Loader Mounted Quick Hitch

   / Loader Mounted Quick Hitch #1  

Runner

Veteran Member
Joined
May 12, 2007
Messages
1,702
Location
Missouri
Tractor
John Deere 2520, 1989 John Deere 185, 1960 Panzer T70B
I put together a quick-attach loader mounted quick hitch for my JD 2520 with 200CX loader this afternoon. Parts needed were a Harbor Freight quick hitch, two 10 inch wide by 17 inch long pieces of channel iron and the quiick attach loader hooks and pins available from John Deere.

Pictures show the channel iron clamped to the quick hitch for welding, the hooks and pins being attached, some chain hooks added and the unit being tested lifting my box blade and using my quick hitch mounted trailer hitch.

Lastly, some problem areas are shown. Mainly, the top hook, which is intended to be adjustable and is supplied with bolts from HF. However, the bolt heads and nuts are too big and get in the way of all of my attachments, so I cut the bolt heads off and tack welded the remainder of the bolt into the holes. The second problem area was the hinges for the latches at the lower hooks. These were spread too wide and got in the way of the attaching points on my attachments, so a slight adjustment with a hammer corrected the problem.

This project wasn't too bad, and the hardest part was creating the holes for the JD pins to go through for the mounting points. The step drill wouldn't do it, so I had to resort to opening the holes up with an air powered die grinder with a carbide bur tip.
 

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   / Loader Mounted Quick Hitch #2  
That is a good idea. I like it.
 
   / Loader Mounted Quick Hitch #3  
Well done!!:cool: That will definitely be handy around the place. I can see lots of uses to use a QH on the loader. Nicely executed too.

There is one thing that would be problem for me and that is the sharp pointed corners on the outside of the channel--on that I would bang my knees, snag my pants or shirt, or dent my poor bald head. I think that I would have rounded those corners off--you would not loose any strength and might save a dent or two. :rolleyes:

Mike
 
   / Loader Mounted Quick Hitch
  • Thread Starter
#4  
8N and MJ,

Thanks for the props.

As for the sharp corners, that concerns me to. I also thought about whether or not the channel iron has enough rigidity to handle the torsional forces of picking up and curling something heavy like my mower.

I thought about killing both birds with one stone by welding a pice of bar stock across the ends of the channel. That would basically create a box and would help eliminate some of the sharp corners. I could also just round them off with a grinder or cut them at 45 degress with the band saw too.

However, I decided to try it like this for awhile (until I hit my knee on it...) and see how it works.

As an aside, it took quite a bit of work to make the HF quick hitch work with all the stuff that my regular iMatch works with. I had to open up the hooks with a die grinder because they are only Cat I but the iMatch is Cat II and I didn't want to have to remove the bushings on my attachments every time I wanted to move one around.

Also, as mentioned, it took some "adjusting" to get the upper hook area to fit places the iMatch already fits and to get the lower latch mechanism out of the way.

I could have just bought an iMatch for this and kind of wish I would have, however, the HF hitch was cheap, about $65 and all total I've only got about $200 in the completed unit.
 
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   / Loader Mounted Quick Hitch
  • Thread Starter
#6  
Willl,

No, it won't work on the three-point hitch. I thought about trying to keep the capability of mounting this on the rear, but there's really no reason since I have a regular JD iMatch for the three-point. However, I don't think it would be too hard to have made it so that it would still work on the three-point. Not sure if the channel iron and stuff would get in the way of anything or not.

Frankly, with the problems I'm seeing with the HF quick hitch, I would never recommend buying one to use as the main hitch on the three-point. The build quality isn't very good and, as mentioned, it takes a lot of tweaking to get it to work with attachments that are otherwise already quick hitch compatible (like most Frontier products).

It's cheap and that's the reason I selected it to use for this project, but if I was buying another quick hitch, I would buy a real JD iMatch hitch because I think it's worth the extra money.
 
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   / Loader Mounted Quick Hitch #7  
I put together a quick-attach loader mounted quick hitch for my JD 2520 with 200CX loader this afternoon. Parts needed were a Harbor Freight quick hitch, two 10 inch wide by 17 inch long pieces of channel iron and the quick attach loader hooks and pins available from John Deere.


Runner,

I need a couple sets of the quick attach loader hooks and pins for a couple projects I'm working on. Do you know the part numbers or have a link to where I can find and order them?




.
 
   / Loader Mounted Quick Hitch
  • Thread Starter
#8  
nunyabinis,

The part numbers and prices on my sales receipt are:

Hooks - W43359 (pair) $11.25

Pins - W47211 (pair) $13.50
 
   / Loader Mounted Quick Hitch #10  
Do you think those part #'s will work for the JD 512 loader? The ones for the 512 loader on the parts website show to be around $54.34/each just for the hanger bracket and the pins are $17.55.
 
 
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