FEL Bucket Hooks

[jyoutz]

Will, you can do what I did but farm out the welding. I got a 2 x 3 inch piece of quarter inch angle iron the length of the upper lip on my bucket. Then I bought very strong grade 80 grab hooks with a clevis type attachment. I cut off the clevis end and welded them to the angle iron. Then I drilled and bolted the whole assembly to the bucket, using a piece of flat quarter inch steel as a bolt backer on the underside of the bucket lip (I used heavy grade 8 bolts). Strengthens the bucket lip, easy and fairly cheap, and removeable. It would be easy to take the angle iron and hooks to a welding shop. You can buy the grade 80 hooks at anyplace that sells binder chain for truckers. I got mine at a rental equipment yard. I never found any that are not the clevis type.

 

[drjdb]

I like the idea of welding onto a piece of angle iron and then bolting it to the bucket - saves me figuring out how to get my machine to the welding shop. I don't have any experience using hooks on a loader bucket, but I can see it would be useful for lifting stuff. If I'm going to do this, how many should I put on - one, two, three? Where should they be located - one in the centre, two at the ends, ... ?

dave

 

[jyoutz]

Yeah, the angle iron idea is easy to do, cheap, and strengthens the bucket lip. Cost for cutting the clevis hook and welding to the angle iron should be minimal. I used 4 equally distributed 1/2" grade 8 bolts to attach the angle iron to the bucket. I'm not real experienced with using these hooks either, but I mounted 1 at each end of the bucket in line with the lift arms, since this is the strongest portion of the bucket. I used grab hooks to hold 3/8" chain. This size will also work with 5/16" chain. I've been told never to lift anything very heavy by using only one hook, since it throws off your balance and puts too much stress on one lift arm. For single line lifting, I attach a chain through each hook and then attach another chain to the center of the first chain. This distributes the weight between both hooks and centers the load. For using a slip hook, I do the same thing by attaching a slip hook to the center point of the chain, using a large clevis pin. To secure a load in the bucket, a hook at each end is ideal.

 

[Keoke]

What dealer did you get the 7701066 New Holland combo slip and grab hook from. Local dealer here wants $32 a piece for instead of $16.98.

thanks,
george