I've been working on a couple of projects, one being the hyd. hose holder for the grapple.
It's all fabricated with "stiff" I had laying around. My original goal was to have the hardware attached to the grapple, to keep the hoses in the clear to prevent any pinching, and to be off the tractor when the grapple was removed.
The spring is about 1" in dia. with good tension. I cut it to about 10" long. The rod is 1/4" round. I bent it around a piece of steel pipe while in a vice. The circular piece that holds it all to the loader was cut out of a piece of pipe and modified to fit. It's all held to the loader with a radiator clamp.
I tried several methods, lengths, ideas of mounting and none seemed "just right". I then tried clamping the spring extension to the loader tubing that times the quick attach plates. That worked real nice, but when I removed the grapple I had to pull the hoses through the loop and then the loop was still there.
So the final adaptation was to clamp a piece holding a quick disconnect to the same tubing on the loader. Then I just disconnect the fitting and the entire spring set-up stays with the grapple. I'm just using a hose clamp to hold the base of the set-up on now. It could be welded or screwed to attach.
(Got the idea of some kind of quick attachment from North Idaho Wolfman!)
It's all fabricated with "stiff" I had laying around. My original goal was to have the hardware attached to the grapple, to keep the hoses in the clear to prevent any pinching, and to be off the tractor when the grapple was removed.
The spring is about 1" in dia. with good tension. I cut it to about 10" long. The rod is 1/4" round. I bent it around a piece of steel pipe while in a vice. The circular piece that holds it all to the loader was cut out of a piece of pipe and modified to fit. It's all held to the loader with a radiator clamp.
I tried several methods, lengths, ideas of mounting and none seemed "just right". I then tried clamping the spring extension to the loader tubing that times the quick attach plates. That worked real nice, but when I removed the grapple I had to pull the hoses through the loop and then the loop was still there.
So the final adaptation was to clamp a piece holding a quick disconnect to the same tubing on the loader. Then I just disconnect the fitting and the entire spring set-up stays with the grapple. I'm just using a hose clamp to hold the base of the set-up on now. It could be welded or screwed to attach.
(Got the idea of some kind of quick attachment from North Idaho Wolfman!)
