Backdragging - How to not bend your FEL cylinder rods?

[beowulf]

Back dragging with the bucket at 45 degrees or so is fine. When the bucket is at 45 degrees or less there’s a lot less leverage against the cylinders and hooking something sold is almost impossible because the bucket just bounces over. Rolling the bucket to 90 degrees or more is almost guaranteed to bend something. You might get by doing it a few times especially in loose material but sooner or later it will bend something.

I have to agree. And to add to my earlier post - when I said I twice popped hoses backdragging, it was at an angle as far as I could get i.e., 90 degrees plus. I will still backdrag loose dirt at 15-25 degrees, and even perhaps 45 degrees if the situation is such that I don't anticipate a huge amount of force there. But I am wary of backdragging at a severe angle when the loader has full contact with hard dirt. On the other hand, if I am using it with the toothbar to remove brush (not huge logs or branches though) and where the teeth don't also dig into hard dirt, it seems doable.

 

[Smokeydog]

More commercial buckets have a reinforced back edge for back dragging and moving materials. The standard bucket on a L3800 was about worthless for this. Never spent the time welding on a angle iron piece to improve before it was traded. Skidsteer buckets tend to be built heavier. Had to reinforce the back dragging edge due to wear.

Float helps with back dragging with the back of bucket. Bucket cutting edge not so much.

Placing and smoothing 20tons of 1/2”
Stone today.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

 

[k0ua]

S

low is smooth, smooth is fast.

You sound like a pistol competitor!

 

[k0ua]

Here is a very short low quality video demonstrating backdragging, Back in the day, a simple low cost camera would not take very much or very good video.

This old fatboy really knows what he is doing.

 

[m7040]

I have bent both cylinders and had to replace them from back dragging. The new cylinders were actually much better than the old ones because the tilting over time stopped.

 

[oosik]

I've never bent my cylinder rods. I suck the curl cylinder rods all the way up and backdrag with the heel of the bucket. Even better - reverse the rear blade 180 degrees and drive forward.

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

I've been back dragging for 16 years starting with a BX2200 and all the models of BXs and many Bs and a few Ls and now my MX5400 and also have Pirinha and RatchetRake. I do use the float after scrapping/cutting the ground with bucket front edge angled down to get final leveling/smoothing for landscaping purposes. For real removal of dirt I do forward bucket edge cutting. Never bent anything back dragging but have bent cyl rods on a B with a front Hoe and believe it is because I had he arm raised to full high full extended rods so I could see better where I was digging instead of having th ehoe extended fully out to the front at lower profile and arms not fully extended.
With the MX5400 I sometimes drop bucket and curl front edge back and forth for digging and to loosen up hard ground and/or rocky areas but the hyd on MX5400 will do this where most of my other tractors didn't have the hyd power to be very effective doing this.

 

[Diggin It]

The stuff being discussed here is almost intuitive, or should be. It's how I started doing it, never having used any kind of machine before. Low angles, minimal down pressure, heel of bucket when possible, etc.

I honestly can't see a purpose in using a severe bucket angle other than to simply see the edge itself.

 

[PILOON]

Gee , my CUT must have a super HD FEL installation considering what I've done with it.

I have flipped stones bigger than my bucket, back dragged many piles of crushed stone with bucket fully vertical.
Bulldozed with bucket fully vertical.
Pried to the extent that my weighted rear end is in the air.
Used my toothed bucket as a root rake going backwards.
B4 I installed my tooth bar I'd tilt to a slight angle, back drag with the front end 'jacked up' for better compaction. (some time with bucket loaded)

BUT, I NEVER slam into the task, always ease in gently and so far never even a ruptured hose!
(and my CUT has 1800 hrs on it)

 

[JWR]

I have to agree. And to add to my earlier post - when I said I twice popped hoses backdragging, ....

Allright, I have to speak up too...
First, if you have a "4-in1" clamshell bucket you have a wide variety of choices on angles and cutting edges to use while backdragging. Those buckets are intended to be distant cousins of dozer blades anyway and if you have one you know the various methods without my describing them.
Second, me too Beowulf ... but not twice !! I suspect I concocted one of the worst possible cases of backdragging using my MF2660 (81 horse, 9000 lb as usually equipped). I was preping a building site and trying to level out some rock-hard clay. Mean hard clay. The bucket was cocked back for max digging angle. I'm in 4WD low gear, revved up well and going in reverse on a fool's errand. Plenty of traction too... The result was a set of steel hydraulic lines split apart in what sounded like (and actually was I guess) an explosion. Yes, I had a dumbass attack. If you look at the bent bursted line in the picture below ... it just blew out and scarred crap outta the operator needless to say. To my knowledge there was no cylinder damage or other effects. Dealer had the steel lines in stock and I installed them myself with no long term issues. Other than lessons learned !