My homemade backhoe made from a riding mower

zman007007 · Dec 27, 2010

At my age I would do 200 hours of building to not do 10 hours of shoveling. LOL zman:laughing:

JoelD · Dec 27, 2010

chad22 said:
Just a short update on the backhoe. Awhile back we got a few good warm days so I did some welding on the boom bracket that the cylinder attaches to. The bracket I made came off an old exercise machine.

I drilled out the holes with the drill press and a metal hole saw. I held the brackets in place by hand and welded away. Almost caught my gloves on fire. Though I did manage to catch the dry grass on fire beneath me. I quickly put it out.

In the picture where the stick attaches to the cylinder. That pivot point is just temporary. I'm gonna have to use another piece of tube for the stick anyway since I noticed later on that it is twisted and just will not work.

I also want to make it dig deeper. Currently it will have a 2 ft dig depth and that won't be enough depth for me.

I did some thinking and figured the way I got the backhoe attached now will just bend the frame of the mower as it will just pull down on the flimsy frame. So what I'm gonna do is build a square like frame for it first and then brace it to the sides on the upper and lower parts of the mower.

Chad

At first blush I'd be concerned about that ram bending the metal it is attached to like a pretzel, you'll be amazed at how strong they are. I had a homebuilt hoe a few years ago and I actually bent 1 inch solid pins.

Joel

chad22 · Dec 27, 2010

JoelD said:
At first blush I'd be concerned about that ram bending the metal it is attached to like a pretzel, you'll be amazed at how strong they are. I had a homebuilt hoe a few years ago and I actually bent 1 inch solid pins.

Joel

Wow. 1 inch solid pins? Now that's strong. Now lets hope that doesn't happen.

Hopefully everything will hold up. "especially my welds". :laughing:

I sure hope that when I fire the thing up and operate the cylinders that one or more of my welds doesn't break. :laughing:

Nah my welds are getting better and I suspect they will hold.

I remember one time I made a cross to take out to my cousins grave as soon as I started tapping the thing into the ground the welds broke and the thing fell apart. :laughing:

I said heck with it and got a piece of wire and wired it together. I won't be able to wire the backhoe together though. lol

Or there's always the trusty duct tape that red uses on the red green show. lol

Chad

ToolBoxTavern · Dec 30, 2010

I am so waiting the you tube video when you get finished. I think I will do a similar project to load the dump wagon I made. Just waiting for the donor I'm gonna use. :thumbsup:

Here is the post of my wagon http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/192129-riding-mower-weight-lifting-rack.html

jimmyj · Dec 30, 2010

I love the project Chad! Good for you. Keep the pics coming and like the others, I'm dying to see your first use video! :thumbsup:

chad22 · Jan 27, 2011

jimmyj said:
I love the project Chad! Good for you. Keep the pics coming and like the others, I'm dying to see your first use video! :thumbsup:

Thanks.

I've changed the design of the pivot for the swing. I had a piece of 3" x 3" square tubing laying around so used the air grinder to cut it down, so I could make this new pivot.

I also had two pieces of metal gave to me, that had the right size holes in the right spot for the bushings. That's those 4 top and bottom pieces that have a curve in them. They were longer pieces and bent as legs for a table. But I cut them out to size and used the grinder to cut the angles into them and then smooth them with the bench grinder.

I'm also gonna order some more 3" square tubing for the boom and stick.

I'll be sure to keep everyone updated.

Chad

chad22 · Jan 29, 2011

Just thought I would update you with some videos of my backhoe project. :thumbsup:

Here's a video of the pivot before I painted it.

YouTube - Pivot for backhoe before I painted it.

And here's a video of it after the paint.

YouTube - backhoe pivot after paint

Chad

NH-Rob · Jan 30, 2011

Looks like you are learning lots. to bad you don't have chop saw to cut your metal with. I use mine all the time. Keep up the good work it should keep you busy and out of trouble.
Rob