DK40se hst - bent loader?

[southerniltractor]

Greetings folks,

I got a bit careless when doing loader work on a large pile of very heavy and tightly packed clay. Simply put, I hit the pile too hard and off-center. Since then, my loader is no longer parallel to the tractor when I lower it to the ground on a known flat surface (my concrete floor). In addition, the top arm of the loader, where it is captured in the loader bracket, was pushed fully to the left, rather than centered as it was before. I don't see any obvious "bend" anywhere on the loader/loader brackets, but something is not right.

The tires are aired up equally, so I'm confident that is not the problem.

Will post a couple pictures soon to illustrate this better.

I've ignored this for a while, but being "particular", it bugs me. Anyone been down this road before?

Be well,
Mike

 

[cutthroat]

Yes, had this happen to me. I had a RX7320 with loader and tweaked the loader using my grapple (let the clutch out a little fast and jerked forward into a hillside). I had a 7' bucket and from one side to the other there was about 1" of drop/rise. I talked to my dealer and asked if they had a trick to fix, they didn't. They suggested possible try tweaking it the other direction with pushing against a tree or something. It didn't affect attaching anything to the ssqa, just had to be a little lower on the high side to get into implement. I agree, it did bother me looking at it every time.

 

[IndyIan]

Maybe loosen up the loader mount bolts a little bit, gently push the loader back to centre on the base of a fence post or something, and then tighten the loader mount back up and see where you are at?

 

[RjCorazza]

Put a straight edge on the crosstube and see if maybe the tube is twisted / bent. It doesn't take much deformation there to make the loader arms wonky (engineering term).
I've read of people pushing against a tree, but the precise fix (if it is the crossover tube) is to cut and reweld the tube. Full disclosure, I've never done it.

 

[5030]

Sounds pretty straightforward to me. Cut it off, grind the welds flat, buy a suitable length of tubing from a local steel supplier but measure the distance between the arms carefully prior to cutting and weld in a new one and paint to match. Quick MIG weld job.

Use a known straight edge on the tube to see if it's bent....

 

[southerniltractor]

Great suggestions! I'll get busy on all of these once we warm up a bit here, and I still owe you guys photos.