The Forestry Forum

I was using the tractor to put the rest of the backfill around the garage foundation and felt the seat suddenly shift to the side.  One of the brackets had broken off of the seat bottem.  When I finished working I took the seat off and removed the cover.  The bracket didn't break, it rusted out.  It seems the tear in the seat cover alloed moisture to get inbetween the cover, padding and seat.  In fact the seat itself wasnt in good shape.  Surface rust was deep and covered the complete seating area.  I was able to weld the bracket back on by making a patch for the area first.  Lotsa grinding and wire brusing, though a sand blaster would have been better.

If you have a padded seat on a machine that stays out you might want to look under the seat cover.  My Kioti lk3054 is a 98 and has fops but no cab.

We used to have similar problems with our Kubotas.

Finally figured it out, there are two threaded holes in the seat back to accept a mount for a SMV symbol or sunshade or something. When we flipped the seats forward the rain got in the holes and settled to the seat bottom were it stayed and rotted out the seat pan.

A couple of bolts the right size with a little dab of silicone sealant on them and no more rusty seats.

Father had seats redone on his tractors with no cabs a few years ago and the new covers where better than the manufactures. Never seen any of the seets ever rust enough to fall off, but they did have rust under the torn seat cover and pads. The rust had pitted the metal quite bad, but not all the way through. Some of them tractors he had for over 25 years, one almost 40, before he sold the farm.