Hydraulic stay for grapple

[doobin]

I've had this grapple for years. Was the first thing I bought (by chance, wanted a land rake and got talked into this too, thanks Vinny @ Veemac!) when I bought my old digger in 2011. It's made me more money than every other bucket I own put together. Plenty of folk told me it needed to be hardox, blah blah blah, it wouldn't last five minutes, spend 1k plus... Guess what? I bent it just once, on one bar. As I know how to weld it was fixed in ten and I've only had to build the tips up once too.

Here's a useful, cheap and simple mod. Hydraulic stay bar. Took a fair bit of playing around to get the geometry right, you will almost certainly have to move both the arm clevis and the grab clevis to stop things hitting, and don't forget to check it with the ram both open and closed with the grapple both open and closed!

It's like night and day. I've never put the fixed bar back, although I made one as a spare in case the ram got damaged. So much easier to pick things up close or far.

 

[doobin]

A couple of years ago I bored the join out and added bushes. Useful mod.

Then I made up another jib clevis when I got the new digger.

 

[Mogman]

Looks a good job doobin, I made one to fit on my pals Takeuchi but is fitted all the time

Not got a proper picture but you can see it folded back on the dipper, the best thing he’s had made so he tells me

 

[Dr pecker]

Good job, just been asked to fit a hydraulic stay on a grapple I supplied a few months ago. Did you just plug in to the 2way aux circuit to power the cylinder chaps?

 

[Mogman]

Good job, just been asked to fit a hydraulic stay on a grapple I supplied a few months ago. Did you just plug in to the 2way aux circuit to power the cylinder chaps?

That’s what I did them turn a couple of taps to power the breaker

 

[doobin]

Yes, mine is on a rocker switch on the joystick so it's really intuative and nice to use.

 

[TiltyShaun]

Before I purchased the Tilty I had a manual thumb. Biggest regret was not getting a hydraulic one!! When the tilty was fitted I was advised to take it off, which I did, thinking it would be back on in a day or two. It has been off for all but a few hours. But in fairness, if I was back on a conventional bucket it would be back on in a flash.