FEL trick

[wroughtn_harv]

Awhile back a bud with a medium sized Kubota wanted to find a way to use his front end loader to move the trailers around the place. He didn't want to cut a hole in the bucket for a ball so he hit me up for ideas.

At the time I didn't have any, doesn't happen often, but then it did.

But after perusing ya'lls post I thunk up one that might be a seed for ya'll to plant and muse over and make work.

I have a cardinal rule about one thing. It's receiver hitches. You never ever let one get away. And they're everywhere if you're looking.

My thing is twenty five bucks for a whole assembly less insert.

My truck has four of them permanently mounted. One front, one back in the usual place, and one on each corner of the bed about four inches down from the top of the bed.

I've got pipe knotchers, vices, manual benders, one off specialty tools etc all mounted on inserts for these hitches. And I've got about four of the receivers mounted to different places in the shop.

This combination is absolutely deadly for a handy kind of person. You can have a vise anchored to a truck or tractor in the middle of nowhere for you to whup up on some poor innocent piece of steel etc.

Let's add one more use for this often tossed piece of valuable junk.

When I was brainstorming with bud I noticed a couple of things about the small tractor buckets. They're not made that strong. Of course they don't have to be and any weight you add to them takes away from their payload.

Put your imagination in gear and follow me.

You take a receiver hitch assembly and modify it so that it's attached at each end of your bucket. The beauty of the receiver hitch assembly is it's almost impossible to twist the square tubing frame if the plate it's attached to if firmly attached itself.

You can have the receiver piece itself in the middle or off to one side or another. If you have access to enough material then maybe three spaced across the top of your bucket would be perfect.

Let's say you want to move some trailers around the place. You make an insert where it comes out of the receiver and angles down and then along the floor of your bucket and stopping say a foot or so in front of the blade. With your ball on this you can see it plenty fine and and your control is great because moving your front wheels a little moves the trailer tongue a lot.

You decide you want to have a boom to pick up things. So you make a boom. Two legs come back to your bucket so that they sit with the back of the bucket and the bottom of the bucket supporting them. These are your supports for your beam. The beam is inserted into the receiver assemply and pinned. The only thing you'd have to be real careful with would be tilting your bucket down where the pressure would be against just the beam away from your supports.

If you wanted to put a hay spear in your front loader it could be make the same way. A frame made in a triangle with the bottom resting on the floor of the bucket near the leading edge of the bucket. The main spear attached to the insert and two smaller locater spears coming our of the triangular frame near the floor of the bucket.

Both of these attachments would attached by one five eighths pin to the front loader.

Don't go out buy a twenty foot stick of two and half inch square tubing and figure you don't need the receiver hitch assemblies.

That don't work. If you buy quarter inch wall tubing as you need your two inch inserts won't work. There's a seam to deal with. Receiver assemblies are machined out for about six inches back. So buying a three foot piece or receiver material from your trailer supplier doesn't mean you've got six six inch pieces to use at your heart's content. You've got one piece and some great stuff to work with.

If you go with less than quarter inch wall material you'll have too sloppy a fit and it won't be worth throwing rocks with or at.

I hope I've planted a seed.

I know.

I have too fertile a mind.

That's okay.

It beats playing in the street for entertainment.

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/wroughtnharv/lst?.dir=/Iris&.src=ph&.order=&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/>Iris, my tractor</A>

 

[pajoube]

Boy, you sure gave me a number of ideas. I really like the possibilities for different uses with one receiver hitch. Like you mentioned I have seen these at many auctions for very low prices.
Thanks for the very good suggestions.
PJ

 

[Corm]

I'll second that!! This is a great idea! I can see where this would be just the ticket for many implement attachments - boom pole like you mentioned, FEL hooks, forks, trailer hitch, a light material extension for the bucket, a place to attach a winch when needed... the list goes on. Thank you!!

PS - Upsets me that I never thought of that!

Corm

 

[Dozernut]

Your a genius!/w3tcompact/icons/clever.gif I've got a quick attach and I could weld up a seperate frame for a receiver and simply swap the bucket for the receiver frame. Thanks for the inspiration, I hope I can return the favor one day! Now I've got to go scrounge the makings.

 

[treebark]

Lots of good ens ,thanks.Keep them brainstorms a coming!

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I called a couple of buds and offered to help them out with doing said trick on their tractors.

Why is it if you offer to take someone to the ice cream parlor you can't afford all the volunteers?

So as of right now I'm going to do at least one installation and I'll try to photo it as I go (love them thar digital cameras). It's gonna be a New Holland I'd guess about forty or so horse with a six or six and a half foot FEL.

The concrete box I made for myself developed legs the other day. A bud who does a lot of work with his Cat 226 for concrete tractors dropped by the shop. He wanted it. I explained he was more than welcome to use it cause I didn't use it often. He made me promise to make him one. I said I would but it would probably be a couple of months till I get another round to it to spare for a bud. So he'd gonna use mine if he needs one before then.

I'd like to figure out a way to put one of them concrete buckets as a easy in and easy out for a FEL. They're handier than a pocket on pants if you're dispensing instead of just piling.

Let's say you're putting in gravel in a leach line,gravel in a french drain, gravel behind a retaining wall, concrete in posts holes, concrete in areas like sidewalks where a little finesse goes a long way, or grouting a wall.

 

[jdrotert]

wroughtn_harv,
Have you jumped into my mind lately and rumaged around in the "ideas" file? I've had the same exact idea for a bucket mounted receiver hitch for about a year now. My 2-car attached garage and 3-car detached shed are so close to one another that I cannot back my 19-foot boat into the shed with my Bronco without driving into a fully empy garage first! Everytime we come back from the River or a lake, I park the boat in the driveway, pull the Bronco out of the way and use the tractor with my homemade 3PH receiver hitch to back the boat in for the night.
I'm thinking about a clamp-type removable receiver hitch (similar to clamp-on bucket bucket forks) which mounts on the bucket. Easy-on, easy-off. Just to test my idea, I c-clamped a receiver itself with a ball attached to my bucket. It worked pretty good until the load shifted and the clamp couldn't hold sideways forces. One problem though- I could not see the ball from the "drivers seat".

 

[jdrotert]

OK, I had a little time on my hands and butchered up Alan L.'s bucket fork picture. Alan L., I hope you don't mind. Here's my concept (see attachment).
John

 

[Inspector507]

My brother welded a bracket to the top of his bucket, attached a 2" ball to the bracket. When the bucket was tilted down, he had a ball to move his boat and trailer around.

 

[Woody1]

seems like you all are going thru a lot of trouble just for a ball hitch. Why not just go to a auto store, buy a bar that goes into 3ph arms and add a ball to it. I did. cost me MAYBE 40 bucks total. Can raise/lower trailer without jacking, and turning is easy

 

[Dozernut]

Woody1
I can't speak for the others, but I have already tried your suggestion. Every time I wanted to move something I would have to take off a back hoe, mower or some other implement. Besides a heavy trailer will cause your ball to swivel, unless you weld some support arms on the hitch bar to tie into the top arm. It would be so much simpler to drop the bucket off the FEL with the quick attach and put on a frame with a receiver hitch. I really don't want to drill holes or weld on the mower deck or back hoe. This system will be far easier and faster.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

What's funny is I've got ya'll chasing the reciever hitch idea and it's not what I've got for my JCB165HF.

I've got a quickattach set of forks for it. I didn't want to cut a hole in a fork to place a ball cause that looks bad and everyone does it. I also move around trailers from 1 7/8 thru 2 5/16 balls. So changing the balls would be a pain.

So I took a piece of two by six eleven gauge that fits right over a fork. I welded a piece of inch and a half round bar stock that sticks up about three inches at one end. That's the business end. At the other end I welded a piece of inch and a half quarter inch wall square tubing sticking up about six inches.

In this piece of square tubing fits a piece of bar stock half inch by one inch. I bent a piece of five eighths bar stock and welded to the half by one.

When I've got to move a trailer I drive the fork into the six inch tubing. I reach down, beauty of skid steer, and place the half by one piece into the inch and a half square tubing so that the five eighths bar is behind the vertical part of the fork. All I need it to do is to keep the six inch tubing from sliding off the fork.

When I remove the assembly I turn the half by one insert ninety degrees so it's out of the way and yet doesn't get lost.

My idea behind the receiver concept is for it to be the basis for a system. Sorta like the way it is on my truck. I have my vises, my notchers, my benders all on inserts. That way if I need to use them I pull them out and the whole [censored] truck is the support system to help me hold the tool.

The only thing that limits the concept is the imagination.

I mean, heck, if your hydraulics don't leak down on your cylinders you can make a basketball backboard attachment and use the FEL for team fun instead of just an individual's grin generator.

 

[pajoube]

Harv, as usual you have come up with another great idea. With all those twists and turns you mention, sure could use a picture.
PJ

 

[jdrotert]

Woody1,
I did exactly that. Here's my <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=implement&Number=78267&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1>3PH receiver hitch</A>. But as Dozernut points out, you have to remove whatever attachment you have hooked up just to move a trailer. I have two trailers I need to move everytime I mow. Sure would be nice if I had a ball on the FEL somewhere.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

In my old puter I had a "word" program a bud taught me how to draw with. But the new one doesn't seem to have it.

My photo site is maxed out and a bud is whupping me up a web site design so I can have almost unlimited space on my own web site. So maybe in a month or so I can pop in a link to photos cause I already have the digital camera and most of the stuff I'm talking about I've just got to take a photo of and you can agree about how lucky I really am.

How many folks do you know get to fill out the question about occupation with "I make things."?

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Let's pretend you put a receiver piece like the one you have on your three point attachment on a bar that's attached to plates welded to the ends of your FEL. Then you take a piece of two inch bar stock or tubing and cut and weld it so it comes out of the receiver, angles down to the floor of your bucket and then out a couple of feet in front of the leading edge of the FEL bucket.

That way the visibility is great, you don't need umpteen pounds of strength to manhandle a trailer by it's tongue, and if you do it right there's no reason to get out of the tractor to connect or disconnect.

To support the insert for lateral loads you can either use chains that attach at each side, tension if you will. Or you can have bars sticking out catching the inside walls of your loader bucket, compression. Either or would work while the chains would be lighter and take up less space.

The advantage of having the insert sit on the floor of the loader bucket is it takes most of the twisting forces off of the back and top of the bucket where it's not designed to have twisting forces as an issue.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I got to get back down to the shop. I took an early lunch, customers.........

But if someone will explain how to cut back my pictures so they'll fit in the restricted space available here I'd like to show you some neat little thingys ya'll might appreciate.

They're little things anyone can make that grab a post or pipe so you can lift same out with your FEL. They're simpler'n heck and work like you wished that son in law would.

 

[Ozarker]

How to reduce the size of your pictures depends entirely on which graphics program you use. But here are the basics.

Crop........ Most pictures have the subject, the important stuff, in or near the center surrounded by unimportant stull like ground, sky, floor, walls etc. Just use the Select tool in your program, frame the area you really want to show and hit Edit,Cut. Then hit Edit, Paste as new image and you create a smaller picture of what you really want to show people. Same that under a new name and check it's actual size.

Resize..... Most graphics programs have a Resize function that lets you make an image larger or smaller. Just reduce it by 10%, save it and check the size. If that reduced it enough, good. If not, reduce it another 10%. repeat until it is small enough to post. Don't forget to check the "Maintain Aspect Ratio" while resizing. That will keep the height to width ratio the same so that your end result doesn't look stretched out of shape.

 

[Ozarker]

Examples

Here are a couple of examples. When I was playing with that picture of the rear weight the other day, after I added my changes the picture was too large to post. I cropped it to show only what I needed to show and cut out all the unimportant stuff. I also reduced it to see how that would have looked.

This first attachment is what it looks like reduced.

 

[Ozarker]

Re: Examples

And here is the same picture cropped to show only what I wanted to show.

When I make the original changes the end result was a 191kb picture. This forum will only accept a 150kb or smaller picture. I reduced it 10% and that got me 157kb. Still too big. Second reduction, and what you saw in example 1, was 128kb but smaller details.

The cropped picture in example 2 is only 48kb and doesn't reduce the size of the details. So it shows the details and loads faster.