A loader for the Ford 850 from bits and pieces

[vtsteam]

Well now that the engine is running on the old Ford 850, and the backhoe works, it's time to give it a loader up front.

When purchased it had a weird truck snow plow attachment on the loader arms which had been modified by the owner. The whole rig was a mile long, and I have no Idea how he maneuvered with that. When I asked where the original bucket was, he said he had discarded it. He was a professional welder, so I'm a bit confused about how bad it could have been.

Anyway, he said he had a second set of arms and another bucket to fit, he just hadn't put them on. I received those with the tractor.

Like everything else about this purchase, he left out a few rather important details. Like the arms were from a different loader, and wouldn't fit this tractor loader frame. When I started work on the tractor, I scoured the parts for identification marks and eventually worked out that the loader frame and first set of modified arms were a Wagner WF3 loader, and the bucket and spare lift arms were from Ford Dearborn loader.

As purchased with snow plow and shortened and modified Wagner arms:



The other arms -- Ford Dearborn type:



And the matching bucket:

[vtsteam]

When I first considered this problem a few years ago, I thought maybe the Ford arms would fit the Wagner frame with some simple modifications. They were the same width and the structural tubing was the same diameter.

So I removed the Wagner arms and positioned the Ford arms to check fit. Unfortunately I soon realized that though many dimensions matched, the Ford arms were designed for hydraulic cylinders placed far back on th chassis -- near the rear wheel axle. The Wagner arms were designed for cylindrs positioned further forward at bout the level of the foot pedals. And there was no easy way to modify the Ford arms for a different piston attach point, or the Wagner frame for a different cylinder attach point.

The Wagner arms were in much worse shape than the Ford arms -- they had been cut short, and a heavy cross member welded in. After taking the arms off and turning them over I saw major damage, cracks and shoddy welded repairs on the bottom:

[vtsteam]

Fast forward a few years to today. Thinking the old problem over. The Ford arms had some surface rust, but were otherwise perfect. They used a dual cylinder bucket tilt system with a very heavy tubular cross member. All of the hydraulic cylinders and hoses were present. The arms looked quite good and well designed.

The Wagner had originally had a single cylinder, and it's support system and cross members were really in poor shape, as seen in the photo above.

What to do?  Yesterday I hit on the idea of cutting out all of the Wagner's cross member structure, and grafting the Ford's tube ends to the Wagner's tube ends. The portion of the Ford tubes containing its cross member structure and cylinders and bucket attachment would be grafted onto the Wagner tubes. This would be possible because he tubing is the same size for both sets of arms and the spacing is the same within about a half inch.

So today I started cutting the Wagner cross structure out:

[vtsteam]

One arm free:

[vtsteam]

Center section fully dismembered:

[vtsteam]

Next step was to position the arms back on the tractor.

Here the right arm is back on it's pivot and the hydraulic cylinder attached. I will do the same for the left arm. This is where I finished for today.

My plan is to cut off the Ford tubes leaving plenty of extra length for the bucket end, and position them with the bucket and hydraulic tilt cylinders here in front of the tractor to make a final decision on length and position. Then prepare the ends and weld them together.

This is definitely a MadModders topic!  +  =

[awemawson]

Oh boy Steve, you've given yourself a job and a half there!

Are you going to reinforce the tube weld with an internal slip fit tube or just butt them together? Quite a lot of stress on that weld.

[vtsteam]

Sleeving Andrew, for sure. Ran out of oxy yesterday, and the supplier didn't have an exchange tank today, so can't do any more carnage until tomorrow.

[vtsteam]

It's been raining for a couple of days now, but just before that I managed to cut apart the Ford Dearborn arms and drag the end and the bucket up to the tractor. So here are the three parts I hope to meld together into one working loader -- if the rain ever stops....

[vtsteam]

After locating the pins for the bucket today in storage and taking a more careful look at the Ford arms, I realized the bucket pivot bushings in the tubes were shot. They were supposed to be 1" bushings, but they were widened out to 1-3/8" and chipped or broken:

[vtsteam]

So I decided to grind them flush, and then use a die grinder to remove the old bushing.

[vtsteam]

Turned out I didn't need the grinder to get the old bushings out -- the welds hadn't penetrated the tube arms, so I was able to knock the bushings out with a punch and chisel:

[vtsteam]

This turned out to be a lot easier than I'd thought (so far!)

[vtsteam]

I cleaned the inside of the bore to 1-7/16" with a die grinder -- it was just a bit undersized to start -- oval -- probably from work loads.

[vtsteam]

Lester, my local OldeTyme machine shop supplier couldn't find any 1-7/16" OD x 1" ID DOM tubing -- I wasn't surprised, but he seemed to think it was a possibility so we searched through ancient piles of cutoffs strewn amongst the old mchnes for 10 minutes before giving up.

Instead I bought a couple of chunks of cold rolled to make bushings from. They were a tight fit in the 3" arm pipes:

[vtsteam]

With the bushings and holes sized and fit checked, it was time to make swarf out of all the nice metal in the middle of the bushings.

About 2/3 the way through this one, my daughter knocked on the door of the shed and said dinner was in ten minutes. So it was time to clean up, and that's where i left things for today.

[vtsteam]

Bushings finished. I put them in the arms, and ran a rod between them to make sure they stayed in line. Tack welded them, then pulled the rod (didn't want to trap it), and welded the bushings all round.

Cleaned up the spatter, then I reamed them 1.003" in place. Had a nice slip fit over the pins. Just as I was finishing again the messenger for supper time arrived, and we called it a day. Feels like we're on our way!
 

[Manxmodder]

Hi Steve,just wondering how this hybrid front loader is looking now.....OZ.(definitely a plan B)

[vtsteam]

Well Oz, embarrassed to say it was looking a lot heavier after the lower arm assembly dropped onto my foot while I was shifting things into position to see how short I should cut it back. Hopped around cursing myself in order to ignore the pain for a few minutes until I could catch my breath. Limped up to the house and got the boot off, and got an ice bag onto it -- two toes mainly took the hit.

Kept ice on all evening, then took aspirin and put on antiseptic ointment where the hide rubbed off a little. Looked surprisingly good the next morning, no toes apparently broken, no black and blue, a little swelling that's all, and most of the pain gone. Took it easy the next day, didn't walk around -- sat, read and yapped here probably too much but I was bored sitting still!

Today I was right again -- lucky, the boots saved me, and the ice prevented swelling damage -- up and about. But my lovely and kind wife hinted that since all was well, I ought to put the beaded tongue and groove ceiling up in the bathroom as promised a couple weeks ago -- apparently she was tired of having the lumber stacked up in  the living room all that time. Can you imagine? 

So I played carpenter this afternoon got the stuff up -- moved the light fixture, too -- looks quite nice if I do say so myself -- and I've bought myself more time on the tractor.

So tomorrow.......    And I'll watch where I put my feet this time!

[vtsteam]

So here's a couple things I'm mulling over, preparing for joining the arms tomorrow (if the weather allows):

1.) How long should I make the arms?

Shorter is all around better, assuming it clears the hood ornament!

But --- if I make it short, I won't get much back tilt on the bucket when it's down. Plenty of forward dump. But the geometry doesn't allow much movement the other way. I don't know if this is acceptable, or usual. Lifting the whole arm, naturally does tilt the bucket back the higher it goes. But at ground level, back tilt is limited.

2.) Sleeving the inside -- how to weld it? I was thinking of putting the sleeve half way up, inside the upper tube arm, welding it around, grinding the weld to clean up, then slipping the lower tube over the sleeve, leaving a small gap to the upper tube, then welding that, and thereby filling the gap.

But I'm open to suggestions from better welders than I am.

[mattinker]

Steve,

The length is a hard one, difficult to know!

To weld the sleeves in place, I would drill 1/2" holes, staggered around the outer tubes and plug weld, that way you can weld  them close to their ends where the weld can give most strength.

Regards, Matthew

[Manxmodder]

Steve,it goes without saying that the plugs to fit inside the tubes will want to be as snug a fit as you can manage,this increases the strength and load capability of the joint immensely.

I buy in to Matt's idea of including some plug welds to prevent any fretting movement of the plugs inside the tubes.

Looking at you photo in reply #8 I would completely remove the short steel webbing ribs that are stitch welded to the top outer ends of the arms on the tractor and after the two sets of tube ends have been set up on the plugs and welded all the way round I would cut some new webbing ribs to extend right over the tube weld joints and stitch weld them similarly to the originals. These ribs are what will take a lot of the tension load when the bucket is full so really need to be as one piece rathe than trying to butt weld an extension onto the existing ones.

As far as judging the best length for the arms I would suggest maybe planning on tack welding the assembly together sufficiently to be strong enough to fire the tractor up and give the bucket a trial lift.

This way you should be able to judge if you need to grind the tack welds of and shorten the arms more or if they look ok from the initial trial then set about welding them up permanently.

My experience with making hybrid fork lift attachments and loaders for tractors in the past has always required the  need for a little experimentation of this nature.

If the arms are a bit overly long to start with they can easily be shortened to a more suitable geometry,but if they're cut too short then     ......OZ.

[vtsteam]

Thanks kindly, Matt and Oz.

I was wondering about plug welds. Didn't know if it would become a stress riser on top and bottom skins. Or at least if mine would! But if you think not, seems like a good idea.

Oz, I don't have a picture of it yet but I had already cut the upper arm tubes back a foot further than the older photo in post #8 to get rid of all the weirdness welded together at the bottom.

I had left about 6" of the upper webbing intact, past the cut. I just cut the tube away from it. I figured the webbing would extend over the new tube and be welded there -- so I think that's similar to what you were suggesting.

The 1" dia tie rod over the upper tube was left full length. It will weld into the gusset on the lower arms just like the thinner flat tie rods that they had originally.  And I will locate them on the gussets in the same location that the originals were.

The tubes as best I can guess are 2-1/2" nominal std which I believe makes them 2.875" dia. OD actual, and .203" wall thickness. So lessee, that's  2.469" ID.

I think I actually measured less, but will have to double check tomorrow. This is early fifties pipe, and it's not easy to guess at actual dimensions from current pipe charts.

2" modern sch 40 pipe is supposed to be 2.375 OD, so I was thinking to use that as the sleeve inside the other -- I'll have to check the fit in reality. The fit might be actually a little tight depending on whether there is a seam in the larger stuff. I can file that back if there is -- or maybe there isn't one.

I guess all this stuff will depend on seeing what is actually there and trying it. If it's too loose I'll have to probably go to solid, turned plug -- but hope not to have to do that.

[awemawson]

Steve, sorry to hear about the toes - you were of course wearing your Toetector safety boots   

If you go solid for your inner joining pieces you will be adding a lot of weight. Can you not find a pipe that is marginally too large and slice it along it's length like a roll pin to make it fit. Tap it half an inch or so into one tube then weld the cut - making a tube that is exactly the right size.

[mattinker]

Steve, sorry to hear about the toes - you were of course wearing your Toetector safety boots   

If you go solid for your inner joining pieces you will be adding a lot of weight. Can you not find a pipe that is marginally too large and slice it along it's length like a roll pin to make it fit. Tap it half an inch or so into one tube then weld the cut - making a tube that is exactly the right size.

Steve,

if you split the inner pipe, use a line of three or four holes in the outer to plug weld and weld the inner split tube at the same time!

Regards, Matthew