First post, so go easy on me. I just bought a Deere 200D LC. It has aux. hydraulics but doesn't have a thumb. I need a thumb, so can you folks educate me on what to look for on a thumb? I plan to be using it on tearing out concrete from old buildings and clearing trees. Also, does anyone have suggestions on a place to get operators and shop manuals other than Deere?
Welcome to the Forums terex herder! You'll find us a friendly bunch with knowledge to share. We currently use a stiff link, non-hydraulic thumb on a 321DLCR and it works well for what we do. Cleared many acres, torn 10's of thousand SF of buildings down, in addition to untold amounts of concrete pavement and sidewalks with a manual thumb. I did have a progressive link thumb on a 321CLR and while it was nice in some instances, the added weight on the end of the stick was cumbersome when hogging dirt and loading trucks in a production situation. It's a trade off between a manual and hydraulic thumb. In a perfect world I would have one hoe with a progressive link thumb and one hoe without any sort of thumb. A manual thumb works well for what we do when we need it and is easy to remove when hogging dirt, laying pipe or loading trucks. Others mileage will vary.
Do you know if your aux hydraulic are two way flow? Or one way flow for hammer? This could play a big role in the type of thumb to get.
I also have a 200D with a standard hydraulic thumb made by H&H. I have been very happy with it. When buying a thumb you will want to know the distance from the main bucket pin to the tip of the bucket teeth. Depending on your type of quick couple if you have one, will change the length of thumb required.