</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I have heard the same sentiments from manufacturer's when I asked about grapples or fork attachements for the BX FEL. It is an attitude I really can't quite understand. Maybe my attitude is getting bad but lately I have taken to saying " Yes - after almost 300 hours with my BX I am intimately familiar with what the FEL can and cannot lift - and that happens to be a lot more than I can lift using my back and leg muscles. If had wanted a bigger tractor I would have bought one - what I am looking to do is make this tractor more useful. A grapple on the BX bucket still makes the tractor more useful if I can hold something in the bucket I could not otherwise." /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif .)</font>I tend to agree. I was just repeating what I was told by the grapple manu., I recently cleared a very large pile of stone and clay with the little BX. I picked up rocks I was sure it could not. You have to be careful and keep the load low until ready to dump but I was very impressed with it's lifting ability. I am not impressed with the bucket curl power. It should have had two cylinders but thats another story. Knowing me, we will build the grapple as I would mostly use it to load the stones we pick off the beach and put them into a dump trailer. It comes in handy to be able to "pick" the stones rather than push them to load them into the bucket.
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The thumb looks excellent by the way)</font>Thank you.
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( - I would also be very interested in the list of parts that were used to do this. Who made the actual thumb assembly? Was that your fabricator? Do you think he would be interested in making any more? )</font>My fabricator built it all from scratch using just photos and my limited knowledge of what I thought we needed to do to the designs we had. I am putting together a parts list and yes he will build them if you want one.
From preliminary numbers we were putting together it looks like around $ 1,000. That would include the Kubota valve w/pressure relief valves (which is over $200 itself), lever and assembly (I think this around $20), cylinder (Just under $100), hoses, thumb itself welded together but not installed (unless you wanted to bring the tractor to him), fittings, brackets and all. Now there is some small fabrication involved on the housing and the painting was just a bonus for me as this guy can paint also.
The fabricating was to the housing of the assembly. New holes have to be drilled to move the valve body to the center and the top plate has to be cut down 3/4" on one side and have 3/4" added to the other. (We found this to be the easiest way to do it.) He may be able to order these and fabricate them as needed. So I guess it would depend on how much of it you wanted to do yourself. And there is some small cutting that needs to be done to repostion the stabilizer levers along with a bolt that has to be used to move the levers. None of it is all that hard just time consuming.
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The thumb looks excellent by the way)</font>Thank you.
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( - I would also be very interested in the list of parts that were used to do this. Who made the actual thumb assembly? Was that your fabricator? Do you think he would be interested in making any more? )</font>My fabricator built it all from scratch using just photos and my limited knowledge of what I thought we needed to do to the designs we had. I am putting together a parts list and yes he will build them if you want one.
From preliminary numbers we were putting together it looks like around $ 1,000. That would include the Kubota valve w/pressure relief valves (which is over $200 itself), lever and assembly (I think this around $20), cylinder (Just under $100), hoses, thumb itself welded together but not installed (unless you wanted to bring the tractor to him), fittings, brackets and all. Now there is some small fabrication involved on the housing and the painting was just a bonus for me as this guy can paint also.
The fabricating was to the housing of the assembly. New holes have to be drilled to move the valve body to the center and the top plate has to be cut down 3/4" on one side and have 3/4" added to the other. (We found this to be the easiest way to do it.) He may be able to order these and fabricate them as needed. So I guess it would depend on how much of it you wanted to do yourself. And there is some small cutting that needs to be done to repostion the stabilizer levers along with a bolt that has to be used to move the levers. None of it is all that hard just time consuming.
