Spirit FEL(s)

[gunslinger101]

My neighbor has a big 3 tractor with a Koyker FEL on it. His son left the tractor on top of a hill about 45 degree hill and the tractor rolled about 300 yards, so it got some speed up, well it hit a tree, about a 3 foot diameter Oak tree. It bent the bucket pretty good the rest of the FEL is ok, the tractor broke in half when the back wheels came back down and slammed the ground (not the FEL's fault). He bought another tractor, same model and we put the FEL on it and heated up the bucket and beat it back to shape. He uses it every day on his dairy farm to this day. 3 months later he did buy a new bucket.
I would say Koyker makes a **** good product.

 

[SpiritInd]

/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gifGreat to hear that you are the proud new owner of a Spirit FEL! Seems to be a lot of speculation on this forum so let me take a moment to explain our product for some of you who do not know about Spirit (some have said the best kept secret in FEL manufacturing).

Our product is over 97% American made. We manufacture our product in house in Waupaca, Wisconsin. Our product is Powder coated, uses the best materials and workmanship available. We are not affiliated with or owned by the Deljen company, although they are a great customer. We are independant, strong, and growing. We did NOT copy, as the koykermfg post implies, the Koyker 160 loader. We apply the latest and most dynamic engineering software to test our product in 3D before manufacturing. We could add 12 torque tubes to our loader, doesn't mean the loader needs them, and doesn't mean that it makes the loader stronger. Over the last three years our product has lifted Millions of tons of material and we have not had a single warranty claim.

We are tractor guys that build loaders, not loader guys that make a few generic loaders and then mount them on a thousand tractors with the same hydraulic setup.

There are some people that are very happy with their current loader supplier, and if you are that is fantastic. The market is big enough for a little competition. The comments about being "thinner" material, an imported product, etc... are from people that have not used and it sounds like in many cases seen our product. Great for rhetoric, but we'll put our engineering and product against anyone in the market.

We sincerely hope that you enjoy your Loader from Spirit. Sounds like the gentleman you purchased your loader from (side by side with another mfg) knows what he is talking about and put his 14 years of experience behind our product. If there is ever anything we can do for you, please do not hesitate to call toll free.



Thank You,



Ryan R. Delaney, Pres.
Spirit Industries, Inc.
866-533-5536

 

[angelugs]

Thanks for the encouraging words. I must say it's a little discouraging to be the only person on this forum who owns a Spirit loader. Evidently you only made one 2005 model and I bought it /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif So far I've only done a little surface scraping with it. Tried to take no more than a few inches of dirt at a time redoing a waterway going across the back of my property that had filled in. I'm still learning how to manipulate the loader so a few times I got a little deeper than I wanted. It would be nice to have some sort of gauge mounted on the bucket so a novice would have an idea when the angle (bucket to ground) was too sharp.

 

[minidozer]

I welded 2" x 1/8" L brackets on the top of each side of the bucket where I could see them from the seat. The long side of the L was flat side up and parallel to the bottom of the bucket.

 

[angelugs]

I've tried to visulize what you did but I can't see much benefit to any of the configurations I've come up with. Would you mind taking a digital picture of it and post it?

The more threads I read about tractors the more I think I'm going to have to purchase a welder so I can do some of these modifications I read about.

 

[minidozer]

angelugs,

Hopefully a picture is attached.

 

[minidozer]

Another picture attached.

I use to think gas was the best for a starter welding rig but now that I have a MIG welder, I can say- Get a MIG welder that uses a shield gas. They are great.

 

[angelugs]

Thanks for the picture. That's one configuration I hadn't visualized. After seeing it I noticed the top of the box on my loader is flat and parallel with the bottom. So I've already got a gauge similar to yours and hadn't realized it.

As for the welder, I've thought about a MIG for some time but recently changed my mind when I started seeing metal thicker than 3/16" that I'd possibly be having to weld on. I know you can purchase a MIG that will do that but if I can buy a stick welder for half the price ....... And besides that I spent my "splurge" money on my Jinma 284.