A bit of loader work

[thebuildist]

I had a dead tree fall down in a storm the other night. I was very fortunate it didn't hit anything. I knew it was dead, but I didn't realize how far gone it was.

Nothing to do now but clean it up.

I could go through and cut it into little pieces and haul it with the wheelbarrow, but where's the fun in that?

So I installed the loader (about 10 minutes. The lefthand lock pin was being extra stubborn. I may have to ream out that pin boss a bit.) and the 3 point counterweight (about 5 minutes to remove the ripper bar/ball hitch adapter and wiggle the big concrete chunk into place)

And then I installed the grapple (about 5 minutes, most of it spent cleaning grit and leaf debris out the female QD's for the third function. I'm going to go ahead and buy some rubber plugs for them)

And then had some fun:


Picking up the medium sized pieces was easy to do, though I'm still developing skill in using the bucket and grapple controls.

But the big 20 foot log was a bit stubborn.

The loader had no trouble picking it up, but the rear wheels lost traction once I did. It's tempting to add to my rear counterweight, but I don't know at what point I'll damage my new front axle and tires.

At any rate, I decided to just drag it, and that worked just fine.

Once I got the log close to its destination I was able to pick it up and drop it about where I wanted it.

And as long as I had the loader out, I went ahead and took care of a chore I've been needing done for a bit. I have a 7x12 trailer that I'm going to be rehabbing, installing a new tongue to allow the bed to tilt backward, and adding a 2-ft. dovetail. All this should make it far easier to load a car onto it. But to do all that, I need to park it down near my shop, and there's no way to back it through the tight quarters using my truck. So it's loader to the rescue.

I simply picked up the tongue with the bucket, hooked the safety chains to the bucket's chain hooks, and drove it right on down into place.

Nothing super amazing, but nearly impossible to do without my little helper.

Bob

[Eugen]

Bob, awesome! And I know how busy you are, so it's good to hear from you again!

I'm a little jealous of your grapple, so you know. Great example how useful our little machines are!

[JSinMO]

Looks like some fun seat time Bob! After all the work you did it’s good to see you get to enjoy using it!

[MattA]

Looks like fun Bob. You did a great job building your loader.

[THEOTHERHALF]

Hi Bob, I really enjoy seeing the pictures of your case-ingersoll in action, I always wanted 1 of these loaders but have a couple articulating wheel loaders that stop me from getting 1,maybe when I retire that will happen ? till then thanks for the pictures ! Kyle