Hoe frame welding question.

[CincyFlyer]

You say it is a 2017. If so I wouldn't modify it until it is no longer under warranty or talk to the dealer with these problems and see what their advice is. Unless you don't have a warranty. I would imagine welding it would void all warranties of the machine.

Naw, it's his machine. According to US law, the manufacturer must prove that your modifications caused a failure, or your item (vehicle, shovel, whatever) is covered. So if his oil pump dies, it's obviously not because he welded his subframe to his backhoe. Of course, he's gonna put in the top link, and that will help greatly.

 

[dfkrug]

You can see the top link installed the day I picked up my tractor.

I can't really see it in the photo, but it is good the dealer did that.

There was quite a controversy for a while about the similar Kioti subframes. Some
dealers, and some US factory people were telling customers not to use the toplink.
Some factory people and documents were saying install the toplink.

Meanwhile, the hoe maker continued to supply a mounting point for a toplink on
their hoes from Day One. Use it, or suffer the consequences.

 

[wmasmith]

That was part of my confusion. The hoe manual said nothing either way about the toplink. The dealer said it wasn't needed when I asked at delivery.

 

[dfkrug]

That was part of my confusion. The hoe manual said nothing either way about the
toplink. The dealer said it wasn't needed when I asked at delivery.

I remember being shown one or 2 installation manuals that showed the hole, but made
no mention of the toplink. Like you saw.

With this kind of subframe, the toplink you should use can be the tractor's regular toplink,
not the enhanced toplinks you get with 3-point mounted hoes.

RE dealers, there are some great ones out there, but they do not always (usually) use
the tractors they sell in actual work. So when there is no clear instruction from the
maker, they may be just guessing.

 

[airrj]

I ran into this same problem with the similar backhoe on a Kioti. Mine came with the top links and even with the bolts torqued to the proper torque, the backhoe would pivot on the lower mount just a fraction of a degree each time that you dug. We were in the middle of excavating the basement of our house at the time so I didn't have time to investigate right away, so each morning we would re-torque all of the fasteners.

My solution was to remove the backhoe from the tractor and then separate the backhoe from the sub-frame. I saw that there was power coat on both the sub-frame and the backhoe at the mounting points. I took an angle grinder with a flap disc and removed all of the coating so that the mounting points were bare metal. The dealer gave me new fasteners and I bolted everything back together and torqued properly. Problem completely gone. I have been using the hoe for 3 years since and I check the torque on the fasteners maybe once a year and they are always fine now.

The paint/powder coat can act like a lubricant under extreme pressures and in this case is allowed the joint to pivot the amount of distance that the holes had clearance. I learned that trick from an old bulldozer mechanic that made us grind every spec of paint off of the mounting surfaces between new track plates and the chain. The plates were torqued to something like 400 ft-lbs and if you didn't remove the paint they would work themselves loose.

Good Luck.

 

[1stDeuce]

airrj is exactly correct. All that powder coating looks great, but it relaxes, and is pretty slick, which means that joint moves some when you stress it. Grind it off, bolt it tight, and repaint an you'll probably not have further issues.

Locktite, or even welding the bolts will NOT keep them tight, since the powdercoat will mush out over time, and they'll lose clamp as it does. (They're not turning loose, they're probably relaxing loose as the joint moves...) Welding the structure will work if you can put on enough weld to keep it from flexing, but it's more likely it'll just crack eventually where you weld it unless you really put some time in it.

I would also suggest adding the top link as a brace when you're working it hard. It'll take some of the stress off the frame, and I'm sure your top mount bracket is plenty strong for sharing the load. As pointed out above, running it with the top link is nothing like most 3pt hoes, which put 100% of the vertical stress into the top link mount... Yours has a frame that takes that, and the top link just becomes a stabilizer.

 

[wmasmith]

Thanks for all the input folks. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving. I'll be flying to Chicago for work tomorrow afternoon so everyone have a bite of food for me.

 

[airrj]

Thanks and good luck with the project.