Hydraulic Quick Attach

[Xfaxman]

I bought a made in China fork frame from a local dealer, with the opposite problem. The lower cross bar was too high. He sold it for $100, I cut the slots down far enough for the pins to latch.

I used it to make a 3 point adapter with a lot of articulation, for the cedar tree cutter.

 

[Fallon]

My Tytan forks had an inch or 2 of slop down at the pins. I ended up getting some cash back from Tytan & welded on a shim myself.

They are like Harbor Freight. Cheap stuff in both meanings of the word but good customer support. I'd buy from them again, but would highly recommend against using their gear as a jig unless you can validate it is to spec first.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Went to the dealer this morning and bought a 60" light materials bucket. I did not want to leave anything to chance on the quick attach dimensions. Kind of an expensive jig, but many times I wished I had a larger bucket anyway.

 

[Xfaxman]

Went to the dealer this morning and bought a 60" light materials bucket. I did not want to leave anything to chance on the quick attach dimensions. Kind of an expensive jig, but many times I wished I had a larger bucket anyway.

Good idea. :thumbsup:

Here are some visual aides.

Are your loader arms wider than 44 inches, outside edge to outside edge?

 

[downsizingnow48]

Outside to outside on loader arms is 43.5. I checked that early on.

The Titan plate arrives tomorrow, will be interesting to compare the critical dimensions.

 

[Xfaxman]

Outside to outside on loader arms is 43.5. I checked that early on.

The Titan plate arrives tomorrow, will be interesting to compare the critical dimensions.

Good, you won't have a clearance problem with deep attachment plates.

Hope you get a good plate from Titan.

 

[downsizingnow48]

The Titan mount plate came today. I compared the Titan plate, the new Kubota bucket, and the published SSQA dimensions. At the risk of screwing up my own thread, here are the results:

Inside width on top
SSQA 45
Kubota 44 11/16
Titan 44 11/16

Pin holes OC
SSQA 31.77
Kubota 31 9/16
Titan 31 7/16

Pinhole Width
SSQA 4.13
Kubota 4.0
Titan 4 5/8

Pinhole Depth
SSQA 1.25
Kubota 1 3/16
Titan 1 5/8

Bottom Lip
SSQA 2.0
Kubota 2 3/4
Titan 3
(all angles = 120)

Top Lip
SSQA 1.5
Kubota 1.5
Titan 1.5
(all angles = 45)

Height of Front Mount Plate
SSQA 16.04
Kubota 15.5
Titan 16.0

The Kubota mount plate is actually 16" but has a heavy weld on the inside of the upper lip, that takes off 1/2" yielding the 15.5" dimension.

Photo 1: Ruler on Kubota Mount Plate = 15.5"
Photo 2: 16" gage bar not fitting Kubota
Photo 3: Heavy weld on inside of upper lip, Kubota
Photo 4: Ruler on Kubota Mount Plate bypassing weld = 16.0"
Photo 5: Ruler on Titan Mount Plate = 16"

I am glad I bought the new light duty loader bucket before I welded up the QA adapter.

 

[Xfaxman]

Well it looks like you got lucky with the Titan plate, although the pinhole depth might be a concern,

Don't know about the weld on the inside of of the bucket, but you measured 16 bypassing the weld. Don't make your QA any less than 16".

Most of the QA's that I have seen have a sharp point at the top.

Here is the one on my Bobcat V417. I don't have a good side view.

Here is the heavily reinforced bucket.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Made a little progress on the hydraulic side of this project today. As mentioned previously, shifting to a SSQA design (instead of a semi-Euro design) means actuating two vertical pins. Bobcat and Kubota modify their existing hand-latch designs to do this. I saw a Bobcat video clip that shows two small cylinders, one pushing each hand latch. Kubota uses a single cylinder floating between the two hand-latches. I decided to skip the hand-latch part and go with two small cylinders directly actuating the pins. Certainly the smallest cylinders I've ever seen. 7/8" bore, about 8 in long, 4 lbs, 1/8" NPT ports, 3" stroke. Had to have the cylinders in hand to work out other parts of the design.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Wouldn't mind a bit of advice here.

Today I made a gage for the QA to make sure I have everything right before cutting up a bunch of steel.

Photo 1 shows the gage welded together in the Titan plate. It is 16" long and fits exactly.
Photo 2 shows the nose of the gage with full profile.
Photo 3 shows the nose of the gage with a bit sliced off. It still fits the Titan exactly, because the profile is the same, but now has clearance for the inside welds on the Kubota bucket upper lip.
Photo 4 shows the gage on the right side of the Kubota bucket. It fits exactly with no movement anywhere, same as the Titan.
Photo 5 shows the gage on the left side of the Kubota bucket. Doesn't fit.

At this point I see two options:
A. This is a loader bucket, not the space shuttle, forget about it. The latch pins will hold securely even if the fit is bad.
B. Make the shoe slightly undersized - taking off 1/8" will do the trick - and again, rely on the latch pins to hold everything securely.

If there is a better option I am all ears.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Where there is a will there is a way. Did more experimenting this morning and came up with a profile that works. It is perfect on the Kubota bucket and about 1/16" loose on the Titan. With a accurate gage in hand the next step is cutting the side plates to shape.

 

[aeblank]

In the world of SSQA, 1/16" seems like nothing to me. (of course, unless it is 1/16 too big/small to fit something else.....)

I'm sure you'll love it when you get it all going.

 

[downsizingnow48]

I agree! Getting from "won't fit kubota" to "1/16 loose on Titan" was a big deal around here this morning.

 

[downsizingnow48]

The four side plates are cut and drilled. Every dimension and angle is determined by something, so it took a while to get it figured out. The rest of the metal work is more straightforward. Right now I am waiting for DOM tube I bought off Ebay.

 

[Xfaxman]

Do you have enough rollback for pallet forks?

The plate on the V417 is leaning back 10 degrees from vertical, when lowered all the way. But the geometry is different than a tractor loader when the boom is raised.

 

[SSdoxie]

Made a little progress on the hydraulic side of this project today. As mentioned previously, shifting to a SSQA design (instead of a semi-Euro design) means actuating two vertical pins. Bobcat and Kubota modify their existing hand-latch designs to do this. I saw a Bobcat video clip that shows two small cylinders, one pushing each hand latch. Kubota uses a single cylinder floating between the two hand-latches. I decided to skip the hand-latch part and go with two small cylinders directly actuating the pins. Certainly the smallest cylinders I've ever seen. 7/8" bore, about 8 in long, 4 lbs, 1/8" NPT ports, 3" stroke. Had to have the cylinders in hand to work out other parts of the design.

Reasoning behind modifying the existing handles to connect the cylinders is 2 fold;
1. In event of hydraulic failure of some type, the cylinder(s) can be removed from the handle and attachment can be taken off by manual movement of the lever.
2. The handle acts as a signal flag, indicating what poistion the pins are in. If handle is not laying down flat the pin is not engaged. Helps to keep attachment from accidentally falling off in lock pin doesn't fully engage and you can't see this from the seat until you lift loader arms and roll bucket out.

Bocat also makes the horizontal cylinder versionand used on all their loaders with 2 bucket cylinders. The 2 seperate QA cylinders came out for the Toolcat which has a single center mounted bucket cylinder and mounting location of the at the QA would allow the horizontal cylinder.

 

[downsizingnow48]

SSdoxie thanks for raising the question of an indicator. Or actually two questions, do I need an indicator and if so should it be the movement of a crank arm or something else. Have to think about it a bit.

Xfaxman thanks for question on dump/curl angles. No current plan for forks. I think this will work with my two buckets and the grapple I still intend to make.

 

[Fallon]

Reasoning behind modifying the existing handles to connect the cylinders is 2 fold;
1. In event of hydraulic failure of some type, the cylinder(s) can be removed from the handle and attachment can be taken off by manual movement of the lever.
2. The handle acts as a signal flag, indicating what poistion the pins are in. If handle is not laying down flat the pin is not engaged. Helps to keep attachment from accidentally falling off in lock pin doesn't fully engage and you can't see this from the seat until you lift loader arms and roll bucket out.

Bocat also makes the horizontal cylinder versionand used on all their loaders with 2 bucket cylinders. The 2 seperate QA cylinders came out for the Toolcat which has a single center mounted bucket cylinder and mounting location of the at the QA would allow the horizontal cylinder.

Ya, the arms make great signal flags on my linear actuator one. I just have to pull 2 pins & I can drop the linear actuator out if it fails in seconds, would take me 10 times longer to untape the wire loom back to the quick disconnects a couple feet away.

I also have very little roll back on my stock setup when using my standard SSQA pallet forks. If/when I ever build another SSQA to 3pt adapter (just welded a quick hitch to a SSQA plate, pretty cheap & easy) I'll put in a shim so the 3pt adapter has 15 degrees of roll back while the SSQA plate is vertical.

 

[downsizingnow48]

I don't know what others do to remove super hard mill scale before welding and painting.

I soak the metal overnight in household vinegar.

Then the mill scale sometimes just wipes off with a rag. Other times it turns into a sort of light rust that brushes off in seconds with a stripping disk.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Here is the test assembly for the cylinder and pin arrangement.

The pin is 1.25" round bar. It slides in a 3.625" length of 1.75" DOM tubing I got off Ebay that had already been reamed to 1.255" ID. That is perfect for this purpose (got 4 pieces for $14).

I drilled a 13/16" hole in the end of the pin, 2" deep. That hole accepts an internal clevis made of .75" DOM tube. The 3/8-24 nut fits the cylinder shaft. The clevis is secured with a 3/8" roll pin. The tube and nut still have to be welded.

Everything fits neatly into the 16" space available.

The assembly is going slow! No problems, just lots of other things going on. Plus, the metal working tools are here in Sacramento, while the tractor and welder are at another place four hours drive away.