Bent quick attach

coolconnection · Jun 8, 2009

Has anyone on here ever looked at their quick attach on their tractor and does it look flat? I have only 30 hours on my pt425 and I took off the mower the other day and I noticed the quick attach plate on the tractor is bent a little bit. That part that connects to attachments. I haven't abused it or anything like that but the steel plate is bent slightly at the top. I bet 20 hours on the tractor is just from mowing so unless the mower deck gained weight I can't figure out how it happened. Is anybody else's steel plate bent slightly and if so what did you do about it?

Thanks

hogi · Jun 9, 2009

Hmm, It really requires a picture to see to what degree its "bent", PT's are more or less hand built machines, and if you scrutinize them enough you are bound to find many imperfections. having said that, mine is fairly straight, although not perfectly flat.

woodlandfarms · Jun 9, 2009

My QA, on the tractors side (the flat plate that fits in the implement) is bent a bit at the corners. Jamming corners of buckets into stumps tends to twist the system.

MossRoad · Jun 9, 2009

Hmmm. When I mow I use the dump/curl to make sure the mower carriage is centered, then push the joystick into float so the weight of the tractor never gets put on the mower deck.

I've beat the heck out of my quick attach with the buckets and forks. There is a little wear, but it is still flat and straight.

KentT · Jun 9, 2009

My QA plate is still flat, as best I can tell, but I've tweaked my lift arms where the QA plate attaches to the point that a bucket doesn't sit exactly flat...

On my last trip to TN, my son was sawing up downed pines from one of last winter's storms, while I was following behind, scooping them up and carrying them to the brush pile with the grapple bucket. Well, I had the bucket curled all the way down with the teeth just above the surface and drove up to this 15' long chunk of pine about 8" through. Rather than stop and pick it up, I tried to just scoop it up and continue on...

Come to find out, one end was still attached to the stump. I immediately jerked to a stop, with the PT puckered at an angle... and yelled for him to come saw it off at the stump. But not before this long lever with the force of PT in motion tweaked my lift arms.

With 48" LM bucket, one side is now about an inch higher than the other...

I'm not sure how I'm going to fix this faux pas, nor do I have enough time on the PT since to see if it's something that I can just learn to live with. My initial impression is that I need to deal with it, just not sure how. May try to rig a long lever on the opposite side and see if I can either bend it back or tweak it to match...

J_J · Jun 9, 2009

Kent,

If you have something buried in the ground, or perhaps you can bury a large flat plate in the ground with a 3/8 in lifting chain. Then lower your arms about 10 in off the ground, and attach the higher or the arms to the chain. Then place a hydraulic jack under the other arm and jack it up and adjust the height to your satisfaction. Could also use a torch on the center supports.

MossRoad · Jun 9, 2009

KentT said:
...Well, I had the bucket curled all the way down with the teeth just above the surface and drove up to this 15' long chunk of pine about 8" through. Rather than stop and pick it up, I tried to just scoop it up and continue on...

Come to find out, one end was still attached to the stump. I immediately jerked to a stop, with the PT puckered at an angle... and yelled for him to come saw it off at the stump. But not before this long lever with the force of PT in motion tweaked my lift arms.
...

Yeah. I've noticed that with the implement dumped all the way down there is very, very little power available to bring it back up. If you curl it up a couple inches, then it has tons of power. Must be something about the leverage point at that end of the dump cycle. I can see how you could do some damage. I wonder where your bend is? The arms or maybe the mounts for the arms? If you still have full range of motion, you may just want to live with it. Unless, of course, you want to be able to do stuff that requires level operation.

KentT · Jun 9, 2009

MossRoad said:
I wonder where your bend is? The arms or maybe the mounts for the arms?

Just eyeballing it, it looks like it may be tweaked just a little bit in two places. Theres's a slight bow visbile up near where the pivot is for the bucket dump. Then there's a slight "wrinkle" just above the bolt that holds the QA plate to the arms. Both would seem to be indications that something shifted...

I don't know if you've ever twisted cold metal, but sometimes it will look wrinkled, instead of a smooth bend like when it's hot. That's the way it looks down next to the QA plate.

Neither place looks all that bad on its own, but I think one compounds the other...

coolconnection · Jun 9, 2009

Thanks for all the replies. It functions just fine but I keep thinking if it was that way when I bought it or did I do it. I just wondered if anybody else had this same issue. I can live with it but I mow a steep incline so I just lift the deck up, drive up to it,set the deck down gently and back up. Repeating this process many times. It is 300 feet long so what ever a 60 inch deck will do.
Thanks again.

pajoube · Jun 9, 2009

coolconnection said:
Thanks for all the replies. It functions just fine but I keep thinking if it was that way when I bought it or did I do it. I just wondered if anybody else had this same issue. I can live with it but I mow a steep incline so I just lift the deck up, drive up to it,set the deck down gently and back up. Repeating this process many times. It is 300 feet long so what ever a 60 inch deck will do.
Thanks again.

Do you have the mini hoe? I have bent two quick attach plates over the years using the mini hoe. It occures when I hook up and do not realize that one pin is not all the way down and then put pressure on the hoe.
PJ

BobRip · Jun 10, 2009

coolconnection said:
Thanks for all the replies. It functions just fine but I keep thinking if it was that way when I bought it or did I do it. I just wondered if anybody else had this same issue. I can live with it but I mow a steep incline so I just lift the deck up, drive up to it,set the deck down gently and back up. Repeating this process many times. It is 300 feet long so what ever a 60 inch deck will do.
Thanks again.

Mine is bent. I think it happened when I pushed the bare plate (no attachment installed) against a tree. I was just playing around. I had to beat on it with a hammer to make it functional again. It is not perfectly flat, but it functions fine. It has been about 2 years since I straightened it and no problems. I would not worry about it if it is working OK.

coolconnection · Jun 10, 2009

Yes it works just fine so far. I haven't connected to any of my other attachments. I do not have a mini hoe but I would love to have one. Not in the budget right now but maybe one day.

coolconnection · Oct 7, 2009

Well my quick attach plate is bending to the point that a weld is starting to break. 99% of time all I do is mow with it. Bucket gets little use at this time. I called PT and am getting another one. What I would like to know is where everyone else's pivot point on the lift arms is. I mean the center area on the lift arms that pushes or pulls the connecting rod to the quick attach plate. Is yours short side up or long side up that controls the draft on the quick attach plate. Thanks everyone.

BobRip · Oct 8, 2009

I can't quite understand your question. I did take two pictures of my 422 QA. Maybe this will help. Can you take some pictures of yours.

coolconnection · Oct 9, 2009

Yes I see my question is hard to follow. I mean the center point on the lift arms where it curls from the hydraulic cylinder attached to the tractor. (Where the 2 grease fittings are). Should it be long side up or short side up. If you measure them they are different lengths. Thanks.

BobRip · Oct 9, 2009

OK. I understand. The long side is up. It is about one inch longer than the down side. What is yours. I have a 422 year 2000.

coolconnection · Oct 9, 2009

Mine is short side up and it is a new one from power trac. They told me the short side should be up but all their pictures show otherwise. They said they had some go through with the long side up. I don't know what to believe. I was told this is one reason why my quick attach plate bent my old one which is long side up and nothing wrong with is the reason. It is all under warranty but I also received a new quick attach plate as well. It is made different from the one I have and I think this is the entire reason it bent. The top pivot point on the quick attach plate on the new one is about 1/2 to 3/4 inches from the top edge to where the hinge begins and the old one is about 1-1/2 inches from the top edge to where the hinge begins. Any ideas on what to do. Should I keep my old lift arms on and just change the quick attach plate or change everything (lift arms and quick attach plate). I received both. Thanks

BobRip · Oct 10, 2009

Cool, can you show us some pictures of where your old plate bent? If it bent at the top, having the top pivot point up higher will help a lot. I would change out everything they sent you and keep the old parts. Others should comment here, but pictures are worth a lot. Borrow a camera if you have to.

Short side up would put more force on the QA plate. So it sounds like that is not the cause.