Homemade loader for Branson tractor

[Imold]

I was so interested in your build I missed your location.

 

[ptsg]

It's still a valid idea. If I had a piece of thick wall square tubing, I would probably do something similar to the receiver hitch concept but welded in the middle of the quick attach.

 

[ptsg]

So the next thing to do was the bucket. I don't have that many pictures of the fabrication.

The sheet metal I used it's all 5/16" thick. A bit on the thick side but got it at a good price on the scrapyard.

I do need to add some sort of cutting edge and maybe a reinforcement web in the middle of the bucket.



Then I bought the hydraulic tubing. I needed a way to bend the tubing, so I made a tube bender. Fun fact on this. The only part I actually had to make, was the die. Everything else was stuff of the shelf (My shelf :laughing just cobbled together. It's not pretty but works awesome.

To make the die, I used my homemade rotary table/indexing head on the mill, to create the necessary radius. As the part rotates, the end mill is cutting the radius.

I also had to make a special/odd hydraulic fitting for my valve. It's an adapter from M27x2 to 1/2" BSP. I would have cost me close to 30$. So being cheap as I am, I just machined one. Took me 30 minutes.



More to come.

 

[ptsg]

After I got the tube bender done, I could finally bend the hydraulic tubing. It worked very nice and had only one little mistake on the last bend which is not that big for a deal. A few days later, I also received my order of hoses, fittings and quick disconnects, so I could finally try the loader.

I machined and welded the fittings in place on the hydraulic tubes. I only have a stick welder and turned out that I only had 2 tiny and small leaks on the welded fittings.



Some more pictures of the loader moving on it's own power.



I did run a leak down test and got about 4 mm over 2 hours. Or about 5/32" over 2 hours in Freedom units. I think it's pretty nice for a first time making cylinders, although the leak down shown is most likely coming from the used valve I have. I believe it came of a Case 580 Backhoe, so who knows how many hours that thing have. But does come with some nice features like float, load check valves, port relief valves and anti-cavitation valves.

On the to do list there is still:

Support legs (Just finished that today)
Cutting edge for the bucket
Reinforce the supports to the front of the tractor
Add grease fittings on every moving part
And finally painting everything.

 

[Rustyiron]

Nice! You deserve a good handshake and a big pat on the back.:thumbsup:

 

[Citydude]

Very nice work!

 

[EddieWalker]

Very impressive. You definitely know what you are doing!!!

 

[crashz]

Awesome work! I've never seen anyone make their own hydraulic cylinders. You make it look so easy.

No more need for those front axle weights!

 

[ptsg]

Thanks everyone. I appreciate all the comments.

I don't I will remove the front weights though. I'm almost sure that I will need to take the loader a lot of times and it's nice to have the weights there. I also designed the loader so I didn't need to remove both the winch or weights.

It's now being prepped for painting. If the weather is right, it should look a lot better with a fresh coat of paint on it by the end of the week.

 

[iseki]

Very nice job