I have the wheels in motion now that I have my new to me excavator. It is a 20T Hitachi with a hydraulic wedge type quick change. Does anyone know where I might get dimensioned drawings for cutting out the lugging plates to make up some adapters for jobs like making a fence post installer? Another question, it seems to me that the fingers on the hydraulic thumb are worn down and should be a bit longer. Is it a reasonable idea to do a weld on a shank to add bucket teeth to extend the thumb tines? Thanks, Alan
A good piece of card board to make a tracing for the lugs and I have seen other people do the teeth thing on thumb tines it seemed to work pretty good
I can definitely do the tracing route if needed, but I do have access to a cnc plasma torch, an engineering type drawing of the accurate radius, angles etc would be better than working from an already worn lugging. Do vendors out there sell lugging for example if someone had to re purpose a used bucket? There seems to be all sorts of bucket teeth out there, I imagine I should see what is readily available from a local supplier and go for that style tooth. I have done a bit of searching and there seems to be as many tooth/shank styles as there are carbide inserts! Thanks, Alan
You'd need to contact the manufacture of your coupler to get the drawings of the lugs as they are all a bit different. So are willing to help but most tell you to buy the new lugs from them. At that point it's back to the cardboard. As for the thumb tines, just fire up the cnc and cut some new tips out of plate to weld on. I don't think I'd weld adapters on. If you are worried about wear, use AR400 for the tips or add some hardfacing.