Loader Hooks on JD Heavy-Duty 61” buckets

[kennyd]

My opinion: The plates you show are to small to be effective.

 

[WinterDeere]

My opinion: The plates you show are to small to be effective.

They may appear small, but they increase the footprint area of the hook roughly 3x.

 

[Deere Dude]

Re: Hooks on JD Heavy-Duty 61 buckets



I welded 1/4 or 5/16 steel across bucket and hooks to that. The tractor is not strong enough to ruin that.

 

[WinterDeere]

Re: Hooks on JD Heavy-Duty 61 buckets

I welded 1/4 or 5/16 steel across bucket and hooks to that. The tractor is not strong enough to ruin that.

Nice! No doubt, that’s what I was going for, but in a more minimalist way. I was going to use 4” square plates, but after others reported no issues with just welding the hooks themselves down without a backer, I scaled back. I just picked up a few pieces of 1-1/2” x 1/4” flat stock for another project, I may use a few scraps of that for my backers. The one shown in the photo above is 1” x 1/4”.

 

[kennyd]

They may appear small, but they increase the footprint area of the hook roughly 3x.

OK it was hard to see in the picture. Go ahead and use them (if it's not to late) and tie it into the plate behind it that reinforces the JDQA hook.

 

[WinterDeere]

Went with slightly larger plates, but original concept. Took all of an hour or two.





I know my welds aren’t beautiful, flux core impairs visibility and my wire feed is forever jamming, but they should be strong enough.