backhoe bucket quick attach

I can't seem to find the thread that had this conversation in before so I'll ask again with it specifically listed in the title.

Sorry for asking this question again, but I finally bought a used backhoe and now wanting to buy or might end up building a quick attach for the bucket on the hoe itself. I ended up getting a very low hour late model Komatsu WB 140 with all the bells and whistles on it but a quick attach.

Either I'm asking the wrong questions to the sales people or they flat out don't want to sell me what I'm wanting for some reason, or maybes its not even made anymore. I've looked at quite a few quick attaches on other machines from large excavators to mini's to backhoes and everything in between. I own an excavator with a hydraulic coupler on it, works great, the hoses and swivels are a different story, and nothing but problems along with the wiring and everything else it takes to make the coupler work like it should. So this time around I'm wanting basic and simple, just a pin grabber style, and just put a pin back in to hold the bucket in place, one pin to remove and put back in and leave one pin each attachment. I've been told in the past cat makes one for their backhoes, case has used a simple setup for decades, used it myself many times on friends and customers machines, but Komatsu apparently doesn't make one for theirs.

All anyone wants to sell me is a mechanical pin grabber set up that uses either a bar, or over centering spring setup or a lead screw draw bolt type deal, which might work great if you use it multiple times per day in nice weather. I work in the slop and mud all winter long and none of those couplers will ever work for me when I'd need them, they'd be frozen solid and completely useless for my needs the bulk of the time, can't seem to get anyone to understand that for some reason. The same issue we have with the hydraulic coupler on one of my excavators now, basically that doesn't change attachments or buckets unless you put it in a shop overnight to thaw everything out first. So all winter long, it has the same bucket on it till spring arrives basically.

The next issue is the bucket itself, the one's that came with the machine are too small and are completely worthless to me. What company makes a good quality bucket that might not take a six months to a couple years to get one from. I'm only needing a simple 24 inch toothed bucket and another smooth bucket.

Now I'll admit, after all the thousands of hours I've ran machines, I've never really paid that much attention to the buckets like I should have, I guess they work and stuff comes out of them until freezing weather hits and then nothing sloppy, mucky or a bit sticky comes out and after a short time you have a frozen mass of stuff and the machine or bucket needs to head somewhere warm to thaw back out so you can actually dump the stuff out again to have a bucket to use again. The heavy duty buckets that came with the machine, I've figured out have straight sides, meaning the front opening and back width are the same and nothing will come out of them..............ever without banging the bucket to death each and every time you scoop something up with them, all the rest of my buckets on everything have a tapered back so to speak meaning they are narrower in the back of the bucket verses the front. Well long story short, how much taper should a bucket have in order to get stuff to drop out of the bucket, is there an industry standard to follow somewhere I haven't found. I've asked some sales people and all I get is a standard response, its a backhoe bucket, measure the width and do you want teeth or a smooth edge end of discussion....................place your order and maybe next summer sometime if your lucky, you MIGHT have it, but in all reality, might be the following summer.

Have you gone directly to the companies that manufacture couplers and attachments? The machine dealers are usually not helpful when it comes to anything that is not a factory option.

Heres some ideas for you ,i built this stuff years ago . Used to build buckets to ,we always put about an inch taper each side on a smaller backhoe bucket. Never thought of pin grabbers then. It seems like they might reduce your breakout force and mess up the geometry of your bucket travel a bit.
First pic is a Q/C for a 680 Case. The wedge lock was always the most user friendly system we built.

Tugger, what material did you make the buckets out of, mild steel or something a lot tougher and for backhoe buckets, what thickness did most get build out of?

The pin grabbers will reduce the breakout force somewhat, and this is just my opinion, breakout force is a measurement sales people use as a way to compare machines, no operator really cares about those numbers anyway, force has more to do with what attachment or bucket you have on the machine and who's sitting in the seat rather than a pounds force number, that changes constantly as you switch attachments and how the attachment itself is designed, a shorter faced or stubby, narrow bucket has a much different force ratio verses a much longer deeper and wider bucket if the force is measured at the cutting edge where it matters anyhow. So if we're bucking frozen ground, we use a much narrower shorter bucket to help dig and hammer through the frost verses a much wider and deeper bucket. Breakout force may remain the same at the hinge joint for each bucket, but changes dramatically when it comes to the ability to actually dig something with that machine.

In the end, its got far more to do with operator comfort and the ability to easily change attachments. My mini with the hydraulic quick coupler is the first machine everyone wants in warm weather, the last anyone will take once it starts to get cold and ground starts to freeze and the first question anyone every has is, does the quick coupler work today, if not they go get a different machine to use instead, nobody wants to fix whatever is wrong so the hydraulics will work so they can change attachments on that mini. As they say the worlds greatest and largest pain all rolled into one coupler, great when it works, a total pain when it doesn't.

I used mild steel for the shell of the buckets . QT 400 for the side bits , bottom wear strips and cutting edge. As we got into building more we started ordering a 50,000 yield material for the bucket shells. Small backhoe buckets were 1/4" some 3/8" 1/2" to 3/4" on excavator buckets . I used to measure pin centres and cylinder travel ,draw it all out full scale on the welding table with soap stone to get the bucket travel and shape right . Always worked pretty well. Eventually we started drafting plans for the stuff ,i still have a metal box full of bucket plans , all hand drawn never thought of using a computer .
As for the pin grabber if i had some buckets with pin lugging on them id go that way. If i was building my own buckets id go with the manual wedge style unless the work really demanded multiple attachment changes every day. My excavator has a wedge Q/C and my loader has the hydraulic Q/C and it is handy.

I would probably build a version of the manual case style to fit the hoe and bucket you have, just because it it so simple. I have never worked in real cold with it, but I wouldn't think it would matter.

https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/threads/case-580-sk-quick-coupler.97907/#post-1089055

Tugger, if I understood your design it's very slick.

The case manual coupler does work good in cold weather, I've had to use customers backhoes a few times before, the trick is to beat the frozen material off the back of the bucket to get access to the pin, hammer that out and then shake the bucket enough to get it to drop off, then chisel off the frozen stuff enough to get the next attachment back on. It takes a while in the field but is still faster than no coupler at all which is about impossible to do alone in frigid weather.

So between werkbrau, geith and paladin, you couldn't find a hydraulic pin grabber that works for you? They're as simple as they come. It just depends on how nice you want to fit it in the cab.

BTW, I have used couplers like Tugger's, and they worked slick too. I would definitely make it with bolts and nuts, not threaded holes like one I worked on.

I would tend to agree that the wedge lock is a good design for a “quick” coupler. I’ve had one on a 33000lb excavator for 17 years, no play in the bucket ears, fairly close to original bucket position, never had an issue removing it. Cons - can’t spin the bucket around to dig backwards, it’s not that quick, but is way better than knocking the pins out.

Hydraulic wedge is my favourite setup. If in the market I would never buy a machine without it. Just pull the safety lock pin, switch attachments and then re-install the lock pin.

I have a JRB on the 210, put a Geith on the 290 this spring. I can definitely see how a whole bunch of slop buildup could affect the coupler working, but I guess when I'm in slop like that I try and keep it in the bucket, not splashing and running out over the top.

Quite a few years ago, [20 ish or so] we had to do a repair on a plugged terrace main, turned out it was a 8 inch main, no big deal, dug the hole large enough in diameter nobody would get hurt when the sides sloughed off and deep enough to get to the line, pretty standard and straight forward, the line was about 6-7 feet deep, I was using an excavator to dig the hole, had no clue where the plug was so we picked a random spot to start, ends up we were a few feet too far up the line and directly over the plug. Dug down, the hole was dry, so once dug, one of my son's went in and used a shovel to dig around the line, then use a jack knife to cut it open. I had the bucket raised up in the air and turned slightly off to one side so I could watch him from the cab, but I was only watching his back as he bent over the line to cut it open, the second his knife hit the line, it blew up, the force of the water hit him in the chest and blew him out of the hole, had he gone straight up, not sure how high he'd gone, but as the line blew, it blew him sideways and up and out, a mere second later he hit the bottom side of the bucket full force and he fell back into the hole, which was by now full of water and spilling out the top. I had to tackle his mom so she didn't jump in after him and about then he floated up and the water boiling out of the hole, literally blew him out onto the level ground, we picked him up as gently as possible and laid him on his back because we thought if he'd live, his neck and back would be broken, called 911 they sent an ambulance and rushed him into the hospital to get checked over, turns out his head didn't hit the bucket, his shoulder blades did and nothing was broken, cracked or even sprained. The whole thing took at most a couple seconds, the force of the water blew him up out of the hole and into the bottom of the excavator bucket, in total almost 18 feet, he hit so hard it sounded like you hit the bucket with a sledge hammer as hard as you could, as we were tending to him and waiting for the ambulance, the ground around the hole was so super saturated, the excavator sank up to the bottom of the cab and water ran in the front window and out the open cab door. It took two days to use another excavator to dig the first one out and then find a lower portion of tile line that wasn't plugged and to get the water to drain out of the hole my son was blown out of. Since then, until the pent up energy is released and the initial force is gone, we use the excavator bucket to keep digging until we find an open line so the water can drain back down..............so at times the whole stick can be submerged as you fish around and eventually hook open the line so it can drain again, summer, fall or even winter, it really doesn't matter.

My son never suffered any injury over the incident, how to this day I have no idea, as I tell people God watches over kids and stupid people and that's why he never really answers anyone prayers, he's far to busy the way it is.

Well anyway, doing the work we do under the conditions we do it, keeping the bucket dry and clean is impossible on a good day, in the end as long as everyone goes home safe, equipment cleanliness isn't my first concern, not sure its even on the list of concerns at all for that matter, you do what you have to do to get the job done, worry about the rest another day, besides there's usually anther couple dozen jobs just like it waiting anyhow. For a few years, that excavator never made it back to yard or shop, it was out of job sites year round, either waiting for water to drain or waiting for someone to dig it out of a mud hole somewhere to move it to the next mud hole somewhere else.

The stick isn't plumbed for that machine, and I have no intentions of spending the money to plumb it, half the year it would be frozen solid anyhow and no hydraulic coupler would work anyhow, as for buying a machine with one on it, not for doing that type of work in those conditions, that's reserved for the lowest value machine I own that can sit for days, weeks or months on end doing nothing but waiting for water to drain away and the ground to dry up, also doubt anyone would ever be dumb enough to steal it under any circumstance, as they say, even thieves do have some standards.

Yep, I work in rice fields turned duck impoundments, fell in a "filled in" quarter drain (canal), pushed down with the flat of the bucket, the whole stick went down until the top of the boom was 2' underground before the machine started coming up. It was undisturbed grass before I set the bucket on it.

Thankfully, here the frostline is 1/8 inch.

Safe frost depth here is considered 4 foot, but a few years ago the frost went down in area's over 9 feet deep when we had frigid weather and no snow cover that year................and everyone's everything froze solid and either burst or were sheered off, not a thing anyone wants to have a repeat of any time soon.

I once had an interesting discussion about that with a very young building inspector. A friend was building a house and after a lot of work he was told he had to tear it down and start over because his foundations weren't deep enough. They were 2' deep, and the inspector said they had to be 3' to be 18" below the frostline. I said the frostline was about an inch and he said it was 18"! I asked if he knew what the frostline was and he said, "yeah, 18 inches". It gave an example computation in his book using 18" , and he had no idea what the term meant, just that it was 18" below the surface. My friend had to hire an engineer to certify that the frostline was less than 6" in coastal SC before the building dept would back down!

Think that is bad, an area farmer was building a manure pit, complete concrete structure fitted with rebar, through some government program at the time, the plans had to be approved before construction and those plans were drawn up via the government, inspected all the way through construction via the government and then in the end final inspections were done as well, every load of concrete had to be tested before it was poured, everything known to mankind and then some had to be done and upon final inspection the whole project failed..............due to the fact the rebars were installed upside down. At first everyone involved thought it was a joke, turns out they were all wrong and the inspector was serious and demanded the whole thing be hammered back out so the rebar could be installed correctly right side up.

Turns out after a few thousand had to be spent on attorney fees, the rebar that stuck out of the top, that the plans called for so a chain link fence could be attached to it for safety, the inspector deemed had those rebars be installed right side up or correctly, they'd be in the concrete but since they were in upside down, that was the reason they stuck up out of the top of the wall...........

So the next time your doing concrete work, make sure the rebars are being installed right side up, if not, the government inspectors won't approve your work..........................

Randy, man, that's a crazy story about your son! So scary! Y'all were real fortunate that day.

It wasn't the last incident we had over the years involving pressure and pent up energy in tile lines or anything associated with tile lines.

All ag drain tile is a non pressurize product, meaning its not designed to carry or handle pressure, yet once a line is plugged, it will indeed have pressure in it since the water can't flow away and as more water flows and fills the line, it will create its own pressure, something many don't understand or even comprehend.

So armed with not knowing anything about what your attempting to repair, what size or how many feet of line are on the system or for that matter, where you are even at in the system, all plays a role in how you go about fixing the problem and try not to be injured or killed in the process can sometimes be really challenging.

The day one of my son's was blown out of the hole, there were no signs of water, the hole we dug was dry for the most part, things were all good for him to cut the line open, by all appearances, the line should NOT have been pressurized, it should have been plugged..............but it wasn't, it was on the pressure side of the plug and very dangerous to be near, let alone work on. The thousand of times before doing the exact same thing, as they say went very wrong very fast.

Myself, I've been hit was a blast of water and blown off the trencher in the past, my wife's been swept away and swept downstream from the trencher before with an eruption of water. I've had rocks hurled at and into the cab when tile lines erupt and the initial blast spews rocks out of the hole before, had windows blown out of machines by spewing debris before. I've had hydraulic lines ripped off the excavator from pressurized tile lines as I was digging attempting to find the line. I've had to abandon the excavator before as I dug so I wasn't in the cab as the machine slid or sank into the ibis and waited days before I got back to dig it out. I've had snakes crawl out of the lines we were working on and had to kill them as to not be bit before, muskrats, beaver, sewer rats, common rats, skunks, possums and a host of other creatures have come out of lines were working on before and then you have to deal with a very angry animal on your hands, you name it we've encountered it.

Now that said, there are many systems designed by quite a few and installed by them, that I won't even touch anymore, I nor none of my crew are going to get killed by someone else's stupidity in either the design or installation of something that should be against the law all in the name of being the cheapest or fastest done with the job. I just turn that down, let someone else deal with it completely, better yet let the idiot that did the job come back and fix it himself. So there is plenty out there I deem too unsafe to work on and many times to start over completely doesn't lower the risk any either, sometimes it actually increases the risk of injury, been there and done that as well.

Toss on top of that, high pressure gas lines to work around, fiber optics and phone lines and even underground electric lines and many jobs are just too complex and dangerous to do with such limited work space and options left to remedy the issues. As they say, everyone and their dog installs new and only thinks or cares about what they need to do and since tile is usually installed the deepest, you need to dig past all the rest to get near and fix the problem tile line and no I won't work on hot underground electrical while standing in water, I'm sorry and most times killing the power isn't going to be enough either, because I've had it when standby generators kicked in while working and energized the lines again. I've trenched through hot and live underground electrical before nobody knew were there, got shocked while sitting on the trencher as it happened, shorted out the alternator on the trencher and blowing up the batteries a time or two. Water and electricity don't mix well in my book, having something electrical while standing in or working around water puts the job off limits for me if we know about it. We've had in the past, been doing a waterline repair only to find out as we cut open the water line, that someone had fed an underground electrical line into a water line and we cut into a live electrical line, hence the reason we now use a plastic handle hand saw to cut into anything unknown, the actual water line was a foot off to the side, the owner newer installed nor knew about the electrical line or where it went or came from until we cut into it, then we figured it out pretty fast what it was for and how many volts and amps were in it.

About 90 percent of the things we've hit or trenched through over the years nobody knows about or is undocumented. I'm sure I've left out a couple hundred different and strange occurrences I've encountered over the years in the end it probably doesn't matter anyhow, everyone has their own tales to tell of things going not according to plan. On most days the best we can all hope for is to go home safe at the end of the day and start over again tomorrow.