Backhoe Thumbs are handy but......

[dieselcrawler]

It looks to me like you’ll need to cut the ears off for re use and then cut and replace cross tube. It’s fixable but it would take me a lot more than an hour. Or you could probably press it straight ish and keep using it which is what I would do.

I apologize for the oversight, I neglected to look at the picture of both buckets side by side, which has a better perspective from further away. The close up pictures show a crack where the tab needs rewelded to the cross tube... an hour. Straighten or replace the cross tube, you are right, would take quite a bit more time! I stand corrected.

 

[Smokeydog]

Your right the B26 are tough machines. See you have been using many hours by the tooth wear. That would be tough repair.

Might consider reinforcing the new bucket before putting into service.

When looking at the wholegoods price options noted the quick attach buckets we’re heavier weight. Not sure where the extra weight is. Not in the ears?? Never seen them side by side to compare. Have the OEM hydraulic thumb and haven’t noted any damage but don’t have the hours you have. Have moved many rocks and stumps. Use mainly the 18” bucket.

 

[RichT]

Likewise, mine is a 2008 and has been around the block a few times. Have also moved a lot of large rocks with the B26/thumb w/o any damage. I'd try to press the tube back to orig shape then grind and weld, perhaps add a bit of reinforcement. After looking at your pix, might do a little reinforcement on my rig.

 

[FTG-05]

An hour?
You and I have very different work speeds!

Andrew Camarata would not only have it fixed in an hour, he'd video tape the repair, have it edited and uploaded as well. Prolly have +100K views before the day was over.

 

[fried1765]

Andrew Camarata would not only have it fixed in an hour, he'd video tape the repair, have it edited and uploaded as well. Prolly have +100K views before the day was over.

I suspect that Andrew makes a very good living off his U-Tube postings.

 

[FTG-05]

I suspect that Andrew makes a very good living off his U-Tube postings.

+1. About half his videos feature some new toy he bought. Pettibone crane falls over, won't run: No problem! Just go buy another one!

But there's no question that he works like a MoFo though!

 

[OldPaint]

Unless I was having troubles getting the pins back in, not sure I'd worry a whole lot about anything other than the cracks. The curling cylinder is a BIG cylinder, and it's a rather long moment arm on the bucket pivot. It's designed to be the strongest motion on the hoe, but not necessarily to withstand the kind of use you're describing. It might just be the angle of the dangle at which you're using the thumb. The farther the bucket rotates, the less force the cylinder can put on it to bend it like that. What I'm looking at suggests the bucket was about 90 degrees to the dipper arm, where the cylinder would apply the greatest amount of force. If you're gripping stumps that hard to try to extract them without enough digging to get them out to avoide a large crater, then perhaps that technique needs to be revisited. I'd opt for another possibility being that you're putting the teeth under things and then prying by curling and pushing hard with the boom rather than digging around them more to loosen them. In a prying technique, you're typically combining the force of the boom cylinder and the curling cylinder at that pivot. It may not be a single cylinder creating the problem. Maybe a rule of thumb (pardon the pun) would be to turn a big rock into two smaller rocks somehow before brutalizing your little tractor or it's attachments. I wouldn't blame the quality of the bucket or the tractor, and you don't seem to be, albeit I'd also verify the pressure at the curling cylinder is within specifications before I damaged another bucket. That kind of damage is going to take some SERIOUS force. This is still a good observation that might save someone else from destroying their bucket. If you grind and repair the cracks, the worst I can see the pictured damage doing is making it a pain to swap the bucket because of the pin/bushing alignments. I've seen buckets in worse shape still digging, though once I see a crack like that, it's gonna be sidelined until repaired. The new one appears to be a direct replacement, so it might be a better idea to scrap the bent one and just modify digging/thumbing techniques.

 

[CurtisC]

Back in 2014 I installed a mechanical thumb on my B26TLB and proceeded to use it for grappling logs and rocks. Fast forward to yesterday when I installed a new $700 bucket. The B26 TLB is a pretty rugged little machine capable of taking a lot of abuse and I initially assumed the bucket curl closing power would not overpower the structural integrity of the bucket or thumb - bad assumption. A large rock with its irregular shape can require a lot of closing force to pick up and unless you're paying close attention you can apply way too much force on the small ones as well. The bucket curl cylinder apparently has the power deform the structural tube at the top of the bucket. After the deformation became apparent I became a lot more cautious when working with rock but damage eventually got worse resulting in cracks at the welds to support brackets. I could weld up the cracks but there wasn't any practical way to straighten out the bucket. Fairly certain it was picking large rocks with the thumb that was the culprit for me but be careful when closing against any immovable object.

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Update: What I didn't mention was some good news - the original wrist pin came out without too much persuasion and the bushings in the dipper arm were in good shape. The pin checked out straight and was reused with new bushings (already in hand) and with a bit of persuasion all went back together relatively easily indicating the deformation / damage was limited to outboard of the bucket ears. Would have preferred to straighten and reweld the old bucket but straightening was way beyond anything I could do and didn't want to roll the dice with local machine shop only to find the ear alignment was off when I got it back.
In the end, Kubota made a bunch of $$, the tractor's got a new bucket without much work on my part along with replacement teeth (can't buy just the bucket), and my wife gained a planter; the real purpose of the post was: small tractor thumb owners beware.