Quick Attach SSQA DIY Fabrication for B7510 LA302 FEL Bucket

InTheWoods

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I went ahead and cut the 4 brackets that'll get welded to the latch plate. They are cut from 4 x 1/4" stock.
1707280534518.png


The critical dimensions to the hole positions. The angles are all 30 or 60 degrees.
1707280619281.png


Drilled a pair of 1" holes in each to accommodate the pin bushings I showed above:
1707280733374.png


Then I cut and squared a set of 2.42" spacers that'll be useful when welding the brackets - 2.42" being the inside space between the brackets:
1707280816036.png


So, here's how they fit - pretty much ready for welding - hopefully I can keep things from twisting out of shape!
1707280913130.png
 

Runs With Scissors

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Looking good man!

Now the fun part......welding!!! (y)
 
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D2Cat

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Yeah - a couple buddies with plasma cutters say the same thing. It's on the shopping list. That said, the 6" angle grinder with cutoff wheels was surprisingly adept at this job, falling short only in its ability to get into inside corners. Thanks for the tip on the $300 plasma cutter - I'll ponder it...
Your picture shows a 4 1/2, did you actually buy a 6"?
 

InTheWoods

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Your picture shows a 4 1/2, did you actually buy a 6"?
Yes - the model I show is a 6" grinder. HF furnishes it with a 4-1/2", 5", and 6" guard, so you can use it with any of those size wheels. I used 6" cutoff wheels - worked great!
 

jaxs

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Good project many dream about but for lack of skill and/or courage don't dive in. It's refreshing to see a new member with ideas and can-do mindset. Had Torch not been there with encouragement and inspiration when I joined OTT I doubt I would have hung around. If you have an acquaintance that is interested in such but like me has lost capabilities to old age, I have a tip you might like. I have time to look through recycle yards for high quality materials at a fraction of price and better suited than new mild steel from the steel yard. By far the biggest problem faced in doing that is lawyers and insurance companies over liability issues. My solution was making friends with yard management and laborers by dropping off ice chests with drinks mid-afternoon on triple digit Texas days or hot snacks on cold,windy days. Once they want to help I mark what I want with bright color tape and if they can't bring it to scales and load right away they call me when I can return for it. Depending on whether forklift is required and/or pieces have to be torched off I add payment for yard's expense and gratuity for laborers. I honestly believe a viable business could be established brokering goods that show up in salvage yards. I'm not into that but more than once I've picked up a pipe fence builder's goose neck,had scrap yard load pipe with their forklift then drop loaded trailer,collect healthy profit from fence builder without touching pipe. The best score yet was pallets of new hydraulic spool valves,cylinders and accessories that had me wishing I could find the same deal again.
 
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North Idaho Wolfman

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What are you using to link the two sides together?
 

InTheWoods

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What are you using to link the two sides together?
Not 100% sure yet. I want to keep from adding unnecessary weight, but also want to be able to use this link (the cross member between the two latch adapters) to throw a lifting chain over and lift to the capacity of the loader arms. It looks to me like 2x3x3/16 rectangular tubing would be fine.

Your thoughts?
 

North Idaho Wolfman

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I personally would not recommend doing that!
It puts all the wrong stress on every part of the system.
Get a blank SSQA plate and put a hitch mount on it to do lifting.

A 1/2" to 2" medium wall pipe or square tube is a good choice for the cross bar.
It's only job is to keep the 2 plates in sync with each other.
 

InTheWoods

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Here's a pair of bucket ears out of 4 x 3/16 stock:
1707432710435.png


Stuck them onto the bucket:
1707432759226.png


Tacked on a 2x2x3/16 angle iron lifty thinger between them and a quick fit test:
1707433049415.png


Next - adding a little structural reinforcement to the above, finishing the welding, and then on to the bottom 30 degree 'catch plate' for the bucket...
 
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InTheWoods

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I personally would not recommend doing that!
It puts all the wrong stress on every part of the system.
I did some analysis on the deflection of this beam, leaded to 2000 pounds at the center (worst case), it only deflects about .060". I'm not seeing the problem...
 

North Idaho Wolfman

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I did some analysis on the deflection of this beam, leaded to 2000 pounds at the center (worst case), it only deflects about .060". I'm not seeing the problem...
Force is not weight.
But hey, It's you're tractor so have at it.
 

torch

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Thanks for your concern - I hope you decide teach us the other forces you have in mind. I supposed we were all here to share and learn.
I'm not certain which forces Wolfman was thinking of, but his statement is correct. Dynamic forces such as acceleration and static forces such as leverage all play a role in the loads placed on the arms.

Yes, you can apply a weight, evenly distributed and come up with a maximum static load that the arms can overcome "at the pins". But a bucket or pallet load is not applied at the pins. The centre of gravity is at some point beyond the pins and that additional leverage means additional force required to lift the same weight. Even if the CoG is centered on the pins, the forces applied on the arms varies though the lift range, as the travel path is a curve and because the angle of the cylinder to the arm changes as the arms raise.

Leverage has another effect too. Consider a simple balance of a single, horizontal straight lever, centered on a fulcrum. To balance a 500# load at 1g on one end of the lever requires a downward force of 500# at 1g on the opposite end. But the fulcrum does not see 500# -- it sees a downward force of 1000# plus the weight of the lever itself.

Of course, in the case of a loader, we are not considering a single lever, but rather two arms. As the centre of your beam deflects due to the applied load between them, twisting forces are applied to the arms. Weight evenly distributed across the full width of a bucket applies minimal twisting force compared to a concentrated load applied at a point equidistant between the arms. (This may have been Wolfman's concern here -- same weight, but concentrated rather than distributed)

And that's just the static side of the equations. A tractor isn't of much use just sitting there doing arm curls. We want the tractor to move that weight from one place to another which introduces dynamic loads. When you hit a bump on the travel path, the load is no longer against 1g -- the vertical acceleration increases as the front tires hit the bump, reduces as the front tire passes over the bump and increases again when they get to the bottom of the bump. The arms, the towers, etc. etc. down to that single little bolt holding the front axle to the tractor all have to withstand a multiple of the static load.

The trap that some have fallen into is to take the measured maximum lift at the pins and consider this to be the capacity of the loader bucket (or pallet forks). That's more of an issue for somebody like me, that is building a loader from scratch. But we have seen many a thread to the effect of "Kubota says this can lift 750 lbs, but I couldn't lift a 500# pallet off the truck bed until I cranked up the pressure with shims".

In your case, Kubota's engineers already did the math for that bucket, full of dirt, on those loader arms. You are simply altering the attachment point in a manner that does not substantially change the distance between the bucket and pins. As long as you stay within the design criteria, I don't foresee any problems. EG: do your test using weight distributed across the bottom of the bucket, or at least use 2 chains, one near each arm and each lifting 1/2 the weight load. But you will need to be mindful of this and derate the lift capacity accordingly if and when you build pallet forks.
 
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InTheWoods

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I had to take a statics class and was crap at it. I managed to avoid dynamics. So I have a little understanding of this type of mechanical design. I've read the LA302 manual, and understand the diagrams showing lifting force limitations, at least to a first degree.

My intended use case is as I described - throw a chain over the 2x3 cross member (I'd keep it centered) and lift things. I think I'm generally aware of what could go wrong if a guy attempted to pull horizontally with this setup. That's what the back drawbar is for.

I don't intend to come across as an annoying know-it-all, or too stubborn to make a change. But if there's a problem with my design, it'd be nice to have the details explained so I can make a reasoned assessment.

The comments here have been great - I'm glad to receive them, and hope they continue.
 

Smokeydog

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Good to see a fellow fabricator journey. Adapted a large farm tractor to ssqa 30 years ago to use skidsteer grapple with rear remotes. Still using the same grapple with more modern tractors. Greatly enhanced usefulness.

Good eye for details. Mistakes often lead to discoveries. Custom for your use the reward.
 
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torch

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My intended use case is as I described - throw a chain over the 2x3 cross member (I'd keep it centered) and lift things. I think I'm generally aware of what could go wrong if a guy attempted to pull horizontally with this setup. That's what the back drawbar is for.
Most of us do that, in a sense. That's what bucket hooks are for, after all. The advantage of a bucket hook is two-fold. First, the bucket itself is a strong structural member tying the two arms together. Second, the hook ensures that the chain stays centred. Wrapping the chain around the crossbar introduces the possibility of the chain sliding sideways if the bar is off-level. It can happen -- soil gives way or the rear end lifts off and the tractor pivots on the front axle bolt, etc. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.
 
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InTheWoods

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...Wrapping the chain around the crossbar introduces the possibility of the chain sliding sideways if the bar is off-level....
That's a very good point, and I'll plan on some simple feature to keep the chain centered.
 

North Idaho Wolfman

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I'm not certain which forces Wolfman was thinking of, but his statement is correct. Dynamic forces such as acceleration and static forces such as leverage all play a role in the loads placed on the arms.

Yes, you can apply a weight, evenly distributed and come up with a maximum static load that the arms can overcome "at the pins". But a bucket or pallet load is not applied at the pins. The centre of gravity is at some point beyond the pins and that additional leverage means additional force required to lift the same weight. Even if the CoG is centered on the pins, the forces applied on the arms varies though the lift range, as the travel path is a curve and because the angle of the cylinder to the arm changes as the arms raise.

Leverage has another effect too. Consider a simple balance of a single, horizontal straight lever, centered on a fulcrum. To balance a 500# load at 1g on one end of the lever requires a downward force of 500# at 1g on the opposite end. But the fulcrum does not see 500# -- it sees a downward force of 1000# plus the weight of the lever itself.

Of course, in the case of a loader, we are not considering a single lever, but rather two arms. As the centre of your beam deflects due to the applied load between them, twisting forces are applied to the arms. Weight evenly distributed across the full width of a bucket applies minimal twisting force compared to a concentrated load applied at a point equidistant between the arms. (This may have been Wolfman's concern here -- same weight, but concentrated rather than distributed)

And that's just the static side of the equations. A tractor isn't of much use just sitting there doing arm curls. We want the tractor to move that weight from one place to another which introduces dynamic loads. When you hit a bump on the travel path, the load is no longer against 1g -- the vertical acceleration increases as the front tires hit the bump, reduces as the front tire passes over the bump and increases again when they get to the bottom of the bump. The arms, the towers, etc. etc. down to that single little bolt holding the front axle to the tractor all have to withstand a multiple of the static load.

The trap that some have fallen into is to take the measured maximum lift at the pins and consider this to be the capacity of the loader bucket (or pallet forks). That's more of an issue for somebody like me, that is building a loader from scratch. But we have seen many a thread to the effect of "Kubota says this can lift 750 lbs, but I couldn't lift a 500# pallet off the truck bed until I cranked up the pressure with shims".

In your case, Kubota's engineers already did the math for that bucket, full of dirt, on those loader arms. You are simply altering the attachment point in a manner that does not substantially change the distance between the bucket and pins. As long as you stay within the design criteria, I don't foresee any problems. EG: do your test using weight distributed across the bottom of the bucket, or at least use 2 chains, one near each arm and each lifting 1/2 the weight load. But you will need to be mindful of this and derate the lift capacity accordingly if and when you build pallet forks.
Thanks
You said it way better than I was going to! ;)
 

InTheWoods

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Todays update - I'm finished hacking up the bucket with the angle grinder. I had to cut back the reinforcing brace a bit:
1707522279643.png


Then put a cutout in the bottom 'lip' piece to accommodate the SSQA pin. It's 1/4 x 3" stock.
1707522360496.png


And here's the bucket with the bottom lip plate and reinforcement plates tack-welded up:
1707536383670.png


I put the bucket on the SSQA adapter, and it looks decent - no glaring issues, but there's some fine tuning needed to get the 'gap' between the back of the bucket and the front of the latch plate set properly. It looks like the ISO standard says there is supposed to be a gap, but I don't have access to the full spec and don't know what the gap ought to be.
1707536811489.png
 
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North Idaho Wolfman

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Todays update - I'm finished hacking up the bucket with the angle grinder. I had to cut back the reinforcing brace a bit:
View attachment 122076

Then put a cutout in the bottom 'lip' piece to accommodate the SSQA pin. It's 1/4 x 3" stock.
View attachment 122077

And here's the bucket with the bottom lip plate and reinforcement plates tack-welded up:
View attachment 122085

I put the bucket on the SSQA adapter, and it looks decent - no glaring issues, but there's some fine tuning needed to get the 'gap' between the back of the bucket and the front of the latch plate set properly. It looks like the ISO standard says there is supposed to be a gap, but I don't have access to the full spec and don't know what the gap ought to be.
View attachment 122087
1/8" to 3/16" is normal
Keeps the bucket tight
 
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