Hi,
Thought y'all might like to see what it takes to adapt a backhoe bucket from one machine to another. If so, read on.
I bought an old Ford TLB and have been bringing it back to life over the past couple of years. The repairs are done and it works well. Unfortunately, the bucket on the hoe is a bit of a mess. I checked out the part number on it and it should be a 24" wide high capacity bucket. But it is only 13" wide and has a grader blade for a cutting edge (no teeth). Seems it was cut down at some point for trenching work, but they welded both the mounting ears and the cutting edge on crooked so it always wants to dig to the left. (Must be a "Liberal" bucket??) Well, I have been on the lookout for a real ford 24" bucket without much luck getting one for a 43 year old model 723 hoe. Here are some pics of the old bucket, it's not horrible, but has some issues.
Recently in the local TradingPost there was an add for a 36" backhoe bucket - $150. I called and it was for a John Deere 310. Hmmm, I looked and found specs for it and the mounting is 8 1/4" width with 1 3/4 pin on the top and 10" with 1 1/2" pin on the bottom. The old Ford needs 1 1/4 pins with 8" spacing. After thinking about it for a week or so, I called again and went to check it out. On inspection, the JD bucket had been repaired with a new high carbon steel cutting edge and had 5 teeth (improperly) welded on. All but one tooth had been snapped off from the welds cracking. We dickered for a bit and I left with the bucket having paid 90 bucks.
In order to get in to fit the ford, it went to a machine shop to have the old top bushings pressed out, a spacer and wear bushing put in and honed to 1 1/4". I measured the pin separation on the Ford to the "power pin" location at 14". The JD bucket had the pin separations at 10" for the curl holes and something like 18" for the power holes. I was afraid that the old ford wouldn't have the juice to work the bucket with only a 10" separation (narrower is more curl, but required more torque to rotate). And I knew it didn't have the cylinder stroke for the 18" separation. So, I had the shop put in a new bushing location between the original JD bushings, which was about 13 1/2" pin separation. They also added material to get the width down to 8". As the total spacing would now be too wide for the Ford pins, I had them make up new pins and weld on some rotation stops. Here are some pictures of the work done on the new bucket.
New bottom bushings and spacers
Side view
Pin locking method
Broken cutting edge with only far left tooth remaining.
Total bill from the machine shop was just under $240. I had thought about tackling it myself, but didn't want to create another crooked creature. And for all the work they did creating the new pin location, bushing it down to size and making new pins, it didn't seem worth doing it myself.
As you can see, it fits on the ford backhoe. I took it out and dug a quick hole in the hard sod out back. My fear was that the old hoe wouldn't have the juice dig with such a large bucket. Well, that fear was quickly eliminated! It dug like a banshee right thru the top couple inches of frost and was hauling out about 3x the amount of dirt and shale as the old bucket with every scoop. Naturally, it isn't a HD rock bucket, but for what I will use it for it should be good.
Now all I need is to find a source for some cheap tooth shanks to weld on to the cutting edge. This time, proper pre-heat, Ni rod and post heat will be used to keep them from popping off!
jb
Thought y'all might like to see what it takes to adapt a backhoe bucket from one machine to another. If so, read on.
I bought an old Ford TLB and have been bringing it back to life over the past couple of years. The repairs are done and it works well. Unfortunately, the bucket on the hoe is a bit of a mess. I checked out the part number on it and it should be a 24" wide high capacity bucket. But it is only 13" wide and has a grader blade for a cutting edge (no teeth). Seems it was cut down at some point for trenching work, but they welded both the mounting ears and the cutting edge on crooked so it always wants to dig to the left. (Must be a "Liberal" bucket??) Well, I have been on the lookout for a real ford 24" bucket without much luck getting one for a 43 year old model 723 hoe. Here are some pics of the old bucket, it's not horrible, but has some issues.
Recently in the local TradingPost there was an add for a 36" backhoe bucket - $150. I called and it was for a John Deere 310. Hmmm, I looked and found specs for it and the mounting is 8 1/4" width with 1 3/4 pin on the top and 10" with 1 1/2" pin on the bottom. The old Ford needs 1 1/4 pins with 8" spacing. After thinking about it for a week or so, I called again and went to check it out. On inspection, the JD bucket had been repaired with a new high carbon steel cutting edge and had 5 teeth (improperly) welded on. All but one tooth had been snapped off from the welds cracking. We dickered for a bit and I left with the bucket having paid 90 bucks.
In order to get in to fit the ford, it went to a machine shop to have the old top bushings pressed out, a spacer and wear bushing put in and honed to 1 1/4". I measured the pin separation on the Ford to the "power pin" location at 14". The JD bucket had the pin separations at 10" for the curl holes and something like 18" for the power holes. I was afraid that the old ford wouldn't have the juice to work the bucket with only a 10" separation (narrower is more curl, but required more torque to rotate). And I knew it didn't have the cylinder stroke for the 18" separation. So, I had the shop put in a new bushing location between the original JD bushings, which was about 13 1/2" pin separation. They also added material to get the width down to 8". As the total spacing would now be too wide for the Ford pins, I had them make up new pins and weld on some rotation stops. Here are some pictures of the work done on the new bucket.
Total bill from the machine shop was just under $240. I had thought about tackling it myself, but didn't want to create another crooked creature. And for all the work they did creating the new pin location, bushing it down to size and making new pins, it didn't seem worth doing it myself.
As you can see, it fits on the ford backhoe. I took it out and dug a quick hole in the hard sod out back. My fear was that the old hoe wouldn't have the juice dig with such a large bucket. Well, that fear was quickly eliminated! It dug like a banshee right thru the top couple inches of frost and was hauling out about 3x the amount of dirt and shale as the old bucket with every scoop. Naturally, it isn't a HD rock bucket, but for what I will use it for it should be good.
Now all I need is to find a source for some cheap tooth shanks to weld on to the cutting edge. This time, proper pre-heat, Ni rod and post heat will be used to keep them from popping off!
jb