As promised, I plan to document my grapple install here. Hopefully, my experience will benefit others that are contemplating or doing the same thing.
After much consideration and negotiating with my CFO, I finally convinced her that I needed a grapple to efficiently clean up the mess being made on our property by timber harvest activities adjacent to our lawn. I decided on the LD-48 Grapple from Millonzi International and an Electric Hydraulic Valve Kit from WR Long, Inc. I've had the valve kit for a few days now, and the grapple is scheduled to arrive today.
I chose the Electric Hydraulic Valve Kit from WR Long partly because they would custom fabricate a bracket and make the hoses specifically for my loader (ML 106 on a Mahindra 2615 4WD). This would save me some time and effort, plus I'd heard lots of good things about WR Long.
The package arrived from WR Long:
Included in the package was:
The first thing to do was to mount the vavle/bracket on my loader control post. From Mahindra, the Prince loader control valve is mounted to the loader control post by three 1" bolts. The bracket from WR Long is designed to fit between the loader post and Prince valve. The 1/4" thickness of the bracket requires replacing the 1" bolts with the longer bolts shipped with the bracket from WR Long. Sounds easy enough...
This is what I found when I first attempted to mount the bracket:
As you can see (hopefully), when the lower left hole in the bracket was lined up, the other two holes were off by about 1/8". So, after studying it a bit, I decided to remove about 1/8" of material from the top of the bracket with my grinder. This got the upper left and right holes lined up, but left the lower left hole off by approximately 1/8". So, after much drilling and filing (with a chainsaw file), I was finally about to get all three bolts in.
I then discovered that the longer bolt would not work in the right-hand hole (unless I add several washers). The bolt was too long and was bottoming out in the Prince valve. So, I used the original shorter bolt in that hole with a single washer. It was long enough to get a couple of turns on the threads, so I think it'll be OK.
I followed the directions from WR Long and rerouted my hydraulics to flow through the new valve and connected the wiring from the new joystick handle to the solenoid switches in the valve. (I'll provide pictures of this when I get home this evening).
This is as far as I've gotten so far. My Millonzi grapple should arrive today. Once I get it home, I'm going to remove my bucket and attach the grapple to figure out where I need to weld the bulkhead kit on to the loader cross bar.
I'll continue to post pictures as the project progresses.
Later,
BR
After much consideration and negotiating with my CFO, I finally convinced her that I needed a grapple to efficiently clean up the mess being made on our property by timber harvest activities adjacent to our lawn. I decided on the LD-48 Grapple from Millonzi International and an Electric Hydraulic Valve Kit from WR Long, Inc. I've had the valve kit for a few days now, and the grapple is scheduled to arrive today.
I chose the Electric Hydraulic Valve Kit from WR Long partly because they would custom fabricate a bracket and make the hoses specifically for my loader (ML 106 on a Mahindra 2615 4WD). This would save me some time and effort, plus I'd heard lots of good things about WR Long.
The package arrived from WR Long:
Included in the package was:
- The valve kit mounted on custom bracket
- New joystick handle with rocker switch
- 10 amp. in-line fuse
- Wire protector
- Optional bulkhead kit, hoses, quick connects
- Instruction sheet
- 3 bolts to replace the shorter bolts holding joystick valve in place
The first thing to do was to mount the vavle/bracket on my loader control post. From Mahindra, the Prince loader control valve is mounted to the loader control post by three 1" bolts. The bracket from WR Long is designed to fit between the loader post and Prince valve. The 1/4" thickness of the bracket requires replacing the 1" bolts with the longer bolts shipped with the bracket from WR Long. Sounds easy enough...
This is what I found when I first attempted to mount the bracket:
As you can see (hopefully), when the lower left hole in the bracket was lined up, the other two holes were off by about 1/8". So, after studying it a bit, I decided to remove about 1/8" of material from the top of the bracket with my grinder. This got the upper left and right holes lined up, but left the lower left hole off by approximately 1/8". So, after much drilling and filing (with a chainsaw file), I was finally about to get all three bolts in.
I then discovered that the longer bolt would not work in the right-hand hole (unless I add several washers). The bolt was too long and was bottoming out in the Prince valve. So, I used the original shorter bolt in that hole with a single washer. It was long enough to get a couple of turns on the threads, so I think it'll be OK.
I followed the directions from WR Long and rerouted my hydraulics to flow through the new valve and connected the wiring from the new joystick handle to the solenoid switches in the valve. (I'll provide pictures of this when I get home this evening).
This is as far as I've gotten so far. My Millonzi grapple should arrive today. Once I get it home, I'm going to remove my bucket and attach the grapple to figure out where I need to weld the bulkhead kit on to the loader cross bar.
I'll continue to post pictures as the project progresses.
Later,
BR