I looked at a another JCB yesterday and I notice the backhoe bucket is loose by the pins. The bucket flops side to side when moving the boom around. Obviously i'm green in this so what kind of knight mare is it to fix something like this? is there a shim a guy can buy to fix the slop? Thanks
Hahahaha. A backhoe bucket is the worst place to try to keep greased, always in the dirt and lots of load. Usually the pins and bushings are worn and the bucket "rotates" sideways in addition to sliding on the pin. If the bucket actually tight on the pin so there is no up down play when you wiggle the bucket side to side, then you can buy or make shims to take up the slack, but that would be unusual for a used machine. Look up line boring to see what you have to do in cases where the bushings have gotten too loose and wore the bore of the stick. If this is a really wore machine that is not worth line boring and will be a homeowner machine, then there are ways to rig it so it's tighter without a full line boring rebuild, but they won't last as long either.
I had some excess "side-to-side" clearance on my bucket. I bought machine washers from Fastenal and used them to take up the space. Fastenal has machine washers with different diameters and thicknesses listed on their website. You can order online but I just get the part numbers and buy them from my local store.
Hardened machine washers in various thickness and diameter do work for the side to side sliding the bucket may do on the stick pin. However the main wear to be concerned with is as Delmer identifies, the enlarged or elongated bores of both the bucket, and the stick. No real way except line boring to renew these bores by either installing bushings/or welding up and boring to correct dimension to take up the slack. If into it this far, one might as well reface the bores on both the bucket, and stick also to eliminate the need for a "pack" of shims to take up the aforementioned "sliding" action of the bucket.