3-point hitch for 450C Loader

[Smokey450C]

Hello all - I've been a member of this site for a little while now and I'm still impressed with some of the outrageous stuff you guys come up with, really pretty cool!! I especially liked Lavoys trencher vidio. Earlier this year I was inquiring about a 3 point hook up for a 450 loader, interestingly the response was underwhelming. I found a place that makes such things for older wheeled tractors but that would have been expensive and required serious modification to work on a loader so, I came up with my own version. Admittedly the lift bars I bought (cat-1) are not up to the job and I had to re-inforce them. I don't think they're strong enough yet. Most of the pieces I fabricated are made from 3/4" plate and 1/2" 2.5X2.5 angle. Took some pictures I thought I'd share.

http://img832.imageshack.us/g/dadspictures047.jpg/

If you click on the first picture on imageshack it will give you a little larger picture in a slideshow format.

Image 1 & 2 show the overall appearance with a box blade hooked on.
Image 3 is a view of the cat 1 pin I used bolted onto the backhoe attatchment plate.
Image 4 shows the double action lift cylinder and the bracket I built that is welded to the 1/2" angle I used to bolt it to the back of the loader.
Image 5 shows a couple of the 3/4" cap screws to attatch it, I used three on each side. It also shows the 3/4" plate that supports the angle for the top link connection.
Image 6 shows the system I used for the lift assembly. It will lift and let it down with out down force and if I put a pin in that hole then I can apply down force.
Image 7 shows the 1 1/2" shaft I used for a pivot point, one on each side, again using the holes in the loaders attachment bracket. It also shows how I had to reinforce the 2" - 1/4" wall square tubing. I had to strap the lift bars as well. The stress was too great, without the reinforcing it actually put a stress crack in the tubing.
Image 8 is the top link connection. It is 1/2" - 2.5X2.5" angle welded to 3/4" plate which is welded to the brackets bolted to the loader. Everything fits nicely under the top plate of the loaders backhoe bracket. I can take the whole thing off in a few minutes by pulling the cap screws and sliding the 1 1/2" shaft out of the 2" tubing.
Image 9 shows the anti sway chains - they are 1/2" links connected to the drawbar with a 7/8" pin. I used the extra controll valve which was unused on my loader to power the lift cylinder - it's probably intended for a winch.
Image 10 shows the bottom lift arm which I also had to reinforce. I bent two of them into pretzels before I reinforced them. The welding isn't the prettiest but solid. I really should paint it!

That's basically it. It works well and the loaders hydraulics will lift it in a hurry. I need to be carefull of lifting too high, I should put some sort of a limiter on the cylinder or I will bend/break my lift links. The box blade isn't real heavy but I'm sure it will lift some pretty heavy stuff. I read somewhere on here that Digitup, Lavoy, or some one used the 1000 rpm pto on some 540 equipment saying that some JD ptos run considerably slower than the rated 1000 rpm, any comments on that? The lift will lower the arms to several inches below grade and to about 38" above the ground.

Thanx for looking!

[Lavoy]

The rear shaft you have is not a PTO, it is an auxialliary drive of some sort, for pumps or winches. I have no idea of what they turn for RPM, but my guess is substantially faster than 540.
Lavoy

[Smokey450C]

Interesting - I looked up the 450C loader, which lists a 1000 rpm pto AND a winch drive as "special equipment". I would suppose that a pto would be something one could engage or disengage and an auxillary drive would run continuosly, when the engine is running so is the drive. Most farm tractors have ptos that can be disengaged so that equipment can be attatched and engaged when needed. On my loader the thing runs all the time and is a 1 3/8" 21 spline shaft. I had thought (maybe mistakenly) that most 540 ptos are 1 3/8" 6 spline and 1000 ptos were 1 3/8" 21 spline.

http://www.deere.com/en_US/cfd/construc ... loader.pdf

[Lavoy]

If you had a PTO, there would be another gear box that would slip over that drive shaft. I think it has a clutch pack in it for disengaging like the live PTO on the Waterloo built two cylinders.
Lavoy

[Tigerhaze]

I found these threads during another search and although it is primarily about the 350 series which had a PTO option, it is pretty interesting netherless. In part it discusses standard PTO as an option on 350 crawlers and potentially on 450s as well as the winch shaft on 450s and the RPMs of these shafts:

http://www.jdcrawlers.com/messageboard/ ... hlight=pto

http://www.jdcrawlers.com/messageboard/ ... hlight=pto

http://www.jdcrawlers.com/messageboard/ ... hlight=pto

http://www.jdcrawlers.com/messageboard/ ... hlight=pto

http://www.jdcrawlers.com/messageboard/ ... hlight=pto

I like pulling these up- I had forgotten we had some of these conversations

[Smokey450C]

Very helpful! I had previously found one or two of the site links Tigerhaze posted, one of them is what I was referring to where Digitup2 talked about the speed of the aux drive shaft. One fella mentioned that a pto was an option for the 450, which the spec sheet refers to as a 1000 rpm pto, and he said that the controll lever was near the air cleaner, that seems like a strange place to put it. One would think that Deere would have had some way to disengage the auxilary drive regardless of what it was/is intended for, it makes sense to me anyway. It would be nice to find one of those 540 gear boxes Lavoy mentioned, by the sound of those posts it would be rare and probably expensive..... hmmm - maybe another project.... I wonder if there would be a market for such a thing.

Thanx for the feedback.

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Keep in mind that the 350 and 450 series were designed to be an industrial crawler from the get-go. They are not derived from ag tractors like all the crawlers that preceded them.

So, that means no PTO was incorporated into their designs. The number of crawler users that actually used a PTO when they were derived from ag tractors was small. So, they incorporated a 'power beyond' (to use a more modern term) shaft that one could attach whatever one wanted to power to.

In crawler use, that usually means a winch. The engage/disengage of a winch is a clutch right at the winch itself - even on the older machines.

So, since this was the case, they did away with the PTO engage/disengage dog gears as well as a secondary clutch on the machine. You now get a power shaft that runs whenever the machine is running and use a clutch on the accessory itself.

That saves a lot of money for the 99 out of 100 folks that buy a crawler and don't stick anything onto the back that needs shaft power. For the one guy out of a hundred that actually wants a winch, well he gets to pay extra for the winch *and* the means of turning it on and off.

The problem *we* run into is that it's not 1965-1980 any longer and those accessories are no longer available. So we get to be creative!

Anyway, there was a PTO option for the 350 in 1965. I don't know if there was one for the 450 or not, but suspect there was. It probably sold in far fewer numbers than the one for the 350, though. The 450 is a bit large for most farm uses while the 350 is pretty much the right size.

The PTO for the 350 had it's own control clutch on it and it also had a gear reduction to give you 540 RPM at the PTO with the engine speed near the top of the range.

The 350 also had a 3-pt hitch option that gave downpressure as well as lift. It looks a lot like the ones on the earlier crawlers. Those are pretty rare, though.

Usually you see 350's with the dual-cylinder tool bar (usually with scarifier shanks in it) on the back, not the actual cat-II 3-pt hitch.

I've never seen a 450 with a 3-pt on it, but have seen some with the toolbar. If you were clever, you could convert the toolbar into a 3-pt using some parts off, say, a 4020 size ag tractor.

later!

Stan

[Smokey450C]

Thanks Stan for the diverse response. I really appreciate your in depth thought and backround into the subject. I agree with you that most crawlers are task specific. I see nothing wrong however with trying to make these little beasts more diverse. In my case I felt the use of a box blade on the back of a loader would be a bit better for reclaiming a hay field that had gone to weeds and undergrowth than a loader bucket by itself. I used the combination with great success, there were a great many logs, limbs, fence posts, ruts, and the like that had been left in the undergrowth for a number of years. My loader bucket has a smooth edge and I needed the tines of the box blade to pull up some of the debris without disturbing the soil too much. Someone had treed the woods, left a mess, and attempted to clean up the area with a skid steer and had left several large piles of soil filled with logs and the like. I used the bucket to push the bigger branches and logs, knock down piles of brush, and to back drag the area as a last step. The box blade was also able to sift through the debris to pull out the junk and leave the soil. That's why I needed a 3-point hitch. Even with my attempts to leave as much soil as I could I still had about 20 to 25 yards of crap to haul away, even after I hand picked all the usable firewood out of it, about three cords of it! I used the "junk" (all organic) to fill in a rather large hole and covered it with top soil. Do that with a farm tractor!

While thinking along those terms (making a crawler more diverse) a 540 or a 1000 pto would be ideal in an ag situation. Consdidering the size and horse power of some modern farm tractors I don't think a 450 would be too big. Some of those farm tractors even use tracks instead of tires, they of course are high dollar machines. Modern crop farmers cultivate some enormous fields, is which case I think, a 450 would actually be too small and not job appropriate, and after all it is a crawler... but for a guy like me who doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars for such things and in reality is just playing around since I'm retired, it's good honest fun to do this kind of stuff.

I believe you are right about the aux drive being intended for a winch and the like but Deere did incorporate a way to disengage something they call a 1000 rpm powershaft. What they were thinking I can't say. Here's a link to Deeres parts pdf I found in regard to the "powershaft",
http://jdpc.deere.com/jdpc/servlet/com. ... ervlet_Alt
You'll have to look up the 450C loader, then sectional, then under the clutch, transmission heading is listed a 1000 rpm power shaft and a drawing of the power shaft with a shifter, which my loader doesn't have. Interesting - no?

I mentioned earlier that the contrivance I built is really not strong enough to be behind my 450C, (i.e. the loader can bend and break lift arms and impliments). While I have to be careful it works pretty well. I really like your idea about the tool bar conversion, it would certainly be way stronger than my 3-point. I'll have to look into that, do you think that a tool bar would bolt onto a backhoe attatchment bracket? Thanks for the thoughful input. Again, I think this is truely a great site with some pretty cool members!