Hello everyone this is my first post on here even though I’ve been a member of the form for a little bit of time. I have read several posts about thumbs hydraulic vs manual whats the best one to buy without spending a lot of money and also I have read many posts on the age old question of whats the best way to add pallet forks to a backhoe. I thought I would share with everyone what I have done to my case 580c on both those topics. Thumb After several months of digging and doing projects with my backhoe it was clear that i needed to install a thumb. I began doing research on them and had my mind made up on buying a titan attachment 36” mechanical thumb. After looking a little more closely at them and reading the reviews I realized that im fairly hand with a welder and for what they cost I could probably build my own thats a little more robust. When making the thumb there was no doubt that it was going to be hydraulic. Im not patient at times and after the third time of getting off the machine to mess it would’ve been put in the upright position and probably never used it again. So this is what i came up with the thumb itself is made out of 5/8 plate with 2x3x1/4 C channel cross supports and the top is 1/4 plate to give a nice surface to weld the cylinder mounts to. The cylinder mounts are 2 pieces of 1/2 plate welded together with a 1-1/4 hole for the mounting pin. The hinge part of the thumb is made from 5/8 plate welded to a 1” plate. The cylinder i used was a tie rod cylinder 16” stroke 2” rod diameter 4” bore. For controlling the thumb i used a Diverter valve and control it with the stabilizer circuit. Pallet forks About a year ago I did some work for a farmer friend and in turn for payment he gave me a skid steer quick attach set up wit a bucket off of a New Holland TN 75da farm tractor. They were putting the global style quick attach on it and had no need for the skid steer set up. I cut the existing mounds off the ssqa and made up some new ones out of 3/8 plate and fitted it up to my old backhoe. I didnt cut up the original case bucket because if for some reason the skid steer quick attach fails or I decide to sell the machine and the new owner doesn’t want that I can always put the original bucket back on. The only thing I have left to do to complete this project is to put a new cutting edge on the bucket as you can see in the picture it makes kind of a .
Hi Mr 580, I also have a 580c and want to build a thumb. How did you add the hydraulic controls in the cab for the thumb ? Please expand on the diverter valve. Where to obtain , and how to mount, etc. Any pics and tech data would be very helpful.
Do a forum search. there are lot threads about them. Here is mine --HeavyEquipmentForums
I have Mr 580 back hoe now. I can get you some pictures later He put diverter valve in one of the outrigger circuits, so you use outrigger control stick for thumb.
Go to Summits website and look up diverter valves and you can look at how it is plumbed on their site. Basically, it’s a separate hydraulic manifold with solenoids that tee into another working hydraulic circuit. It can be interrupted by a switch, that then sends pressure to another add on hydraulic cylinder. On my Case for my snow plow angle cylinders, I put a diverter valve off my loader tilt circuit, as I wouldn’t be using that as I was plowing along.
Here's the valve used. I re did the hydraulic lines on the boom.
Did you put a seperate relief valve on the thumb cylinder? Without it could bend the cylinder rod.
I'd put some kind of guarding on those lines on bottom of the boom. On my backhoe the bucket teeth can contact the boom if you don't roll the bucket up for transport properly.
Never seen anyone put lines in the place that sees the most action, when using the backhoe. What happens when you grab a stump or a rock?
I looked at how case ran lines for the extend-a-hoe and that's where they ran them. I do have some c - Chanel to make a guard. The bucket teeth are close but don't hit.
Moving concrete with the thumb supply lines under the boom would destroy them on any backhoe I have. I quite often hold the concrete against the boom if I need to travel with it.
I don’t have an extendable hoe but regardless of guards or not, I would not have lines there because of how I use my hoe. I tend to pinch stuff against that boom all the time and you wouldn’t make a guard that I or the hydraulics couldn’t tear up.
I understand. There's no good way to run lines up the boom. Originally there was soft lines run under the dipper cylinder but they quickly got destroyed by the cylinder moving. I'm the only one who runs the machine I know the risk, if I smash them that's on me.
Using a diverter off the stabilizer circuit is a smart, cost-effective solution. The SSQA conversion is also a solid idea, especially keeping the original Case bucket intact for resale. Building a hydraulic thumb instead of going mechanical makes a lot of sense, and your material choices sound plenty stout.
My backhoe has some hoses running up the boom but they are on the inside. I've seen several backhoes that had an extra plate welded on the bottom of the boom to prevent it getting damaged or dented.
Question, is this C an extendahoe? That would create some problems. Where did the OP go?
Needs port relief. Extend the thumb, let go of the valve the oil in the cylinder stays there. Squeeze something against the thumb with the bucket, pressure goes WAY up in the butt end of the cylinder.
Its not an extend-a-hoe. Probably no need to come back here since he sold machine.
I built two thumbs for a Case 580 K with extend a hoe. First was repurposing parts of a grapple from a log truck. It worked great, but engineering constraints, (the dipper is very short on an extend a hoe), I had a 20" stroke with a 1-1/2" rod. Bent the rod early on. Local hydraulic shop sond me a port relief, sent excess oil to the other end of the cylinder. It was a welded T cylinder, tube at butt end was 4" wide, only 1" diameter. Pin sheared on one end causing side load on the rod. Ruined another cheap cylinder. If I recall they were about $180. each. I decided to start from scratch, Next thumb was better engineered. Found a cylinder with shorter , larger pin, shorter stroke, thicker rod. I no longer own it, sold it to a friend.
The request for the hydraulics from last Thursday, is what I was referring to, as to whether that was an extendable-hoe.
You are correct. Adding a relief valve dumping to tank might be a bit of a pain. What do you think about adding a relief from the extend side of the cylinder to the retract side?
I had one once. Don't know if it malfunctioned. Mine didn't work very well.
Probably an issue with volume, since both sides don't displace the same volume per inch of travel.