Hydraulic Questions

weaver · Jan 1, 2006

I would like to take a grapple attachment from www.HORSTWELDING.com , the top half of the utility grapple , weld it to my forks and use my contol lever from my hydralic pin/mini-hoelever to control grapple. My question is the grapple attachment has two pistons , How should the hydraulics hook up to the PT 1430 ? Do the pistons from Horst have to be a two way piston ? Would I use pto or aux hyd. The one I am looking at is made for a skidsteer( is the hyd. make-up the same as a Pt ? )

weaver · Jan 1, 2006

I think I found another alternative to a grapple here www.wikco.com , add a grapple looks like pt 's grapple . Price looks good with little fabricating to be done except lining the thumbs to meet your bucket. Anyone ever done an add on like this

weaver · Jan 1, 2006

You can find the grapple on the left hand column under grapple brush forks/ mounted bucket.

J_J · Jan 1, 2006

Yes, the cylinder has to be a two way cylinder, which means that the grapple will have force applied to close the grapple, and reverse force to open the grapple. It can be hooked up several ways. You could use the PTO outlet and a manual valve or an electrical valve to open and close the grapple. You could also use the quick-attach hyd supply to operate the cylinders, but it requires you to steer, raise and lower the bucket, and open and close the grapple. I think the easiest way would be to use the electrical valve and put the switch close to the raise and lower shift handle.

J_J · Jan 1, 2006

In that picture, there has to be a valve for each cylinder. You can plumb up the hydraulics for just about any situation. PT's grapple has one cylinder to operate the grapple, Some grapple operate the two sections independently. Set it up to the way you want it to work.

J_J · Jan 1, 2006

If you are only using one valve, the cylinders should be plumbed up in parallel, a tee fitting is used for this.

weaver · Jan 1, 2006

Thanks for help. The price for the horst grapple is steep $1250 plus the time I fab it on my forks. The wikco grapple is not to bad ($650 w/shipping) has only one piston but saw some pic's of fourteen's grapple hauling logs around and look like it did a good job.
I called Pt to see if I could purchase just grapple to add on my rock bucket but they would not sell it to me they said it would not fit and some other B.S. excuses. But they sent me a pic of the grapple bucket and it looked like same bucket I got .That would be the easiest . But Scott Gentry the salesman would only sell me the whole unit. I'll finger out something