My very own grapples!

[3RRL]

Tom,
Solar grapple? ... LOL!
Thanks for the advice, but Surplus Center is already sending out the correct valve. So I'll just swap it out at camp next visit up.

 

[3RRL]

Good news for Loretta.
Surplus Center sent out the correct valve and it arrived last Thursday. We drove up to camp for a couple reasons, to install that valve and get her grapple going, but also to clear some camp spots for the Memorial day camp out at our place.
Here is what the 2 valves look like together. The 110v/120v valve is smaller than the 12v valve. You can clearly see the difference in marking. It only took a few minutes to switch the valves.
Now she is ready to go.

 

[3RRL]

Here she is practicing with her bucket grapples, trying to get a feel for where to place the bucket and grapple for a good clean pick up. Unfortunately for me, she practiced on a live animal trap the kids had put out in the meadow.
Now it is toast but she's happy.

 

[3RRL]

After she got the hang of it, she used her new bucket grapples like a pro and started to do the clean up around the camp sites.
It sure is handy to have another set of "hands" for work like this.



Below is a video of the first time she tried them out. She was working at the homesite when I drove up in her tractor. She stopped what she was doing and immediately got on it and started to work the grapples. You can see they are run by a true third function solenoid valve, so you can use the lift/lower and curl/dump simultaneously while operating the grapples. You have to feather the FEL controls in order to do this on her tractor, since there is only so much flow, but you can see them operate while she is moving the FEL. I tried to get her to do all the functions at the same time, but she had a little trouble with that.

 

[schmism]

Ive often wondered about a gauge location on my FEL hydrolics. From what i understand this would be a good spot. (but ive never taken a pic to conferm so i borrowed yours 3rrl)

so you can put a T there and plumb the guage in?

sent you a PM about the grapple

 

[tommu56]

Here she is practicing with her bucket grapples, trying to get a feel for where to place the bucket and grapple for a good clean pick up. Unfortunately for me, she practiced on a live animal trap the kids had put out in the meadow.
Now it is toast but she's happy.

Rob she is actually practicing on how to deal with trap with a skunk in it!

tommu56

 

[Defective]

Rob she is actually practicing on how to deal with trap with a skunk in it!

tommu56

I sincerely hope she never puts that practice to use...

It'll be a bugger to get the FEL truly clean!

 

[3RRL]

OK - I guess I can see I'll have to tell the story.

When the handle was horizontal, it confused me to no end. Up was down and down was up. Every time I wanted to move the loader, I had to stop and actually think "I want the loader to go up, so I move the handle down".

I thought it was sooooo odd. I asked Rob about it and he said all tractors were that way.... that you pull back to raise the loader and push forward to lower the loader. But it just didn't make sense to me. With a horizontal handle, I just couldn't make my brain wrap itself around doing everything the opposite.

So, I was really excited to have a vertical handle. Now, that I could mentally translate to forward = down and backwards = up.

Once the vertical handle was mounted, Rob realized that with the valve mounted the way it was mounted, it was now backwards - forward was up and backwards was down. That made perfect sense to me ... until Rob told me why the handles that way. He said to imagine a string attached to the handle, and the string pulls the bucket up.... pull back and the string pulls the bucket up.

oh.

now I get it.

and now, I can't imagine it any other way.... not to mention that if either one of us tries to drive the other's tractor, we'll be totally screwed up.

So, now Rob gets to make another bracket for the valve and handle

You remember THAT post from Loretta?
Well, last visit up, after installing the correct solenoid valve, I decide to turn everything BACK around so her darn valve works the way it's designed and supposed to work. What PITA!!!
So here are some photos of the FEL valve...AGAIN.
Oh, and also a couple pics of Loretta moving her Jinma Chipper with my Kama.



I worked her tractor for a couple of hours also, and I'll have to say that RanchHand FEL valve is as smooth as butter.
It's a really, really good valve.

 

[bostonrats]

These help with rule number one, NEVER GET OFF THE TRACTOR

 

[montejw]

Awesome! Thanks for all the details and photos.