When I got my CC XT1 it arrived in a crate, on a pallet. Hoping there would be a way to get it out as quickly and easily as possible I checked on You Tube. Well there was a video by a guy who got his exactly as I had gotten mine and he had posted his experience with getting the tractor uncrated, but he IMO made a cluster***k of the process. He uncrated the tractor while leaving the crate on the pallet, which made it much harder to get down to the ground because the mower deck was getting hung up by the several additional inches the tractor had to go to get to ground level. Also he took his XT off rear-end first... which meant that the smaller front wheels had to travel down the length of the crate base, and dropped into every gap along the way. He used ramps to get the tractor down, the whole process was just not very good. He spent over two hours, and at the end the crate and lumber looked like a grenade had hit it.
If I had known my method would work so much better than his (and it did) I would have taken pictures. Still, I think that the way I did it can be described well enough to be helpful. The basic steps are - get the crate OFF the pallet. Get the sides / ends / top off the crate and out of the way. Clear a path for the front wheels. Remove plastic bagging and zip ties. Un-set brake and pull out the little lever at the back of the tractor to 'free wheel'. Push the tractor off the crate base. It's nowhere near as hard if you do it this way. Here are the steps in more detail:
1. Get the crate OFF of the pallet first! Use a floor jack to raise one end of the crate off the pallet and put something (bricks, whatever) under the pallet to hold the first end up off the pallet. Then jack up the opposite end of the crate high enough that you can pull the pallet out from the side. Now lower the crate and yank the floor jack out from under. Go back to the first end, jack it up and get out whatever you used to hold up that end (i.e. bricks, whatever), and again lower the crate and yank out the floor jack. Now you have the crate directly on the ground where you want it. The tractor will only have to drop down a couple of inches at most and that keeps it from getting hung up on the mower deck.
2. Get appropriate tool and remove all the screws that hold the crate sides, ends and top together. It saves time to use a (cordless) drill with a hex driver socket in it - but I took them out by hand. There are probably going to be staples and/or nails as well so you may need a pry bar for those. What you need to do is to get the upper part (sides & top) of the crate off of the tractor and out of the way. It will probably have to come off in pieces. Get the crate junk out of the way so you don't step or lean on some exposed staples or nails.
3. Pull the plastic off the tractor. Get the assorted bags and box of separate parts off the tractor and move them out of the way if you like. Locate and cut the 3 or 4 heavy plastic zip ties that hold the tractor to the crate base.
4. This is very important - you want to take the tractor off of the crate base going FORWARD! NOT backward. The big rear wheels have an easier time staying on top of the wood and not dropping in between the spaces. Go to the tractor's 'front' end of the crate base and cut or pry away the wood at that end that blocks the front wheels from moving straight forward. I used a circular saw, there was plenty of room to cut most of the way through the ends of the front crosspiece at the outer ends and at the center too and knock it out of the way. You could probably do this with a small hand saw and/or a large hammer too, only of course be careful not to hit the tractor. Once you've cleared the crate wood from in front of those wheels, the front of the tractor can just roll forward when we're ready.
5. You may want to unbag the steering wheel and set it on the steering shaft so you can make sure the front wheels stay pointed straight as you shove the tractor off the crate base. Don't forget to install it permanently afterward of course.
6. Press the brake pedal to release the parking brake! It comes 'set' from the factory. (I overlooked that and couldn't figure out why the tractor still didn't want to move.) Then pull out the freewheel release lever on the back of the tractor to disengage the drive.
7. Grab one of the rear wheels from behind and lift-turn to 'drive' the tractor up and out of the little 'divots' the real wheels are in. A second person can be helpful at this point but I did it myself. DON'T try lifting or shoving by the rear fenders or sheet metal - it's not strong enough for that, and if you bend up your brand new tractor before you even get it uncrated you will be very PO'd at yourself. Once the rear wheels are up and out, they will roll on top of the crate base the rest of the way. Since we opened up the path so the front wheels can roll forward, at this point you can just push the tractor forward and off the crate base. I did not have any interference with the mower deck or anything else this way - the mower rolled right to the end of the crate base and off. The thin piece at the base of the mower discharge opening did not get hung up on anything so it didn't get bent. If the crate was still on top of the pallet it would have 'crashed' and gotten hung up before the tractor was all the way on the ground. That's no good.
If I had to do this again I bet I could get the tractor completely un-crated in well under an hour by myself.
By the way - I bought my CC online from HomeDepot.com and it was delivered in my residential area on a tractor trailer. A BIG one. Unfortunately the driver felt he had to pull off one side of the road (he didn't really need to) so the sporadic passing car could get past and he made a nice mess of the front of my lawn. If you have any issues about a big rig delivering your new Cub Cadet, well you should be aware of them before an enormous truck shows up.
If I had known my method would work so much better than his (and it did) I would have taken pictures. Still, I think that the way I did it can be described well enough to be helpful. The basic steps are - get the crate OFF the pallet. Get the sides / ends / top off the crate and out of the way. Clear a path for the front wheels. Remove plastic bagging and zip ties. Un-set brake and pull out the little lever at the back of the tractor to 'free wheel'. Push the tractor off the crate base. It's nowhere near as hard if you do it this way. Here are the steps in more detail:
1. Get the crate OFF of the pallet first! Use a floor jack to raise one end of the crate off the pallet and put something (bricks, whatever) under the pallet to hold the first end up off the pallet. Then jack up the opposite end of the crate high enough that you can pull the pallet out from the side. Now lower the crate and yank the floor jack out from under. Go back to the first end, jack it up and get out whatever you used to hold up that end (i.e. bricks, whatever), and again lower the crate and yank out the floor jack. Now you have the crate directly on the ground where you want it. The tractor will only have to drop down a couple of inches at most and that keeps it from getting hung up on the mower deck.
2. Get appropriate tool and remove all the screws that hold the crate sides, ends and top together. It saves time to use a (cordless) drill with a hex driver socket in it - but I took them out by hand. There are probably going to be staples and/or nails as well so you may need a pry bar for those. What you need to do is to get the upper part (sides & top) of the crate off of the tractor and out of the way. It will probably have to come off in pieces. Get the crate junk out of the way so you don't step or lean on some exposed staples or nails.
3. Pull the plastic off the tractor. Get the assorted bags and box of separate parts off the tractor and move them out of the way if you like. Locate and cut the 3 or 4 heavy plastic zip ties that hold the tractor to the crate base.
4. This is very important - you want to take the tractor off of the crate base going FORWARD! NOT backward. The big rear wheels have an easier time staying on top of the wood and not dropping in between the spaces. Go to the tractor's 'front' end of the crate base and cut or pry away the wood at that end that blocks the front wheels from moving straight forward. I used a circular saw, there was plenty of room to cut most of the way through the ends of the front crosspiece at the outer ends and at the center too and knock it out of the way. You could probably do this with a small hand saw and/or a large hammer too, only of course be careful not to hit the tractor. Once you've cleared the crate wood from in front of those wheels, the front of the tractor can just roll forward when we're ready.
5. You may want to unbag the steering wheel and set it on the steering shaft so you can make sure the front wheels stay pointed straight as you shove the tractor off the crate base. Don't forget to install it permanently afterward of course.
6. Press the brake pedal to release the parking brake! It comes 'set' from the factory. (I overlooked that and couldn't figure out why the tractor still didn't want to move.) Then pull out the freewheel release lever on the back of the tractor to disengage the drive.
7. Grab one of the rear wheels from behind and lift-turn to 'drive' the tractor up and out of the little 'divots' the real wheels are in. A second person can be helpful at this point but I did it myself. DON'T try lifting or shoving by the rear fenders or sheet metal - it's not strong enough for that, and if you bend up your brand new tractor before you even get it uncrated you will be very PO'd at yourself. Once the rear wheels are up and out, they will roll on top of the crate base the rest of the way. Since we opened up the path so the front wheels can roll forward, at this point you can just push the tractor forward and off the crate base. I did not have any interference with the mower deck or anything else this way - the mower rolled right to the end of the crate base and off. The thin piece at the base of the mower discharge opening did not get hung up on anything so it didn't get bent. If the crate was still on top of the pallet it would have 'crashed' and gotten hung up before the tractor was all the way on the ground. That's no good.
If I had to do this again I bet I could get the tractor completely un-crated in well under an hour by myself.
By the way - I bought my CC online from HomeDepot.com and it was delivered in my residential area on a tractor trailer. A BIG one. Unfortunately the driver felt he had to pull off one side of the road (he didn't really need to) so the sporadic passing car could get past and he made a nice mess of the front of my lawn. If you have any issues about a big rig delivering your new Cub Cadet, well you should be aware of them before an enormous truck shows up.
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