This is a great project. I am impressed with your fabrication skills. I was looking back through some of your pics this morning and saw something that concerned me a little. Where the fender used to sit, you have 2 bolts on each side going through the axle to hold the backhoe sub-frame. This needs to be reinforced so the bolts won't break off the ears of the hole. You need a steel plate on top of the axle for extra support. Most of them that I have seen are about 1/2in thick, about 4in wide, and long enough to reach both bolts. That axle housing is cast iron and will break. I have seen these break before with only a loader attached. Remember, these 4 bolts are supporting everything on the back of the tractor. This is a really easy fix and will save you a headache down the road.
Keep up the good work.
Mike
Thanks very much for the advice & kind words. I think my design incorporates the same basic idea you are suggesting, I知 just not there yet. (I知 a little slow & I get sidetracked on other modification ideas too much)! This loader & backhoe didn't come as a unit (FEL is MF) and neither had much subframe left & it appeared to me that the biggest challenge was to modify the tractor so the stress of contortion (and weight) would be minimized & hopefully prevented.
I know there are many three-point backhoes that are effective machines, but I don稚 know enough about the engineering utilized to make them function under the stress of BH/FEL. But, I did grab one idea from the 3-point design that I high-jacked for my subframe & I believe greatly increased the strength of the over-all sub-frame.
It痴 kind of deceiving from the pictures I致e posted, but the fender brackets aren稚 actually carrying the lion痴 share of the load, although it appears that way. Instead of the weight hanging down from the fender brackets, I thought the first point of support should be under the rear housing (and the bell-housing further up the tractor). So, bolted into the rear housing is the initial port/starboard brace.
My next step was to figure out the beefiest parts of the casting to take the majority of the BH weight. This is when it occurred to me that the lower link supports were designed just for that purpose! I致e seen some heavy implements raised with those supports, so that became the second two stress points.
Then, yes the fender brackets were incorporated into the outer line of the sub-frame, but I made every effort to have the brackets supported from the center out, instead of vice-versa.
But, I do agree the axle benefits from further reduction in stress points. I tried to make this work both as a step & box in the axle. I haven稚 covered any of the sub-frame with the diamond plate yet, but it will be bolted across the width of the axle. (I think it needs to be shimmed ｾ of an inch to compensate SoundGuy probably knows).
As crazy as it looks, the frame can be removed completely from the tractor but I hope I never need to do so. I have looked at the drawings of the Ford sub-frames & tried to pull as much from them as possible, but please anything that looks wrong or fixing let me know. I would prefer over-kill if anything!
I'm still playing with colours for the paint scheme & I managed to get a rear wheel (mostly painted).
