Got my new cleanup bucket the other day along with a quick connect. I sure likd the way they both work. I find the bucket is a little heavy when fully extended with anything in it but I will be able to work around that. The quick connect works great. It added about 1" to the reach so the teeth on the thumb stii match with the cutting edge. These shots are of a lot that I am clearing for snow storage for the winter. there is about 2" of frost today and the weather is great to work in. Short winter daylight hours, 9:am to 3:30pm We loose about 5 mininutes a day but that will change in 22 days then the days will be getting longer again.
That's a beastly bucket for that TK, but if she handles it, awesome! When we had our 312, we ordered a 48" cleanup with it. The thing of it is, the machine we had came off the lot in Seattle and all the machines NC Machinery orders, excavator wise, are spec'd so that if they aren't sold they make it into the rental fleet. So, the 312's would get 315 quick couplers and thus 315 buckets so that rental 312's and 315's used the same buckets. I think 320's used couplers and buckets from 322's, not entirely sure though. Not much of a change in size, but there definately is a bit of a difference. Anyway, we had a 60" 315 C/U bucket for a while until our 48" came in. Holy crap that thing was heavy up high, you could fill it up all day with light material and load trucks with it because I did a couple times. But, if you're in heavy material, forget it, just too heavy. Long winded story, but you'll be fine with the bucket I'm sure.
Trust me, that bucket is waaaaaaay to big, it'll wear out the bushings on that bucket so fast you'll never keep up, anything larger than a 42" is over kill, it's not the capacity that kills it, it's the width, more stress when digging. Even on the new machines, excavators weighing over 10 tons get a bucket that's 48" wide, yours is an 8 ton, barely, so it'll use a 42" nicely and productively.
The reason I got the quick disconnect was so I only had to use it for cleanup not digging. More or less just scraping and cleanup. I do know not to load the sides of the bucket or pickup uneven loads causing torque on the bushings and pins. I do expect to put additional ware on the pins and bushings along with torque on the boom and dipper but that is just the price I have to pay to own it. The machine only has 2700 hours on it and everything is tight now. I will keep everyone posted as to any additional or unusual ware I find. I thank you for the advice but for now have this one and am not prepared to buy one 4" shorter I also got an 18" bucket and a 32" bucket to go with it.
48 " is fine. We have a 60" geith ditching bucket on our 70SR, it is much lower profile, but it does the job nicely.
X3 its a clean up bucket not a MassX bucket
You probably need to qualify a rash statement like that with "if driven by a moron". Dwan is an O/O that I believe has been in the game for many years, and I'm pretty sure he didn't get where he is by foolish acts. I have a 36" cleanup (we call them batter buckets) for my little 3 tonne Yanmar....its got over 1000 hours now and everything is going well...no sign of wear at all. I wouldn't send out the machine on dry hire or with an inexperienced operator with the 36" bucket.
:lmao :falldownlaugh
looks a lot like the Accurate 42" we have for our hyundai 55. Looks like a nice bucket for clean up work.
Bobcat ron; again I want to thank you for your comments. I take all criticism be it good or bad and use it. I have gone through a set of pins and bushings on a 914 backhoe attachment for one of my 975 bobcats about 25 years ago by side loading the bucket picking up large trees by the ends. Yes I learned the hard way and if I had of had your advice back then it could have saved me the repair work. Sense then I have learned a lot about treating the tools that make me a living, and I still have a lot to learn. With the help from each and everyone of the people on this site along with others a lot of mistakes can be avoided. Now I already knew about the additional ware I would expect and a few ways to minimize them. There are others with less experience on this site that will learn from your post. So by all means don't stop voicing your opinion as there are others that may learn. I also want to thank everyone for the respect and comments that has been given to me. Not sure I really deserve all of them.