freeman trip loader conversion to hydraulics

[John Seasly]

Need some help from anyone who has converted the trip bucket to hydraulic control. I need to know cylinder placement and length. Would appreciate any pictures or drawing of the conversion. John

 

[Bob]

Take a look (and some measurements) of how hydraulics were set up on other old loaders.

 

[SCHMUCK 2]

You can use most any cylinder you want depending on bracket construction and placement, but if you use a cylinder with a small diameter, or even a larger diameter cylinder with a short stroke, the bucket will move fast enough to make it hard to get it set where you want. A pair of cylinders hooked in parallel will help, since you have just doubled the cylinder volume as well as doubled the power available for tilting the bucket, but of course, you will increase your cost with 2 cylinders. It really isn't as hard as you might think to figure out what you need to build for brackets using the trial and error method, I've done it a couple of times to put lift arms on log splitters.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Planning on doing the same thing to our trip bucket Freeman. Watch your geometry closely - you might have to change the pivot point on the bucket. I noticed that on our loader, if I simply welded/bolted on a cyl (or two), the bucket probably won't swing down enough to fully dump when the lift arms are raised high.

I then looked at newer loaders and noticed that the pivot points are generally much lower, as well as being behind the buckets. And moving that pivot point down & behind will let a cyl fully dump the bucket.

A drawback for moving the pivot points to behind the bucket - while keeping the old trip bucket lift arms - is that the bucket now sits that much farther out in front, and the lever action means that you'll lose traction faster/be able to pick up less load. I haven't decided yet whether to cut & re-weld the lift arms. Yes, at some point I'd be better off buying a ready-to-go decent loader - with a wide bucket! - but I have fun burning holes in perfectly good pieces of metal.

 

[buickanddeere]

(quoted from post at 20:48:16 10/31/10) Need some help from anyone who has converted the trip bucket to hydraulic control. I need to know cylinder placement and length. Would appreciate any pictures or drawing of the conversion. John

How much $$$ do you have to spend? How much time and what tools/shop equipment are at hand?

 

[Keith-OR]

Here is a bucket that I built and switched from trip to hydraulic on a Freeman loader.

<a href="http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e329/Keith-OR/?action=view&current=Loaderbucket2.jpg" target="_blank">

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<a href="http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e329/Keith-OR/?action=view&current=CaseBucket3.jpg" target="_blank">

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Keith & Shawn(Gold Medal Winner)

 

[SCHMUCK 2]

Nice job. I'll be glad when I have the time to do that.

 

[MikeinKy]

I converted one a few years ago. I just welded a cyl. bracket to the center of the bucket and one on the loader frame behind it and I needed a cylinder with a 16" stroke to work right.