Power Trac wannabe

[voodoo]

Working again at this into the wee late hours. I almost gave up last night as being too much trouble.
Sitting looking at it this lunchtime, I had a Eureka moment and suddenly, anything is possible again !!

The existing front tree, is on a parallel linkage and therefore any arms rigidly fixed to this will stay at the same angle regardless of the upward rotation of the main loader arms.
This gave the effect of an inverted "V" to the arms when elevated which was most unusual looking and gave a very poor lift height.

The Eureka moment was to introduce a second linkage to the front drop arms. The pivot point is already there at the fixing of the loader lift rams. Effectively as the loader rises, the front drop arms will now rotate upwards and outwards.

It will mean loosing parallel lifting of the attachment, but I think I can live with that.

See what you guys think.

 

[voodoo]

I've come across this boom arm off an old bobcat 320 mini digger on ebay.
Thinking it might do for a mono loader arm similar to a Bobcat Toolcat arrangement, or a GEHL mono boom.

What do you guys think. Too heavy? Would two conventional loader arms be a better construction?

Another option might be to split this one lengthwise top to bottom and plate up each exposed side to make two loader arms. Might be a more rigid "conventional" design, but then there would be extra weight involved, not less.

Just wondering if it might be worth a punt. It's too far away to measure or ask for measurements, but if it went for scrap value, not really much to loose.

Could it work?

 

[Renze]

Looks like you're modifying a compact wheel loader thats been modified into a skip dumper, into a forklift.
i'd just weld a real loader boom to it, as the basic frame is probably designed to accept both.

 

[voodoo]

Renze,

The dumper has been designed to be only that. It is a Terex, but the design was from Benford that they bought up a number of years ago. I've attached the brochure. Neither manufacturer has ever made a compact wheel loader from this design.

My target in all this is that the original dumper can be reinstated, should I wish to sell it on in the future. It's too good to chop as a "project"
I'm therefore trying to make a design that will work with the basics of what's there already.

Unfortunately I'm beginning to think that I'm over designing this and it will become too much of a chore to lift off the skip to attach some form of boom loader arrangement. I'm starting to lean back towards just attaching the forks with the skip in place and perhaps using the tilt motion of the skip to tip the forks.

Am at a bit of a crossroads at the moment.

 

[TRUKFXR]

Somehow Everyone has missed the obvious. That is one neat machine! Who cares if it doesn't do exactly what you want, or you have no good reason to own such a tractor.
Most of us on this site are wishing we had one just like it. Not sure why, but what the heck. Unfortunately, I can't give you any help, but I am sure others on this site will
come up with some good suggestions.

 

[voodoo]

TRUKFXR,

Thanks for the frank and honest response.
Believe me when I say that I am more than happy with the dumper, as just that, a dumper. It is an exceptional piece of equipment.

However, its the "Tim Toolman" in me that says, if you could get it to do this, then you wouldn't need this. I would really like to rationalise or "downsize" my collection of Toys, errrmmm...., I mean motorised work equipment.

At present I have an Iseki TE4270 compact, dump trailer, 3-pt forks, transport box, land leveller, fertiliser spinner. The way I see it, if I could make the dumper into a multi-purpose tool the transport box could become a loader bucket and along with the forks be quick attach. I could then dispose of the tractor and the other items.

Perhaps I'm aiming a bit high, but sure that's what makes this forum so useful. It gives us all inspiration.

 

[TRUKFXR]

Terex is known for making good heavy equipment. That would seem like a good platform to build upon. Please continue to post your progress. Looking forward to the results.

 

[Renze]

Terex is known for making good heavy equipment. That would seem like a good platform to build upon. Please continue to post your progress. Looking forward to the results.

Maybe on your side of the Great Pond, but over here in Europe, Terex leaves a trail of disaster. They take over a company, giving lousy customer service and replacing the existing designs with cheap sh*t so they kill all the market goodwill connected to it, and then just discontinue the works. Kaelble in Germany, a 120 year old company building 20 to 30 ton loaders, with a very loyal customer base because of their great products, was taken over by Terex, Terex managers wanted to turn it into a high volume brand by cutting corners on the reknown Kaelble quality, giving the engineers that developed the new Terex/Kaelble a very tight budget. The machines are so junk that for export to Africa or Arabia, a Terex with 5000 hrs is worth less than an original Kaelble with 25.000 hrs.

Right now, Terex quits the heavy loader line because nobody in Europe will ever again buy a white loader, nor something with Terex written on it. They do continue the Schaeff line of compact loaders, because in that market segment the quality demands arent as high as in mining.

 

[TRUKFXR]

Interesting. I must admit that my experience is very limited. I worked for a while in the construction field and Terex was being used on some of the job sites. One of our Customers's had several big scrapers. Since this was about 25 years ago, either things
have changed, or I was misinformed.