Loader-Mounted Backhoe Shifts Back And Forth

Loader-Mounted Backhoe Shifts Back And Forth TRACTORS Loaders 29-1-43 "I can put it on in a couple of minutes and take it off just as quick when I need the loader for other jobs," says Tom Houska, Mahnomen, Minn, who built a loader-mounted backhoe to fit his Kubota 50 hp tractor. Houska's backhoe works like one on a skid steer loader but with one big difference - the boom can be hydraulically shifted from side to side along a 6 1/2-ft. wide mounting bracket, which was originally designed for a loader-mounted round bale fork. This lateral-move feature provides two advantages. It gives the operator a better view of the digging, and it makes it easy to dig up close to buildings and fences. He used 3/8-in. thick plate steel to make the bucket, which is 14 in. wide at the bottom and 12 in. wide at the top. The bucket is opened and closed by a big 4-in. dia. hydraulic cylinder and has a cutting edge taken from an old road grader, with a pair of notches cut into it. The bucket attaches to a boom made from 6-in. heavy wall pipe that's boxed on both sides with channel iron. The boom hooks up to quick tach brackets on the mounting plate. A pair of 3-ft. long pivoting steel "hooks" mount along both sides of the boom. The hooks can be dropped down and used by themselves for extra digging ability. Or, the hooks can be swung forward and hooked up to linkage that's connected to the back side of the bucket. Both the bucket and hooks can then be used together like a clam bucket. "It works great for a wide variety of jobs. I can use it to do everything from dig trenches to tearing down buildings and picking up the debris," says Houska. "I already had most of the material that I used to build it. I like using a backhoe better on this tractor than on a skid loader because I can use the tractor's foot-controlled hydrostatic transmission to go forward or backward without having to stop. The backhoe has to be mounted on one side or the other because I'm not able to see it over the tractor's hood. "The 4-in. bucket cylinder gives the bucket a lot of digging power. It'll cut right through 6-in. tree roots." Houska says most of the time he uses just the bucket to dig trenches or to dig out a tree stump or rocks. However, the hooks come in handy at times. "For example, if I want to dig out a sidewalk I can use just the bucket to loosen up the concrete. Once the concrete is loose I get off the tractor and drop the two hooks down. Then I hook the bucket on the far side of the cement slab and put the two hooks on the near side and close up the bucket. One time I used the hooks and bucket together to pick up wood blocks and tin after I tore down a building and load it into a trailer," he says. Houska also uses the same bale fork mounting plate to operate a 5-ft. wide, home-built brush mower. By pulling a 7-ft. Farm King mower behind the tractor at the same time he can mow up to 12 ft. wide at a time. The mower, which was originally designed to be pto-driven, is operated by a hydraulic motor that mounts on top of the deck. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Tom Houska, 2068 210th Ave., Mahnomen, Minn. 56557 (ph 218 935-5762).

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