John Deere Hydraulic Thumb Kit - BXX10248

Hydraulic Thumb BXX10248 has a number of uses, and the quality is very good and well made. The only complaint is the papers sent with the attachment gave a website to get installation instructions was a general site. After several attempts to find the instructions I gave up and followed a YouTube video, which was OK but not as detailed as I would have liked. Also the stickers for the valve operation was in with the bolts and pins and was pretty much made useless by rumbling around in the bag. The Attachment is well worth the investment and makes your backhoe a lot more versatile. I would recommend it completely.

It's just what I want but won't order until it's available. When will it be available to order!!!!!

For those of you who have a 270B backhoe, your existing bucket cylinder uses tapered (cone shaped) hydraulic hose connectors (at least mine does). The hoses included with the Thumb kit have flat-faced, with internal o-ring, hydraulic connections. The BXX10248 Hydraulic Thumb Kit comes with all fittings, bolts, nuts, etc. in one large, sealed bag. Unfortunately, the fittings bag only includes 1 of the 2 connections needed for adapting the 270B bucket cylinder. I had to have my local JD dealer order extra fittings for me to finish the installation. The fittings are shown in the attached pictures. You will need to order one cone-shaped tee X6RX-S and one cone to flat face adapter X6LOHX6-S. From what I can tell, the 260B backhoe bucket cylinder uses 100% flat faced hydraulic connectors. It appears you should have everything you need in the plastic bag for a 260B backhoe. I say this because if you closely watch the Tractor Time with Tim video for the Thumb Kit installation on his 260B, all the connectors appear to be flat faced. Not the case with my 270B. John Deere needs to update their bill of materials in the kit.

Mixed reviews - The packaging of the Thumb leaves much to be desired. Initial shipment found critical parts with heavy scratches that I did not want on a new tractor. Decals were damaged. Shipment did not have instructions included, and with some tweaking, the on line instructions would be improved. The DIY installation is not that difficult, but the instructions should be updated. Customer Service (Marion) response was excellent. Unit is installed now and I could not be more pleased with the functionality of the Thumb.