Convert your pin attach to universal mount (SSQA).

[Jaygyver]

Wait until you find out about forks that adjust hydraulically. But a SSQA front end loader is basically a necessity.

Yup, when I was going to recycle my old forklift I was going to keep the fork shift pad (both left or right only on mine) but it probably weighed #200+ lbs (3/4" steel plates) and I would have had to do a LOT of grinding and welding to get it to work. I did keep the forks and just bought the ssqa forklift plate for the tractor and they fit great.

To each their own. Having tried both, I will never own a tractor without a SSQA.

I cheaped out and bought my tractor with a pin mount bucket figuring I wouldn;t have occasion to switch much. After grumbling about it for years, I finally decided to switch. My wife gave me the tractor side of the SSQA attachment for Christmas. I debated having the "ears" cut off my bucket and a SSQA plate welded on. Ended up just buying a new SSQA bucket and selling the old one.

If I'm not messing with hydraulic connections, I can easily make a swap in under a minute. Hooking up the hydraulics when swapping in my grapple doesn't add much time.

I do a lot of swapping in the winter, switching between my forestry grapple (getting logging done when the ground is frozen) and the bucket (for scraping ice off the driveway and other general purpose work). Messing with a pin-on swap in the really cold weather was a pain in the butt. Even in the summer, the convenience of the quick swap makes it so much easier to get jobs done efficiently.

I'm in the same boat as far as the old JD having pins still. I never thought about just getting a ssqa bucket for it. I might do that then later on cut the pin brackets off the old one then retro the ssqa plate. I do like the OEM JD bucket tho as it has like a 1/2 inch rounded steel bar under the bottom edge which has saved me over the years scraping our shared road of leaves and needles. Just in the 4 years or so of having the LS and Land Pride hyd 4-1 OEM buckets the edges have gotten sharp enough to probably cut my steaks with. Probably have to get a couple of cutting edges for them just for that reason.

The wife likes the hydro LS but the smaller JD wins out most of the time so it would be great to be able to use the forks on the JD when she needs to move stuff.

 

[4Liberty]

Yup, when I was going to recycle my old forklift I was going to keep the fork shift pad (both left or right only on mine) but it probably weighed #200+ lbs (3/4" steel plates) and I would have had to do a LOT of grinding and welding to get it to work. I did keep the forks and just bought the ssqa forklift plate for the tractor and they fit great.


I'm in the same boat as far as the old JD having pins still. I never thought about just getting a ssqa bucket for it. I might do that then later on cut the pin brackets off the old one then retro the ssqa plate. I do like the OEM JD bucket tho as it has like a 1/2 inch rounded steel bar under the bottom edge which has saved me over the years scraping our shared road of leaves and needles. Just in the 4 years or so of having the LS and Land Pride hyd 4-1 OEM buckets the edges have gotten sharp enough to probably cut my steaks with. Probably have to get a couple of cutting edges for them just for that reason.

The wife likes the hydro LS but the smaller JD wins out most of the time so it would be great to be able to use the forks on the JD when she needs to move stuff.

I thought fitting and welding the plate on the bucket was much easier than fabricating the lever brackets. Be even easier if the bucket is flat where the plate has to go.

 

[nknelsen]

I agree. The same can be said for pin mount too. Since I have pin mount, it would be expensive to switch, then have to convert present attachments.

If you're happy living in the past, than you have learned the secret to happiness. I personally enjoy a good SSQA system. Its solid, cheap (relatively), fast and promotes production. And in today's world, doing more quickly is sometimes the secret to happiness.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

Not apples to apples, but I have one backhoe with a stock 24" bucket and one which I bought a 12" inch bucket for.

They're identical Case 580 backhoes, but there's no way I would fight with changing pinned buckets as needed. Even tough I have a crane, which would help a lot.

Changing the tiny buckets on the BX25D is a different story. Those are painfully easy to swap back and forth, just a bit time consuming.

 

[Cycledude]

When buying my tractor I was not aware of SSQA, all I knew was I wanted a system like what Bobcat uses, the John Deere dealer wanted a lot of extra money for that but it was standard equipment on the LS tractor I wound up buying.
I don’t remove the FEL bucket very often but SSQA sure makes things a lot easier when I do. My LS came from the factory equipped with three sets of rear remotes, with John Deere those extra rear remotes would have been almost unbelievably expensive to buy.

 

[Jaygyver]

I thought fitting and welding the plate on the bucket was much easier than fabricating the lever brackets. Be even easier if the bucket is flat where the plate has to go.

When I looked years ago someone did make a plate that connected a ssqa recieving plate to the pin brackets on the bucket but the gap between the cylinder end, the tractor ssqa and the ssqa receiver plate on the bucket was so far a way that it would have dropped my capacity at least in half. The farther away from the cylinder pin ends to the bucket the less you can lift. 35+- or larger wouldn't be as big a hit, but 24 or 25 hp hurts more. I have the other tractor to do the heavy stuff anyway so it's not that big an issue I guess for my usage.

On retro fits anyway, you really have to look at the gap between the cylinder pin ends and the bucket/etc as some of the retro fit ssqa plates were around 6 or 8 inches on a couple of ones I've seen.
So, you have 4 or 5 inches between the cylinder end pin hole and the end of the -bracket- welded to the plate then you have another 3 or 4 inches or so for the ssqa attachment to the bucket. Although sometimes it depends on if you have a flat bucket or it's angled from the factory, they have to keep the cylinder alignment right.

For my little JD it's just too much of a lift cap drop for me. There are a few ssqa plates that the cylinder end pins get quite close to the ssqa plate so one of these days I'll do it.

 

[4Liberty]

When I looked years ago someone did make a plate that connected a ssqa recieving plate to the pin brackets on the bucket but the gap between the cylinder end, the tractor ssqa and the ssqa receiver plate on the bucket was so far a way that it would have dropped my capacity at least in half. The farther away from the cylinder pin ends to the bucket the less you can lift. 35+- or larger wouldn't be as big a hit, but 24 or 25 hp hurts more. I have the other tractor to do the heavy stuff anyway so it's not that big an issue I guess for my usage.

On retro fits anyway, you really have to look at the gap between the cylinder pin ends and the bucket/etc as some of the retro fit ssqa plates were around 6 or 8 inches on a couple of ones I've seen.
So, you have 4 or 5 inches between the cylinder end pin hole and the end of the -bracket- welded to the plate then you have another 3 or 4 inches or so for the ssqa attachment to the bucket. Although sometimes it depends on if you have a flat bucket or it's angled from the factory, they have to keep the cylinder alignment right.

For my little JD it's just too much of a lift cap drop for me. There are a few ssqa plates that the cylinder end pins get quite close to the ssqa plate so one of these days I'll do it.

One thing about building your own from scratch you can somewhat control that issue. In my case the pins are actually closer than what they were on the factory large capacity bucket that I used by about 1-1/2”. Not entirely on purpose I just wanted to keep differences in measurements closer to the original design. I designed everything with a 2k limit in mind, the original loader was rated at 2.5k, and I don’t plan on ever even getting close to 2.