Swinging Backhoe/Grapple

[SpringHollow]

A few weeks ago, I unburied some things in the barn. One was a swinging backhoe that I had bought a while ago and forgot all about because I did not have my welder yet. It was a small prototype that never went into production. I purchased it to use as a grapple for lifting logs. A 6" bucket that I purchased for my other minihoe is currently installed but I will fab up a grapple claw at some point for it.

This should be much nicer than using the lifting boom and chains or a non-swinging minihoe.

Ken

 

[magicheater]

VERY Interesting, thanx for sharing. Any idea why it did not go into production?

 

[MarkV]

Do you carry 4 spare tires all the time?

MarkV

 

[MossRoad]

Good thing you had those tires for counter-weight for that massive limb. :laughing:

That's something I could never do with the PT425 as the attachment would consume all the lift capacity.

 

[SpringHollow]

Those are not spare tires - trees falling on the metal cover and on the FOPS make too much noise. The tires help deaden it.

My shop is rather crowded and I have sandblasted the rims and painted them. That was the only place inside to store the tires while i was doing so.

Why it did not go into production? They said they never got it to work as well as they would like but if I wanted to play around with it, they would sell it to me since it was just collecting dust. Trying to remember which place it was. At that time, I was talking to a bunch of places. Well, when I assembled it, added the bucket, made the hoses and hooked them up, the bucket curl worked on my secondary hydraulics but not the swing. It would only swing about 2 inches. Naturally, I assume I did something wrong but I could see my hoses move when i activated each circuit. I opened up the hydraulic fitting on the side of the cylinder that was not working at all and nothing came out even when the valve was activated. I bypassed their piece of hose and hooked mine up directly and it works fine. At some point, I will try to figure out what is blocking their hose but I just replaced it with one of mine. I do not know if that was the problem they were having or not.

Moss, one reason I want to make a grapple claw is to lessen the weight at the end. When i was lifting this at the end of my lifting boom, the back end of the tractor was getting light. Those tires might have made a difference after all. I actually picked up a used dynamometer so I can see how much it weighs.

And yes, it is nice to no longer have to strain myself picking up logs like that.

Before i put it away, I used it to grab a tree that had fallen across the trail. It worked nice. The tree was about 40' long but not a massive trunk. I was able to pull the tree away from the path and the break off the top and toss both pieces to the side. Certain combinations of angles of the loader and backhoe can make it where you can not see the bucket.

Ken



Ken

 

[woodlandfarms]

JEALOUS!!!! Never have fallen in love with the stock backhoe for the 1850. Love the swinging idea. Loved even more the guy who adapted a 2XXX series to his 1XXX series. That is what I should have done.

Ken, are those LED lights on the ROPS? How do you like them if that is what they are? I got rid of my lights on the chasis. Love the rops mounts.

 

[SpringHollow]

Yes they are LED lights. They are great.

PT1850 LED Lights

Ken

 

[J_J]

Ken,

I like that design on the front hoe.

This is just for instance. If the hoe cyl is 2 in, and the rod is 1 in, the cyl is pushing about 9,425 lbs.
If it is larger, you will have more force.

If the cyl mount center to the bucket pivot center, is about 12 in, and the point of the bucket is about 16 from the pivot center, there should be about a 7,068 lbs curl force.

Measure those points and I can tell you or you can figure it out using ratio and proportion, using the 9,425 push force.

If the pivot mount points to the tip is a 2 : 1 ratio, then the curl force will be about 4,712 lbs

For the cyl not to move correctly, I am thinking one of the fittings is an orifice fitting. Remove all fittings and look through them for the correct hole. 1/4 in hose and fitting should be close to 1/4 in.

Remove both hose at cyl and place in bucket and check flow.

 

[ponytug]

Looks really cool. I'll be interested to see how the swing holds up.

What's up with your seat? It looks a little crooked.

All the best,

Peter

 

[SpringHollow]

The seat tilts whenever you turn it off.

JJ - the backhoe works fine because i took out their hose when i saw there was a problem. The fittings looked normal to me but i will take a look at them sometime.

Ken