My Home built Loader

[dfkrug]

Great project, Rohan!

Yours is prob the first built-from-scratch 4-in-1 I have seen.

I see you have chosen clevis-style cylinders for your 4-in-1 actuators.
Do you have a plan for making their pins greasable?

 

[rhamer]

Rohan,
Could you take a couple more pictrues of your bucket quick hitch? Looks like a great method.
Thanks,
John

No worries, but it won't be until the weekend.

BTW its not really my idea, it's a rip off of the JD method.

Cheers

Rohan

 

[rhamer]

Don't you just hate it when a project gets well under way, and the guy has to go back to work!!! Maybe we need to start a collection so he can stay home and finish the loader???
Looking GREAT!!!
David from jax

Hey, All donations gratefully accepted

I have to find the money for the hydraulic control and hoses yet

Cheers

Rohan

 

[rhamer]

Great project, Rohan!

Yours is prob the first built-from-scratch 4-in-1 I have seen.

Yeah, and now I know why Working out the geometry was a major pain, and it still might not work too well in practice.

I see you have chosen clevis-style cylinders for your 4-in-1 actuators.
Do you have a plan for making their pins greasable?

Yes I am going to drill them out oversize, and make a steel bush for the center part, then put a bronze bush inside with a greese nipple.

But that will be the last step.

My neighbour has a small Dingo skidsteer (the ones that you stand on the back) and his cylinders are the same style as mine. and there is no lubrication at all. They just change the pins every couple of years.

Cheers

Rohan

 

[rhamer]

Ok some more work this weekend and some more pics.

It doesen't look like I've done much except turn it over, but there is a lot of work in squaring it up and getting all the moving parts to swing evenly, and not curve like a baseball pitch

It would be nice if I could make the hydraulics work as they are, just to make it easier to check everything is nice and smooth, but I dont have a portable hydraulic power pack, and it would probably just make a mess anyway.

I also posted another pic of the attachment points on the back of the bucket, as requested. The Pins that hold the bottom are not in place yet.

Cheers

Rohan

 

[2manyrocks]

Nice overhead lift. Did you build it, too?

 

[rhamer]

Nice overhead lift. Did you build it, too?

Yeah, I built it a few years ago to move my lathe when we shifted house.

Cheers

Rohan

 

[rhamer]

Well another couple of weeks have gone by and a few more days work on the loader.

It is really hot here at the moment, so working in the shed is like some sort of torture.

Anyway, I have made some progress, although it's the little things that take the time.

I removed the existing subframe from the tractor that I made about 6 months ago for my backhoe, and started adapting it to take the loader. There is still a bit of work to go in that area, but it's looking promising.

I had a bit of a scare today, when I ran a string line down the middle of the loader and the subframe to line them up, and they were miles out. I thought I had stuffed something up big time, until I remeasured and found the string was not in the middle at one end... much relieved.

I put the bucket on today to see how it fitted. It took me ages with the hoist and jacks and things to get it to seat in the right place, then I tacked it so I didn't have to go through that again.

I'm nearly ready to have a test fit on the tractor, to see how it all looks, hopefully it will be fine.

Cheers

Rohan

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Can't wait to see it on the tractor!!!

 

[rhamer]

Can't wait to see it on the tractor!!!

Hopefully I'll still be able to see the tractor. Once I put the bucket in place and stood back, it looks pretty big

I still have to cut some length off the main posts as they are about 250mm too long, but I thought I would wait for my new bandsaw to arrive for that cut

Cheers

Rohan

 

[Max2310]

Keep up with the great work!! Very nice!

I recently started making stuff out of junk metal for my tractor and enjoy it alot! Seing this feeds my desire to continue...

 

[rhamer]

Yeah, you start out with "I'll just add a bit here" and before you know it, your onto a FEL

Cheers

Rohan

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Keep up with the great work!! Very nice!

I recently started making stuff out of junk metal for my tractor and enjoy it alot! Seing this feeds my desire to continue...

A lot of guys will bad-mouth "recycled" metal, but if you're willing to spend a little time with a wire wheel you can make a lot of nice stuff for very little money.

 

[nedly05]

Very nice... great fab work!!

 

[allenr]

Looking good. Interesting to read about all the time spent making bushings. Bushings and pins were pretty inexpensive at the store I bought my cylinders. I would by a 5" bushing and cut it into 1" or what ever thinkness needed on the bandsaw. You can see an uncut bushing and a pin on the table in this shot.

David, the bushing on the table is relatively thin walled, did you get the thick walled one (as pictured on the bottom of your fabrication) from the same store?

I've never found much heavy wall tube unless I buy 6 metres of what they call "hollow bar" from a steel merchant and that is very expensive.

 

[allenr]

I have an oxy-acetylene set, and the long-term loan of a Lincoln SP-125 Plus flux-core wire feed welder.... and I did enroll in a welding class earlier this fall/winter. Not an expert by any stretch, but I now feel quite comfortable with oxy-acetlyene, with or without filler (at least up to 3/16" thick), and can stick pieces together with the wire feed. An angle grinder I don't have-- yet.

Don't know how I ever managed to make anything without a grinder or a lathe.

I now have 4 grinders beside my welding table and vice, 2 x 9" and 1 x 4" and 1 x 5". One big grinder has a C/O wheel and one a grinding wheel and likewise the small ones.

Now with ultra thin C/O wheels another one or two more would be handy but then I'd never untangle the cables!

 

[allenr]

Rohan, that loader looks really good, you are a legend.

How did you taper the 75 x 125, was it freehand with the grinder?

Hope you're still married!

 

[jimgerken]

Great work! If you are serious about a test of the hydraulic range and don't want to involve controls or messy oil how about using compressed air? That should be relatively simple. I can't imagine why it would be unsafe or harmfull to the cylinders. Anyone?

 

[J_J]

David, the bushing on the table is relatively thin walled, did you get the thick walled one (as pictured on the bottom of your fabrication) from the same store?

I've never found much heavy wall tube unless I buy 6 metres of what they call "hollow bar" from a steel merchant and that is very expensive.

Most any steel vendor will sell you his minimum length, be it 10 ft, 20 ft or whatever. That tubing is called DOM tubing, and stands for Drawn Over Mandrel. You can get short length from this vendor.

MetKit Corp - Home Page

Select Catalog of parts, Select HTML, Select Bearings, Pins, and Tubing.

 

[rhamer]

Rohan, that loader looks really good, you are a legend.

How did you taper the 75 x 125, was it freehand with the grinder?

Hope you're still married!

I cut a wedge out of each side with an oxy/accet torch, then clamped the bottom in place and welded it.

However I probably wouldn't do it again. The problem is all this sort of fabricated stock still has inbuilt stresses from the manufacturing process, and when you cut it lengthwise like I did some of those stresses are released and it warps. Then combined with the welding heat, it made it very hard to keep it all straight. In fact each arm segment is actually bowed in the vertical direction. Fortunateley it's not enough to be a problem, and it's in the right direction, but it just shows how much steel will change shape when you work it.

Oh, and yes I'm still married

Cheers

Rohan