Reddogs
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2022
- Messages
- 481
- Tractor
- John Deere 790 / Kubota L3301
I used my FEL bucket to spread crushed rock, asphalt millings, piles of old concrete, roof tiles, etc to make the roads in our section of the woods, and of course I went overboard and drove miles from my lots or properties scraping the roads. So I think you can imagine what happened to it. It consequently began to come apart and soon the cutting edge came off and the sides bent and broke and cracked down the middle, so I had to basically build a bucket from the pieces. I took it to my buddy who built a bucket from the pieces left and thick metal plates he had cut off from a truck bed frame and welded everything together. Only one thing that I didnt figure, he increased the 72 inch John Deere 70 FEL bucket from 0.9 cu. ft. to over 1.5 cu. ft. capacity, as 'more is better' right. Well, not so fast, as even though I could pick up a lot more capacity, a curious thing started to happen to my FEL while using it. Yes, you guessed it, the FEL arms started to creak and groan, and when I had a full load, actually come off the tractor, and leave me stranded till I could get a come-along and ratchet it back together and reset the locks at the base. So it kept getting worse as the locks themselves got bent and no longer would hold up the arms, so finally I gave in to the inevitable and had another friend weld in the locks to hold the arms again. Be careful what you wish for in how you build your bucket....
