Help with cylinder placement on grapple

[Everhard]

I built my own and agree with what everyone has said about position. Has to be offset back and up. Now from my experience you have to then also make sure that you'll have clearance from the front hood or brush bar when you raise or lower the loader and rotate the grapple. I ended up having to change where I had mine as it didn't quite clear...
With regards to your plan on one cylinder centered like the example that has 2 cylinders mounted on the sides, while that's a very nice design if you have one cylinder centered it might create difficulties with clearance for a ssqa which if you don't have one now chances are down the road you will. I went down that road myself.

E.

 

[ovrszd]

I built mine using the CAD method described above. I used 8" cylinders. I got the most clamping force when closed. Least clamping force when open. Which was my intent. Was a lot trial and error when designing. Also had to strengthen the hinge points after some use. My cylinders had even more clamping force when closed than I needed. Started distorting the hinge area.

Enjoy your design and build. Good for a man's Soul.

 

[fasttruck860]

Here's a link to my build a couple of years ago. I too used cad to figure out the pivot angle and cylinder/ bracket placement. You can see the placement on the 2nd page of the post.

Compact Tractor Grapple Build