Broke the digger (again)

M

Mith

Active member
This time the mounting brackets couldnt take it.
I was breaking up some concrete by undercutting it and pushing down on the edges to break bits off, the top mounting brackets snapped off allowing the backhoe to fold up right against the tractor. Oops....

I took the backhoe off the tractor, which wasnt quite as easy as I was hoping. Its a heavy bit of kit!
Inspecting the bits that broke off, it seems the parent metal peeled apart. Maybe not a hot enough weld?

The grey bit bolts onto the tractor, and the yellow frame bolts onto that.
The top 2 brackets on the grey plate that the yellow arms bolt to have broken off.

I think I will weld the yellow frame to the gray plate. It'll make it a little harder to remove the backhoe, but I don't plan on doing it too often anyway, its far too hard!
I'll get the welder out tomorrow morning.
 

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Well after owning a BH for 7 months and seeing what the hydraulics will do, I think you have more BH than tractor and should be consider when doing work with it. What your seeing is what some see when they buy a 3PH BH and find out too late.
 
That will also make it harder to attach it also right?
Click to expand...
In theory yes.
I did the welding this morning and actually found it easier to attach the backhoe than remove it. Its easier to align the bolts and put them in than it is to guess when they are not loaded and take them out.
It only took me about 10 mins to put back on. I can live with that.


BD, as you say, the hoe is really far too big for the tractor, but I really wanted to be able to go down 6'.
Its fine in dirt, its just when I do work with concrete that things break.
I always expected things to break on this when I made it. Its hard to guess where some of the loads would be. I designed that mounting to be strongest with the arm pulling up, but it seems that the largest loads I give it are pushing down with the bucket.
Over time I'll learn and imporve it, then one day I can build a much better one on a stronger tractor. Its tempting to build a tractor from scratch with a loader and backhoe. There are a number of things I would do differently having used this tractor for the past year or 2.
 
Now you got em curious Jim. What would you do different if you were building your own tractor FEL BH combination?
 
I could tell you Doc, but then I would have to kill you :D


Well I suppose the biggest thing would be a dual hydraulic system for the backhoe. 1 pump for 2 functions (on one joystick) and a second pump for the other 2 functions (on another joystick). How smooth would that be to operate!
I would also add an extra joint where the boom is 'kinked' so that you could increase the bend for a up close digging, or open it out for working further away. I very nearly did it on this backhoe but I was getting worried about the weight. With a dedicated machine you could obviously design the back axle to take as heavy a hoe as you want.
I suppose those are the biggest differences on the hoe side of things.

On the tractor I would make it have a flat floor so you can swing the seat around without getting up. That would save a whole load of time. That and having both a pedal and lever controlled drive system so you could move the tractor about without turning to face forward.

There are so many things you could do.
I must stop thinking about it, I cant afford to build another tractor from scratch! :o If I ever finish the 4x4 artic I could sell that and make this TLB, but I reckon it could easily cost £7-10k to make. Hydraulics went up about 50% in price while I was building the artic, its pretty much priced them out of my budget.

(As you might have guessed, I spend alot of time thinking about stuff like this :o)
 
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