Meet Kermit!

[Gravy]

<font color="blue"> The ditch scraper is used to create shallow drainage channels. Works surprisingly well, considering that our property is basically a pile of rocks with some clay packed in between. </font>

 

[Gravy]

<font color="blue"> The truck hoe is a big labor saver. We use it to pull gravel & dirt, etc. out of the pickup bed. It works well for our old Toyota, but I need to lengthen it to reach the front of an 8 foot bed. I'm also thinking about interchangeable heads - hoe blade, rakes and the like. I maycombine it with the boom pole.</font>

 

[Gravy]

<font color="blue"> I've made 2 modifications so far. The first was making the hidden grease fitting accessible without removing covers, I ground "v"s in both covers where they meet, and installed a 45 degree grease fitting. </font>

 

[Gravy]

<font color="blue"> The second modification was to the reverse treadle. Reverse throws your weight forward, pushing your foot down harder on the reverse pedal. This is even worse on rough terrain (the only kind we've got). Even after some hours of operation, I still had a lot of trouble backing smoothly.

Since backing at full speed in a lot of spots on my property should probably be preceded by a suicide note, I decided to limit the travel of the reverse pedal. I took out one of the bolts above the right pedal and replaced it with a longer one and a double locking nut. This let me adjust the maximum reverse pedal travel to a safe amount.

I wasn't really happy with the double compression springs provided by PT, so I got dethatcher springs from the mower parts section at Lowe's. I reversed the bend on the end of one and mounted it to make contact in the first few degrees of reverse pedal travel. It doesn't quite touch in the neutral position.

With those modifications, reverse is safe and controllable for us.</font>

 

[Gravy]

<font color="blue"> This shows the original bend in the dethatcher spring. </font>

 

[Gravy]

<font color="blue"> Another view of the "universal attachment plate". I plan to add two horizontal receivers so I can have side mounted implements, too. </font>

 

[Gravy]

<font color="blue"> The box blade is a work in progress. I still need to come up with suitable ripper shanks and figure out an attachment method.

The actual blade is from a Wheel Horse belly grader blade, The WH doesn't have the power and traction to make the blade useful. The rest is scrap pipe, tubing and plate.

The box blade won't see much use until I get some actual soil. Clay & rocks don't grade very well.</font>

 

[Gravy]

<font color="blue"> This shows the 2 pin attachment to the universal plate. </font>

 

[Gravy]

<font color="blue"> Another work in progress. The forks are from our friendly local forklift shop. They're 32" long. The upper support is 3"x1/2" angle. The lower is a lighter 3" angle. I used a 3/8" spacer on top of the attachment plate to make the spacing come out right. I also had to grind the inside of the top mount on the forks a bit to make it all fit.

The whole thing is a good bit stronger and heavier than it needs to be, but it is adjustable, and I doubt that I'll ever bend a fork. I do plan to lighten it by trimming off some of the excess steel, and I need to grind locating notches in the top rail so the forks don't slide on their own.

Of course, I'll also clean it all up and paint it semi-flat black like all the other attachments. </font>

 

[Highridge]

That's really nice!
I like the treadle spring and that box blade looks really heavy-duty!