Recent content by BradBlazer

I'm moving this post from the tail end of my backhoe thread: I saw the green fence stretcher while visiting my brother and I liked the design so much I wanted to make my own. I used two cam levers to clamp the fence for stretching instead of the screws on the original one. It works really well...

You asked for it... I saw the green fence stretcher while visiting my brother and I liked the design so much I wanted to make my own. I used two cam levers to clamp the fence for stretching instead of the screws on the original one. It works really well. I've put up about 4000ft of fence with...

Hi Brandi, No BIG projects yet although I do have some more trenching and clearing planned. I did trench about 50 feet for an RV connection and did some ditch clearing. The backhoe works well. I took it off the tractor last month* and that went well too. The fit of the pins didn't seem to...

Brandi, Sorry I didn't check back until now. Thanks for the concern (and the hugs) That Bradco is pretty similar in size to my unit: http://www.swdistributing.com/purple/b4.html I don't have the full specs for mine - still waiting for the free manual promised by Ameriquip. I did a shear...

You could put a pressure gauge right on the hydraulic jack or any hydraulic device. You can calculate the force using pressure, area, and geometry or just use some weightlifting weights to calibrate it. At one time I had a surplus 5000lb pallet scale. I calibrated it with weightlifting weights...

Thanks for the comments guys. :wave:

It got dark on me but I played around with it a little. I had a bunch of old plastic mulch that had been dumped in the ditch that I wanted to get rid of so I dug a big hole and buried it. Being wet and dirty it would have been a huge chore if I took it to the "convenience site." It's not in the...

As an added safety, I added a drawbar support. I used a holesaw to make the pin hole in a piece of 1x3 solid bar. The little holes were already there. They did give the shavings a place to go while sawing. I cut a little off so it could be inserted with the hoe in place and welded on a hook ...

Some assembled pictures: The rear wheels are just off the ground. The non-pivoting feet dug in and prevented lifting any higher. As a test I did extend the boom and let it jerk a little with the stabilizers up and the connection seems rock solid. No noise out of the connection. The...

Here is the adapter. It was too rainy to use real paint so I used the rattle-can black fast-drying Wal-Mart paint. That strange pocket in the top link support bar is where I cut off the 2x8" tubing you can see. (used steel, what can I say?) Here it is ready to mount to the backhoe. The...

After welding, I painted the left rail and got it bolted on. Yahoo it fit!

I used the portable band saw and grinder to notch the 2x4 tube to the match the loader tower tube and clamped them in place to get the position figured out. I used a transfer punch to mark the holes. I think two 180,000psi 1/2" shcs should be plenty. The plan was to get everything where...

Fitting to the tractor. I carved some brackets out of 8x6x1/2" angle iron to attach the rails to the rear axle. I measured the diameter of the loader tube (5.555" on the "band mic") and cut the front end off the other rail to make the weld-on bracket. I also cut an 8" piece of 3x5x1/2" angle...

I wanted a quick-attach feature that would not interfere with the 3-point. This is what I came up with. The idea is for the rail part on the left to be permanently attached to the tractor (one on each side) with the adapter on the right attached to the backhoe. Back the tractor up, raise the...

I bought this backhoe used about 14 months ago and finally finished the subframe for it. Here is a video from right after I bought it trying out the hydraulics with it hooked up to the 3-point. It's pretty easy to see why I want a subframe mount. Before making the subframe I replaced 1 bad...