Simple homemade trencher for tractor bucket

[chim]

Felt kind of right going backwards with the trencher but don't see why going forward wouldn't work too.

Kind of hard to explain without pics. Starting with my back towards the sidewalk and working backwards is what I meant. Using the loader's hydraulics I'd lower the bucket in the dumped position and curl to cut into the dirt and break it loose. Same as I'd do with a hand shovel. Back up a foot and do it again, and so forth.

 

[tractorgp]

Kind of hard to explain without pics. Starting with my back towards the sidewalk and working backwards is what I meant. Using the loader's hydraulics I'd lower the bucket in the dumped position and curl to cut into the dirt and break it loose. Same as I'd do with a hand shovel. Back up a foot and do it again, and so forth.

That will work - the trencher is like mentioned earlier capable of digging in like a pickaxe and can be used to loosen up an area something like a mini-backhoe bucket. The size of the trencher angle iron is small, relatively speaking, so easily handles the load.

 

[duwem]

Looks like all it is making is a mess.

At least a sub soiler has some curve to it to direct the dirt out.

 

[tractorgp]

Looks like all it is making is a mess.

At least a sub soiler has some curve to it to direct the dirt out.

As they say "looks can be deceiving"

 

[hdmyers]

As they say "looks can be deceiving"

Choice wording Looks cool to me. Using the chain to tension is great... i make whatever i can for my land work too. it is typically cheaper. or i buy something used...

cheers,

 

[tractorgp]

Choice wording Looks cool to me. Using the chain to tension is great... i make whatever i can for my land work too. it is typically cheaper. or i buy something used...

cheers,

Works for me too. Sure others who do a lot of trenching will invest as needed. Anyway building yourself is pretty interesting as long as you have time to do the building, testing and modifications. In the case of the trencher no reason why you couldn't experiment with a shaped foot welded on the angle to help direct the dirt out of the trench.

 

[Brad_Blazer]

Feel real comfortable that I'm well within limits - as gotten through my trials and instincts. But maybe some of the other TBN experts like BFreaky, Renze, uncle billy, etc. might like to give an opinion on that if they happen by this thread.

I've back dragged plenty of stuff with my loader curled down but there are numerous accounts of damage here on TBN. You never know what you might hook on to when trenching like that.

Driving forward will probably result in an unstable situation where the bucket will suddenly dig in and the front wheels will come off the ground.

Here are some bent curl cylinder stories.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...g/149915-bent-curl-cylinder-la723-loader.html
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/hydraulics/206465-kubota-l4400-bent-front-end.html
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/hydraulics/212747-bent-hydraulic-cylinder-rod.html
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/hydraulics/140583-bent-hydraulic-cylinders-now-what.html

 

[ENC]

Would putting the lift cylinders in float help any in case hitting a "hard" object much like the 3ph? I know it wouldn't dig as well and the damage risk still lies with the curl cylinders. I'm just asking the smarter minds if it would help.

 

[Brad_Blazer]

That depends on the curl angle. If it's greater than 90 degrees (pointing slightly away from the tractor) the bucket will tend to ride up and over obstacles. If it's less than 90 degrees it may hook onto some obstacles. Since the pivot point of the loader arms is fairly high it may still tend to ride over many obstacles when back-dragging. The same geometry makes it tend to dig in and roll under going forward.

 

[tractorgp]

I've back dragged plenty of stuff with my loader curled down but there are numerous accounts of damage here on TBN. You never know what you might hook on to when trenching like that.

Driving forward will probably result in an unstable situation where the bucket will suddenly dig in and the front wheels will come off the ground.

Here are some bent curl cylinder stories.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...g/149915-bent-curl-cylinder-la723-loader.html
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/hydraulics/206465-kubota-l4400-bent-front-end.html
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/hydraulics/212747-bent-hydraulic-cylinder-rod.html
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/hydraulics/140583-bent-hydraulic-cylinders-now-what.html

Thanks for taking the trouble to research and provide the links. I'm not really convinced yet that there is any undue loads using the bucket with the trencher as I have shown in the video. I can see more damage to the cylinder if there is some kind of preexisting problem in the cylinder though. When moving forward and loading a bucket like pushing heavily forward to take up a big sod, the bucket boom cylinders are in compression and they do just fine (realizing that there are two of them of course). As I mentioned earlier the size of the trencher that I'm demonstrating is small compared to the entire bucket in a back dragging mode and therefore the load should be proportionally smaller even though the trencher is dug into the ground. Also it is the kind of operation where you are just carefully and slowly moving along rather than "going for it" kind of thing - pretty easy to sense overloading. It's hard to see from my video but the bucket bottom is curled forward only about 20 degrees to make the trencher angle iron vertical. Kind of think that any tractor can take the full front end tractor load (tractor weight and drag load) on the edge of the bucket with this level of curl.

I agree with your comment re driving forward and the resulting instability... probably why I intuitively started out backwards