B6100 w/ Loader+Backhoe

[Vigo]

The hardest part was getting started! I've found that the best way to accelerate a project is cross 'the point of no return' as quickly as possible. Like, if i left the dipper on the tractor i could always wuss out. If i took it off the tractor i could put it back on. But once i cut it in half, now i have to fix it!

That'll be next, pics of chopping it in half on a bandsaw. Im on a work computer so that'll have to wait til i have time at home to post.

Also, if you think that bucket is bad, JUST WAIT. The bucket this backhoe came with was so much worse!!

 

[Vigo]

So here's the offending region before disassembly:

Now with bucket links off showing the fully seized pin which resisted all efforts short of getting the whole dipper arm glowing red.

After i verified that a 3x3x0.25 (maybe 3/16? cant remember) square tube i had was going to work, it's to the bandsaw.

Here's the dipper after making an additional few cuts with an angle grinder.

Here's the basic idea of how it was gonna lay in there:

But before i could lay it in there, lots of steps. One thing, gotta knock down the weld seam im laying that 3x3 on top of:

Luckily enough a sufficiently worn 4.5" angle grinder cutoff wheel will tuck right in there. I like to get my money's worth on these wheels..

One of the things i needed to figure out was whether i would be able to scrounge the pin sleeves from the old dipper, or have to come up with my own. I determined that even if i cut the sleeves out from the inside of the old dipper, it would still protrude just about the right amount beyond the walls of the 3x3" tube.

Then, time to take a closer look.

 

[Vigo]

So the empty sleeve cut out of there like nothing, no story there. The one with the seized pin in it.. cut out with a seized pin still in it. I knew i'd be able to get the pin out by cutting a slot through the sleeve lengthways and hammering in punches to spread the sleeve off the pin. Once i broke it loose i was able to push it out with the press.

But now i've got a sleeve with a slot in the side. I had a feeling i could weld this back up by:

• putting a 'small' 1" pin in, wrapping a bunch of turns of aluminum foil around it so the sleeve wouldn't weld to it
• squeezing the sleeve 'tight' to the degree possible
• welding the seam back up and letting it shrink just a bit.

Should result in a tighter (if not perfectly round) and 'usable' sleeve, plus it just seemed like an interesting theory to test (especially the foil..).

Again i used a 'pin' which was a section i had cut out of a bent up rock bar. Small enough that i could wrap some foil around it and still not have it be bigger than a 'real' 1" pin.

And after some welding...

So there it is. Probably with some molten aluminum mixed into the seriously undercut flux core weld, but my favorite saying is 'good enough is good enough' and i was able to easily pop the undersize pin out of it and after a little running of a 1" flap disc through it, it was ready. Here are the two sleeves test fit into the 16" bucket from my BL4520.

Once i had measured these at just under 1.25" OD, i took the 3x3" to a drill press (not mine, i need one) and drilled the holes i needed for the sleeves, and somehow lost every single pic but this:

 

[tsp159]

Progress is progress! I've been waiting for it to get below 100°F and 99% humidity before starting my loader rebuild. The dry air we got yesterday sure made that 95°F high yesterday feel real good!

Thanks for the continued progress updates!

 

[Vigo]

Once i had the sleeves welded into the 3x3, i could weld the 3x3 to the dipper arm. I had the foresight to drill the 3x3 for the grease fitting access of the 'inner' pin before welding the sleeve in. The 'bucket' pin sleeve was so close to the open end of the 3x3 that it had its grease fitting access right there. After welding those sleeves in, i welded the 3x3 into the dipper.

I cut a bunch of slots and triangles to 'merge' the two sides together without having to 'cap' anything or install any plates to cover gaps. I wanted a little more 'grip' at the end of the 3x3 than what the welds on the other side were going to give me (keep in mind this is all mental guesswork by a guy with nothing REAL to point to to justify how he was thinking) I did 2 plug welds up near the end of the 3x3.

And here's how it looked on the bottom.

I cut triangles out of the sides of the 3x3 and hammered down the end to transition it into the original dipper arm a little more nicely. I also left the original sheetmetal on the dipper arm a little 'long' there so i could bend it up/outwards to 'meet' the bent-in 3x3.

Had to lop some extraneous width off this bucket linkage part that i dont know the name of. I did make some minor effort to square up sloppy cuts, but.. not too much.

And here's a terrible terrible pic of the first time it was 'fully back together' with that 16" bucket on it. I never used it that way (16" bucket kinda too big for this) but as a test fit, well.. it fit!

 

[Tranberg]

Fixed

 

[Lil Foot]

What he said.

 

[Vigo]

Sorry guys, when i opened my laptop just now it still had that post open as if i was editing it. I'm guessing that if the post is open for editing by the poster that it makes the pics unavailable? Just a guess. It should be working now!

 

[tsp159]

Sorry guys, when i opened my laptop just now it still had that post open as if i was editing it. I'm guessing that if the post is open for editing by the poster that it makes the pics unavailable? Just a guess. It should be working now!

Much better now! Thanks for continuing to share this project.

 

[Vigo]

I also welded shaft collars onto these bucket links which i also don't know the name for, to tighten up the worn holes.

This pic shows the precise degrees of WTS (waller'd ta shit-ness).

$2 shaft collars EVERYWHERE.

Tried to get them all square and parallel before tacking in place. With the wallowed holes if i had just welded them all separately there's a chance the center-to-center spacing between the holes wouldn't have matched, which would have put the pins in a bind.

This picture shows i did this before chopping the dipper arm.. but it also shows how sloppy that bucket was! That's next.

Please excuse the ENTIRE background of that pic. Just look at the bucket.

 

[Vigo]

So the hoe came with an 8" bucket which was absolutely HAMMERED!

Of course the pin holes were fully WTS.

The mount structure was starting to break away from the body of the bucket, which also started a decent crack on the left wall of the bucket here.

There's that crack.

The bottom and one side wall of the bucket were substantially swiss cheese.
Probably all due to a lack of drain holes!

Side view of the wall of the bucket that had already rusted through. It was quite thin all around that area.

 

[Vigo]

For a while i considered fully replacing the bucket with a $200 bucket from Northern Tool because they DO sell buckets for their towable hoe which will fit the "New and Improved" dipper arm after i modified it.

But then i decided that if the whole point of my taking on this project was to develop skills i'd like to use again (hopefully better by then!) i decided i should try and fix this bucket.

Luckily i had a nice little pile of metal from cutting up the dipper arm that would cover most of it.

Yeah, that's the ticket...

Something like this for the bottom. But they don't follow the curve of the bucket. So..

Had to find the pieces for a DIY 'press brake'.

Stand up the arbor plates, put the angle iron in the V notch, lay flat sheet across angle iron, put pipe on top, push on pipe, go slightly past the desired curve, release and.. voila. Perfecto

Do that 3 times, then cut out the majority of the bottom of the bucket.

That worked out well enough! Now what to do about the sidewalls..

Ooooh i got it! Cut two squares out of some old bed frame thing..

Then chop out the thinnest areas of the side walls and 'flush it in'. I think there's some magnets on the backside holding it up flush here.

Then weld it in. One per side. I cant remember if i flap-disced those welds down. This was the first time i ever tried to weld a patch panel in flush to anything so i feel like i knocked those welds down just to see it 'nice' so i could feel cool about doing it for the first time.

Here's the bits that had come out of the bucket when all that was said and done.

 

[Vigo]

So, on to fixing up the mounting brackets and pin holes.

I clamped this to close up the gap a little bit and then welded over every crack and gap from one side to the other, including the long crack in that left side wall.

When it came to tightening up pin holes, SHAFT COLLARS IT IS again, but wait.. uhh WHY are the brackets not centered on the bucket?!

Solution: Use shaft collars of different thickness on each side to make up for this rubbish. I had a couple of taller ones and i think i cut down some for the other side. Worked out pretty ok to center the bucket over the dipper arm.

When i fitted the bucket i wanted to 'test' it but i also didn't want to move the tractor so i just decided to dig up my driveway and put it back.

You can see various details here. Obviously the hose routing was still mostly external because i wasn't 'done done'. I had done lots of the prior repairs already by this pic but i had not for example put the dust boots on the swing cylinders. You can also see a white dust cover i had installed over the 'swing links' but i later spray painted those black so they didn't stand out so much.. Never painted that dipper though!! I had finished the outriggers and larger pads but the hairpins in there got replaced with something less easily snagged on later. The control tower was just loosely held onto the subframe with a couple of bolts, and i hadn't rebuilt/reinstalled the 'swing bumpers' or bumpstops which keep you from banging the arm into the subframe when you swing all the way to either side. I also hadn't rebuilt (actually totally replaced) the rotating seat base, so i was sitting on some metal box during this phase.

 

[NorthwoodsLife]

Wow. What a build thread.

 

[tsp159]

Wow. What a build thread.

Almost a regular backhoe of Theseus if you consider how literally everything on this poor rig has had to be redone!

 

[Vigo]

Yeah, it's a miracle this thing had so many 'extenuating circumstances' to make it justifiable (in MY mind.. at the time..) to sink so much work into bringing it back up.

If i was already comfortable and confident doing a lot of this work I probably wouldn't have wanted to do it so much, but i wanted to cut my teeth on doing a lot of this stuff anyway and having it be another of the same tractor i was already such a big fan of owning, plus being for a close friend, all contributed.

At the end of the day i can say it definitely accomplished the goal of making me get over the hump of doubt that i could do any/all of this. I knew that considering all my other skills/experience, that was a near-guaranteed result, but talk is cheap and i had to do it to fully let myself believe it. Not saying this thing turned out pretty!!! But it is 'mechanically restored' in many respects and when all was said and done, it went from being a pile of shit to being tight and functional.

When i finished it and got back on my ~900hr B8200 backhoe tractor (which, who knows how many of those hours are even on the hoe itself) which i thought was tight before, and it felt loose.. Well, i was a little sad for myself but i knew i'd accomplished a lot on this one.

This build thread is actually ALMOST over/caught up to present. I have a few more topics to write on that i HAVE pics to support, and then a list of things i managed to lose all the visual evidence of.. But it's getting close. Again, no pics on work computer but i'll be back at it shortly.. thanks for the interest and positivity.

 

[fried1765]

I also welded shaft collars onto these bucket links which i also don't know the name for, to tighten up the worn holes.

View attachment 111767
This pic shows the precise degrees of WTS (waller'd ta shit-ness).
View attachment 111768
$2 shaft collars EVERYWHERE.
View attachment 111769
View attachment 111770
Tried to get them all square and parallel before tacking in place. With the wallowed holes if i had just welded them all separately there's a chance the center-to-center spacing between the holes wouldn't have matched, which would have put the pins in a bind.

This picture shows i did this before chopping the dipper arm.. but it also shows how sloppy that bucket was! That's next.
View attachment 111771
Please excuse the ENTIRE background of that pic. Just look at the bucket.

I LIKE that background!
I have one very similar!