silage and hook up again to feed cows. most times we would use the cab end hitch and lift the loader over the wagon. Decent loader, self leveling, would not dump out completely at full lift, not an industrial loader by no means, but good for loading bales. did not like the fact that the grapple did not close tight to the bucket. for bales, you will want to add bucket teeth. can never keep enough grease in front pin loader arm bushings, ours were completely worn out. I think the 9030 fixed the weak points in the 276. The cab end axel housings were weak, I think we went through 3 of them, I think they beefed them up on the 9030s brass pivot bushings would wear out and cut the pivots castings on the 276. I think they beefed up the 9030s. Motor needed murphy switches or alarms for low oil pressure or high temps. gauge lights are in the center of the steering wheel and when you are doing loader work, you cannot see them if they come on. We took out 1 motor due to overheating, 1 when a bolt inside the front housing came loose and destroyed the gears driving the oil pump. on the bright side the Cummins motors were not overly expensive as were the axel housings. On the higher hour machines, hoses wearing through under the cab were an issue due to rubbing. Not sure if the 9030s fixed that. Oil leaks were a continual issue. As long as you don't mind adding 5 gallons a month, no problems. The tractors had enough power to pull a 16 foot haybine, a 530 JD baler, and was ok on the harrows. I don't think we ever had hydro issues, other than continual seal leaks. I would buy another one, but the prices had gone up so much when we traded off, it was cheaper to buy the conventional loader tractor. Aside from all the issues, I loved the visibility with loader work and they were relatively easy to work on yourself. The cab end axel housing took 4 bolts to detach after unbolting the drive shaft. Took maybe all of 1 hour. The cab tilts enough to get at hoses under it by removing 2 bolts. Saved a lot of trucking charges by doing the easy mechanical work and hauling the pieces in for repairs in the half ton.
edit. word of note, not sure if the 9030s changed this, but on the 276 the e brake is on a flywheel at the cab end of the engine compartment, if you forget to take it off, it will heat up that fly wheel until it glows red. If there is any straw hanging up there, it will be tractor no more. I have seen a good many of those tractors at the wreckers burn up and I can guess that that flywheel cause 90 percent of those fires.
Edited by Dirtfarmer1000 2/18/2021 21:54
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Bi-directional questions
