My Bucket Hooks

[charlz]

The other thing that is very important when you weld on hooks is not only to make sure you have a good heavy base, as the OP did, but to only weld them on inline with your loader arms or in the center of your bucket. I've seen many guys weld hooks on right on the outer edges of the bucket. Doing so will assure loader damage if you ever pull on something really hard or lift something really heavy. I know several dealers in my area since I've bought several tractors over the years, and they will void your warranty of you jack your loader out of shape and have a problem because you welded hooks on the outer edges of the bucket and caused undue forces on the loader arms.

Huh, wonder if that is what happened to the loader on my b7100. It is definitely a bit out of tweak and sure enough the bucket hooks are welded to the outside. These are pin on hooks so it was probably easiest to weld them out there on the flat side of the bucket.

Thanks!
Charles

 

[Dargo]

Uh, I'm not going to tell you how I know that about where not to put hooks. Fortunately the Kubota dealer "fudged", as he called it, and still honored the warranty on an issue.

 

[gemini5362]

Dargo thank you for the information. I was just going to buy flat hooks and weld them on to the outside of the buckets. The best experience you get is from making mistakes thank you for sharing your experience with us so that I dont have to make those same mistakes.

 

[Inspector507]

I think these are the ones Dargo was referring to from AW Direct. They also have them in Grade 70 here.

 

[Dargo]

The best experience you get is from making mistakes...

Uh, yup, that would be me.

 

[gemini5362]

I ordered some of the 70 series from AW direct. I checked on the net and from the several I looked at they were the cheapest.

 

[Red55]

ordered my hooks yesterday morning around 6am came home from work and they were here (aw direct 3/8 hooks) now if only the tractor was here!

 

[Sully2]

I think these are the ones Dargo was referring to from AW Direct. They also have them in Grade 70 here.

Those are the same as I had welded onto my FEL. I only had the 5/16" size welded on...thats more than sufficient for anything IM doing

 

[mboulais]

My local farm co-op store has a huge bin of them, and that's where I got mine. Many guys here get theirs from A&W or AW Towing, or something like that. I really didn't intend to be mean or over critical in the first post; just saying that there is an item made for the application and a guy doesn't have to try to adapt a hook made for another application to one for which it wasn't designed.

The other thing that is very important when you weld on hooks is not only to make sure you have a good heavy base, as the OP did, but to only weld them on inline with your loader arms or in the center of your bucket. I've seen many guys weld hooks on right on the outer edges of the bucket. Doing so will assure loader damage if you ever pull on something really hard or lift something really heavy. I know several dealers in my area since I've bought several tractors over the years, and they will void your warranty of you jack your loader out of shape and have a problem because you welded hooks on the outer edges of the bucket and caused undue forces on the loader arms.

I welded mine right on the outside and no problems. Course, I don't chain a 6,000 # log to just one hook and back away either. I could bend a loader with the hooks in line as quick as I could mine. Another option is a piece of 3 3/8" plate 3" x 3" or so with a notch 7/16" wide x 1" cut in it welded on the end of the bucket so that the notch is a bit above the top of the bucket and facing the tractor. 3/8" chain will hook in there quite well.

 

[gemini5362]

I have a question. I was not thinking and ordered 3/8 inch hooks. Most of my chains are 5/16. I noticed that some of the hooks I looked at said 5/16 or 3/8. Will the 3/8 hooks hold my 5/16 chain OK.